Once upon a time, I invented “Chore Camp.” It’s the camp where the kids do all the chores for the kids in every other camp. At the time, it felt a little funny to tease my own child that would be their fate. (They knew I was kidding, of course.) Theater Camp sometimes felt a little like Chore Camp, because, let’s face it, sometimes theater is torture. I mean have you ever been to the ballet or opera? Geez. I dunno how these kids can stand it.
I kid. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to do theater instead of sports for a summer. I totally sympathized with the kid in the movie who brought a football and started playing only to be chastised as falling into a CIS-male normative path. Sporadically funny and sporadically clever, Theater Camp is a decent watch, but definitely goes much better for people who see themselves in the film.
AdirondACTS is going out of business. There’s just not a lot of money in sending your burgeoning Elphaba or Willy Loman to practice their craft. On top of that, the camp owner and matron, Joan (Amy Sedaris), is in a coma. Without Joan, the burden of keeping the camp alive falls to her idiot son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro). Troy doesn’t know anything about theater, which for him is a bonus because, unlike his business sense, he doesn’t pretend to know anything about theater.
Much of this film is watching children do kind-of adult things while we the audience laugh on the inside. That’s what stage acting is for kids – being an adult. Some kids are better at it than others. And one of the consistent jokes in the film is the adults treating the children as full-fledged adults. I think this goes hand-in-
hand with the demands of performance art, or so the movie insists. So who will save the camp? Will it be the kids? Their teachers (all failed wannabes)? Troy? Or the Joan-in-a-coma inspired musical that has to be written, learned, and performed in a manner of three weeks. I wonder how long it took for Lin-Manuel Miranda to write Hamilton … I bet it took longer than three weeks.
Theater Camp played a lot like an unpolished episode of “Modern Family.” There’s nothing wrong with that other than the fact that … it plays like an unpolished episode of “Modern Family.” There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor and “The Office” type of “knowing where the camera is” humor. Not much in the screenplay will elicit more than a smile. Well, there was one inspired running gag about a child who is destined to be an agent, not a performer. That was spot-on. I’m giving the film thumbs up, but I’m not overly enthusiastic here; I’d be more excited if I could point to one child, song, or performance that stood out among the crowd, but I feel most of the talent here got snapped up by CODA or Better Nate than Ever.
A camp summons respondents to the quiz:
Have you got the chops to perform in The Wiz?
Outcastes respond gaily
And discover, near daily
All questions end up answered by “Les Miz”
Rated PG-13, 92 Minutes
Director: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Writer: Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Genre: What are your kids up to?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Theater geeks
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who picked on theater geeks
