Oh no, not another immersive, sung-through rock musical!
But “Murder Ballad” first opened at Manhattan Theatre Club last fall, the same time the Russian-inflected “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” had its first go-round, and months before the Imelda Marcos romp “Here Lies Love.”
Now “Murder Ballad” is back at the Union Square Theatre, which has been reconfigured as a gigantic watering hole complete with functioning bar and several tables for lucky theatergoers — allowing for up-close-and-personal looks at the cast members, who spend the entire show roaming about.
“Murder Ballad” isn’t ground-breaking, but that’s not its mission. This is a solid, well-crafted effort that revarnishes the old love-triangle premise. And Juliana Nash’s muscular-yet-melodic score uses rock better than most musicals.
Julia Jordan, who wrote the book and, with Nash, the lyrics, keeps things simple: Free spirit Sara (Caissie Levy) has a passionate affair with hunky bartender Tom (Will Swenson). They break up and she marries Michael (John Ellison Conlee), “Mr. PhD in poetry.” A few years later, Sara and Tom get busy again.
It’s not spoiling much to say that things don’t end well — the show, after all, is called “Murder Ballad.”
At times you wonder if director Trip Cullman doesn’t try too hard. The staging feels a little gimmicky, and we spend a lot of time simply trying to figure out where the characters are while they run around the space. There’s a thin line between kinetic and busy.
But the actors — including the excellent Rebecca Naomi Jones (“Passing Strange,” “American Idiot”) as a saucy Narrator in hot pants — work tirelessly to animate the tautly told tale.
The original cast has returned, with one exception: Levy replaced Karen Olivo after the latter announced, in a cryptic blog post, that she was retiring from acting.
It was hard to believe Olivo’s smoldering Sara could ever settle with Ellison’s gentle, bear-like Michael. Her attraction to Tom felt animal, inevitable — and Swenson (late of “Hair” and, in drag, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”) responded in kind.
Sara’s transition from wild thing to Upper West Side mom works better with Levy, who makes her a suburban rebel. On the other hand, the actress seems to basically reprise her love-addled character from “Ghost — The Musical.” The Narrator describes Sara as “tragedy with perfect skin.” She got that last part right.
Still, the show is satisfying in the elemental way of a good yarn. And it ends with a fun twist that makes you wonder just how many sides there are to a love triangle.