Most of the beloved movie “Little Miss Sunshine” takes place during a road trip: The hapless Hoover family drives from New Mexico to California so daughter Olive can compete in a children’s beauty pageant.
You can see how this would be a nightmare to stage.
The creators of the new musical adaptation didn’t even try to use a real vehicle — this ain’t no “Sunset Boulevard” or “Hands on a Hardbody.” Instead the actors sit on chairs, and dad Richard pretends to drive by holding onto a wheel at the end of a stick. When the Hoovers need to do a running start, some roll the chairs around while the others jog in place, panting.
And it works.
What’s less convincing is the show itself. Whereas the 2006 movie spiked its sentimentality with healthy doses of vulgarity and dark humor, the musical’s sunnier approach confuses sweetness with sucrose.
Too bad, because this story of a family accepting itself was easy to root for.
As in their previous collaborations (1992’s “Falsettos” and 2005’s “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), director/book writer James Lapine and composer/lyricist William Finn turned their attention to a merry bunch of misfits, nerds and malcontents.
The biggest one is also the smallest: 10-year-old Olive, to whom the adorable Hannah Nordberg gives a spunky charm and a high-pitched shriek that must traumatize dogs in the tri-state area.
Bespectacled Olive isn’t your average beauty queen, especially since she’s coached by her lascivious, coke-snorting grandpa (David Rasche). But there she goes to Redondo Beach, surrounded by her whole clan: suicidal gay uncle Frank (Rory O’Malley), mute-by-design brother Dwayne (Logan Rowland) and meek dad Richard (Will Swenson), the most unconvincing self-help guru ever.
The actors are fine, even if they don’t quite overcome the long shadow cast by their film predecessors.
The ones who do are young Hannah and the criminally underrated Stephanie J. Block (late of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”) as Olive’s harried mom, Sheryl.
While the score isn’t up to Finn’s usual high standard, it boasts a couple of nuggets, including Sheryl’s melancholy ballad “Something Better Better Happen,” which Block turns into pure heartbreak.
“I’m the sort of silly person/Who believes things will improve,” she sings during a low point in the Hoovers’ trip. “Will things improve?/Things must improve.”
The show features some updates — a GPS “map bitch” provides a running commentary — and the welcome addition of Olive’s hellion rivals as a Greek chorus. But mostly this “Little Miss Sunshine” cruises mildly until a climax that could have been wilder, funnier. For cars and musicals alike, the middle of the road isn’t the best place to be.