"Glory Days"- A Review

The title "Glory Days" brings to mind something grand and sweeping; a tale of men who looked far back into their lives to see those times when they were at their peak. Instead, viewers were given a show about four 20-year-olds who are trying to cling to the time in High School when they were still friends.

The themes of the show are actually the strongest part. The thought that went into a plot that touched on friendship, change, acceptance, and the struggles we all face is certainly something that can touch us all. The show is somewhat silly, with great one-liners that leaves the audience laughing, but still overall misses it's mark. Such as it was, "Glory Days" would have been better to stick to their song lyrics, and name their show "Glory-type Days" and capture more of the ironic humor the writers seem to be strong in.

The lyrics and dialogue simply couldn't carry the plot far enough. Despite some good characters and strong acting- particularly by Andrew C. Call (Andy) and Jesse JP Johnson (Jack)- the show was distracted by the words trying too hard to be "normal." I admit that it is a hard thing to script actors "being average and just hanging out" but with a show dedicated almost exclusively to this idea, it falls far short, failing again to capitalize on the potential it has.

Each of the four characters was meant to represent someone we know, and of them all, Skip (played by Adam Halpin) did the best. I can think of three or four people in my life that fall perfectly into who he was. In fact, I thought that had he been the narrator instead of Will (Steven Booth) the show would have been a lot stronger. Call successfully made us believe his character's emotions, and left us again wishing that the script would have given us more of him and who he was.

The songs, again, had potential. Some of the lyrics were witty, and the song "Open Road" captured everything the writers wanted it to, but overall they just failed to reach the goal, making the audience feel like it needed more to be complete. Some of the melodies were strained, and it was often hard to tell whether the actors were falling short, or it was a symptom of musical direction, especially since overall the direction was weak.

The staging is hardly worth commenting about as it was negligible save for the fact that the floor (representing a football field) was painted white so anytime the green lighting lost you were taken out of the scene and staring at a white floor.

In the end, I was felt like I had watched one of my friend's artists sketches. I could tell that a lot of incredible elements were there, and couldn't wait to see the final product. Unfortunately for this show, this isn't a rough sketch, and therefore its potential isn't going to be realized.