Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s Theater Camp suggests Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman as made by, and starring, theater brats. The largely improvised film also lovingly lampoons the more ridiculous and high-strung tendencies of overly serious community theater types, but does so with an earnest gusto that quickly becomes tiresome.
Guest’s 1996 film is populated by a murderer’s row of skilled improvisers whose work, even at its most over the top, feels effortless, with a lived-in quality that grounds the absurdity in a heightened yet recognizable reality. By contrast, Theater Camp’s comedy mostly comes across as forced and laborious, which makes watching the film, at times, feel like sitting through extended acting exercises where everyone is giving it 110% every take.
Adapted from Lieberman’s 2020 short of the same name, Theater Camp grew out of co-writers Gordon, Lieberman, Ben Platt, and Noah Galvin’s desire to, per Gordon, “make something with our friends.” This approach no doubt extended to the feature-length version, but the sense that the performers are striving only to make each other laugh results in an insular feel.
Gordon and Lieberman’s film is set in a musical theater camp for kids in upstate New York called AdirondACTS—a pun that’s a perfect litmus test for anyone wanting to know if the humor here is up their alley. Theater Camp’s thin plot is set in motion when the camp’s founder, Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), slips into a coma from the strobe effects used during a performance of Bye Bye Birdie. Regrettably, this sidelines the film’s funniest performer after a mere five minutes, shifting the focus to the strained friendship of two longtime, codependent friends, Rebecca-Diane (Gordon) and Amos (Platt), who are now forced to run the camp’s operations.
This critic got some chuckles out of Rebecca-Diane and Amos navigating their changing roles, particularly when they’re forced to deal with Joan’s finance-bro son (Jimmy Tatro), who must fight off the advances of the owner of the swank neighboring camp (Patti Harrison) who’s looking to buy up the AdirondACTS property. But the film’s jokes quickly grow repetitive, as most of the actors lean into doubling down on their one-note characters’ most annoying traits.
An exception to this exhausting mode is Ayo Edebiri, who plays an acting teacher, Janet Walch, who egregiously lied on her resume to get the job. Edebiri, the breakout star of FX’s The Bear, steals scene after scene as Janet bumbles through her sessions and half-heartedly tries to mimic the excitement of everyone else at the camp, most memorably during a lesson on stage combat. If only more of Edebiri’s relaxed spontaneity had worn off on the rest of Theater Camp, which exceeds the boundaries of self-parody as it spins its wheels through so many of its scenes.
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