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'Saved' gets serious

By Matt Windman

Mary Faber (center) with members of the cast in a scene from the Playwrights Horizons world premiere production of the new musical 'Saved.' (Joan Marcus)

Most stage musicals based on films replicate not just the plot, but the film's general attitude and atmosphere. A few, like "Xanadu," instead spoof the original film.

But "Saved," which is based on the 2004 indie film starring Mandy Moore and Jena Malone about an evangelical Christian high school, replaces the film's broad satire with an unblinkingly sober, serious quality sprinkled with feel-good spirituality. In other words, "Saved!" is now plainly "Saved."

In the musical, best friends Mary (Celia Keenan-bolger) and Hilary Faye (Mary Faber) are super best friends at the top of the social hierarchy of American Eagle Christian High School that is, until Mary's boyfriend Dean informs her that he might be gay.

Jesus soon appears in a personal vision and tells Mary "to do everything she can to help him." After offering to have sex with Dean, Mary becomes pregnant. Once mean-spirited Hilary Faye spills the beans, Dean is shipped off to a "mercy house" and Mary is expelled.

It's weird that 30-year-old Celia Keenan-Bolger, who plays Mary, played another pregnant girl named Mary in "Juno" at City Center three months ago. Here, she convincingly captures the character's sensitivity and naivety. Other standouts include Morgan Weed as the Jewish bad girl Cassandra and Curtis Holbrook as Hilary's wheelchair-bound brother Roland.

"Saved" is very much a work in progress. The running time is too long, stuffed with more songs than necessary. Most of its supporting characters, like Mary's mother (Julia Murney) and the school's strict pastor (John Dossett), are underused in sketchy subplots. Others, like the domineering goody-goody Hilary Faye (Mary Faber), remain one-dimensional and too extreme. And couldn't they have saved just a bit of the film's satire spirit?

Nevertheless, it's an intelligent, attractive, very earnest piece of musical theater debating how to maintain faith at a young, susceptible age. Its pop-light rock score hardly draws attention to itself, and its many choral anthems are catchy and gorgeously staged. "Saved" definitely ought to be salvaged after its limited Off-Broadway run.

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd St, 212-279-4200, $70. Tues-Fri 8pm, Sat 2 & 8pm, Sun 2:30 & 7:30pm. Thru June 22.