Early on in Matthew C. Yee’s ambitious, audacious new musical “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” the titular newlyweds embark on a cockamamie robbery far more daffy than dangerous. They collect $242 from the register despite Charlie’s slushy-induced brain freeze, leaving behind security cam footage that quickly goes viral and shows the pair are hardly criminal masterminds. Their honeymoon road-trip adventure — part “Bonnie and Clyde,” part “Thelma and Louise,” wholly its own creation — forms the spine of a Lookingglass production with tremendous appeal and potential.
Fueled by a roster of twang-and-drawl country and western ballads and bangers, “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon” is at its best when in song: Yee’s score is a cavalcade of rollicking foot-stompers, punk-tinged rockers and the-world-done-me-wrong countrified laments. Never mind stopping the show. Herein, you’ll find a rendition of “Streets of Laredo” that could stop a stampede of cattle in their tracks. If there’s a do-not-miss musical thus far this year, “Charlie and Lucy” is it.
