For all the grand gestures of musical theater, there’s an odd flatness to Theater Camp, a half-hearted and lackluster comedy from a group of Hollywood friends set at a summer performing arts community. There’s the inherited, well-worn genre of the mockumentary, as well as the familiar satirical targets of overzealous and/or pretentious theater types. But the real remove comes from a script that must’ve seemed much funnier on paper than in practice.
The 94-minute film “literally came out of us just wanting to make something with our friends”, said Molly Gordon, co-director along with her boyfriend Nick Lieberman, after the film’s overhyped Sundance standing ovation. That’s pretty accurate to how it feels to watch Theater Camp – secondhand comedy, as if sitting in on a friend group’s exchange of inside jokes you’re not privy to, with unoriginal bits that probably kill among their audience but fizzle on screen.
