THEATRE REVIEW: First Date — A comedic musical flashback to the days before dating apps

It’s true. Once upon a time, total strangers would arrange to meet up in bars and restaurants, spend the evening talking and then decide where things would lead. Sometimes into the bedroom, occasionally to a second date.

For Gen-Zs, voluntarily laying the groundwork for an evening of such unbridled awkwardness must sound like the basis for pure horror. And yet First Date – the musical currently playing at Cape Town’s Avalon Theatre – is in fact a comedy. 

The American show, which landed on Broadway in 2013 after its earlier premiere in Seattle, is essentially a trip back to a weird time when people genuinely went on what we fondly referred to as “blind dates”.

I’m not sure it is even possible nowadays for anyone to go on such outings – blind or otherwise – without a pretty clear idea of what their prospective date looks like, and probably also what they had for breakfast. Who in their right mind would willingly meet someone in a bar, romantic intentions in tow, without having stalked them online, gathered every bit of available intel, and swiped through all the photographs required to make an assessment?

Naïve (and potentially dangerous and downright uncomfortable) as blind dates might sound to today’s “swipe-left, swipe-right” generation, this was once a legitimate part of romantic culture. 

Which is why, for those of us who in fact went through this somewhat torturous, occasionally rewarding ritual, this musical comes with a strong whiff of nostalgia.

Awkwardness aside, First Date does a fairly decent job of transporting the audience to a simpler, slightly goofier (and, yes, more naïve) time. A time when people willingly subjected themselves to the feeling of being in the spotlight, subject to review by a total stranger and the agonising possibility of rejection. 

It’s also a reminder of what was perhaps a less goal-oriented time. It’s worth noting that when First Date premiered dating apps like Tinder were just taking off and were yet to become the quickest route to a quick-and-easy romantic (read: sexual) encounter, which meant the idea of hooking up with a total stranger for a drink and maybe a meal was still credible. And while sex was doubtless on most people’s minds, it was not necessarily the only desirable outcome as is presumably the case with apps that have turned “hookup” into a by-word for “sexual fling”.

Don’t laugh, but in the reality of this musical there exists some yearning for a kind of romantic and emotional connection beyond pure physical lust.

It’s with such hope of connection between two strangers that this American sitcom set to music takes the audience through the highs and lows of such a date. And through all the deep self-consciousness and jangled nerves of subjecting oneself to the judgement and prognostications of a total stranger in hopes of not only being approved of, but liked, potentially fancied, even loved. 

It’s an ordeal, an act of mutual bravery, and there is something captivating about being in a room full of people watching two hopeful individuals go through the bittersweet motions of getting to know one another. Add in the laugh lines, the backstories, the barman with Broadway dreams and the random characters who burst into song, and suddenly this date becomes a competently funny musical about modern romance and all its attendant anxieties.

Above everything, this production is buoyed by its performances, mostly notably that of Ethan Saunders, who plays the nerdy-at-first-glance Aaron, who turns out to have a far deeper, more nuanced and unexpectedly imaginative interior world than his date – or the audience – initially suspects.

And this is perhaps part of First Date’s charm: it sneaks up on you, coaxes you into assumptions about how polite and civil it’s going to be, but then hits you every so often with a wild tune, an outrageous characterisation, a vaguely filthy line that deserves a laugh. 

The best of these “pop-up” moments are provided by William Young, whose turn as Aaron’s notoriously womanising best friend, Gabe, provides him with some salaciously choice one-liners.

“Salad is for pussies!” is one example of the kind of unsolicited advice Gabe barks at his friend, which, while not exactly Shakespeare, does in a very strange way get to the heart of the problem that the production identifies: too often in our encounters with romantic prospects we behave in ways society expects rather than simply being our authentic selves.

Along with Gabe, a string of other characters are brought to life with varying degrees of comic efficiency, whether to underscore an emotional itch or simply to add depth to what would otherwise be a musical in which two people sit talking to each other for 90 minutes. Instead, this date becomes something akin to a therapy session on steroids as we’re made privy to the psychological scars left by old flames, exes, one-night stands, overpowering parents and even religious intolerance.

Evidence perhaps that First Date is the handiwork of three male writers, it is Aaron who is the character with the more fraught, fleshed-out and slightly tragic backstory, and who comes with the kind of emotional baggage most likely to make audiences (and female first dates) fall for him.

In the role, Saunders also combines his natural singing talent and considerable acting chops, and capably corrals a kind of visual goofiness into a series of comedic moments that do a very decent job of winning us over.

It’s his date, though, who is not quite so easy to please.

Emma Amber’s Casey, unlike Aaron, is a prodigious blind dater, and – judging from the way she approaches this date – has had more than her fair share of diabolical encounters with men. She is positively unenthused, particularly since every aspect of Aaron’s appearance (straight-laced), demeanour (decent), career (finance) and choice of outfit (inoffensive) seem to make her resistant to his goofy attempts at charm.

Herein lies the opportunity for fun that the show’s creators are after: Can they convincingly make us believe that opposites really do attract? To test the theory, they create outlandishly larger-than-life hilarity out of a potential rift between Aaron and Casey: he’s Jewish, she’s not, so cue the rest of the cast to throw down a juicy, hip-swinging musical parody routine. 

This moment of religious pantomime generates precisely the tone I hoped would drive the show, perhaps leading it into edgier, more dangerous territory. Indeed, it’s when the musical divorces itself from the straight and narrow, when it leans towards slightly more subversive instincts of Weimar cabaret, that it’s at its best. 

It’s there in moments. There’s the zaniness of Asanda Mngadi, for example, who plays Casey’s ragingly camp best friend Reggie, tasked with phoning her in order to offer an excuse to prematurely terminate her date with Aaron. Reggie’s spiralling distress as he imagines that Casey might in fact have fallen foul of a serial killer injects precisely the right degree of outrageousness and excess into the comedy.

But the show is a bit uneven. Austin Winsberg’s book packs in the requisite laughs, but also veers into tedium; there are surely more theatrical ways of getting through the endless chit-chat of a date in which two strangers feel morbidly compelled to reveal every detail of their lives.

It’s left to the musical numbers to undercut the sense that we’re listening to real life conversation rather than dramatic dialogue. And it’s the song lyrics that are the lifeblood of the show, that – in the most entertaining manner – bring out all the hidden secrets, fears, dreams, nerves and apprehensiveness of the characters. 

Less compelling perhaps is the music itself. No fault of the Cape Town team, but the light-rock score by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner feels a bit derivative. It’s not music that’s going to result in any ear-worms. And maybe that’s fine – it’s a show about one date, and it needn’t live with you forever.

The show might also have leaned more into that mysterious frequency that, ultimately, is the reason for anyone to go on a date in the first place: sexual tension. After all, Aaron and Casey are presumably looking for something beyond polite conversation. 

And yet it is only Young’s Gabe, who comes across as a sex-obsessed drill sergeant, who seems to fully understand the assignment. Certainly, when he has a great big phallic leaf blower swinging provocatively between his legs it’s about as close as the show comes to being well and truly, even radically, raunchy.

And, for my money, anyone who can turn something as diabolical as a leaf blower into an object of sexual speculation deserves a second date. DM

First Date is playing at the Avalon Theatre in Cape Town’s Homecoming Centre until 1 November; take something warm because they’ve opted to crank the air-con to Arctic.