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‘A Sign of the Times’: Because No 1960s Musical Is Complete Without a Champagne-Drinking Pregnant Lady

Your ex-boyfriend, who once proposed to you, hoping you would become his stay-at-home dishwasher, suddenly appears at your doorstep, looking pretty good for someone who just came back from the war. You politely try to friendzone him again, but he pulls an army boy out of his sleeve, coming out as gay. Everyone is happy. Curtain.

No, it’s not an episode of Friends or How I Met Your Mother, although it certainly does not lack those sitcom qualities. This scene emanated such an ominous déjà vu spirit that I have been sitting for days, trying to uncover the mystery of its existence: Where have I seen this before? The answer that came to me recently was — everywhere.

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"A Sign of the Times" opens in Ohio in 1965. Young Cindy (Chilina Kennedy) is surrounded by friends — one of whom is pregnant and, for some reason, just won’t put a glass of champagne down — and her boyfriend, who suddenly (not really) gets on one knee and proposes. But “I want to be a photographer,” Cindy announces, clutching her chunky Polaroid.

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“Why do you want to work so much, when you can clean the house?” Matt wonders. He is not being rude or witty; he is genuinely curious.

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Cindy has an existential coming-of-age moment, thinks for a minute, and buys her tickets for the Ohio-New York train.

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It is a classic story — not Homer classic, but rather a stock classic — about a young woman whose aspirations take her to the big, bright city. The harsh truth is voiced by Cindy’s newly acquired roommate, Tanya, before they become friends: She is a “white girl fresh off the train with a dream,” just like thousands of other girls around New York. And while this plot might have had a fresh tinge some 40 years ago, today it just sounds repetitive. The fact that Cindy didn’t find a best friend in the form of a mean, fancy-looking gay man came as a surprise and gave the scriptwriters some points for originality.

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Everything about this show is colorful: the costumes, the set. The couch in Cindy’s apartment is bright yellow. The letters of the title are colorful, with a font a little like the one used for the titles of SpongeBob episodes. The happiness can sometimes be too much, especially when intertwined with some of the events that take place in the play.

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The best way to describe "A Sign of the Times" would be to call it a colorful, eclectic mix of clichés, which the writers must have collected throughout their early years of high school, featuring some very strong young voices and entertaining dance moves.

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Since the play is set in the 1960s, it is thoroughly infused with its most widely recognized themes and events. While Cindy is fighting her domineering boss, who is also her unfaithful boyfriend and the first person who actually hired her, a number of events are happening around her. Cindy’s ex is sending her letters from the trenches, her incredibly talented friend Tanya (Crystal Lucas-Perry) falls in love with an activist fighting for civil rights and gets beaten up in the riots by the police. Cindy tries to decide whether she likes the man who is obviously taking advantage of her innocent naivety. All of this is accompanied by Petula Clark’s hits, energetic dancing, colorful costumes, feathers, and Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” which fits weirdly within the 1960s narrative. Quite a spectacle...

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Mesmerized by the smiling, tireless girls and boys on stage, wearing rainbow boots, mini-skirts, cute hairbands, and suspenders, one is in danger of forgetting that the issues touched upon in the play are not solely reserved for the 1960s. Issues like sexism, lookism, racism, lack of rights, and lower pay for women didn’t freeze in time when “Downtown” was playing on the radio and student protests for justice took place. Even though it wasn’t the intention of the play, the occasional lighthearted fun poked at patriarchal office culture gives the impression these things are concerns of the past. But aren’t they still relevant today?

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It is an interesting and lighthearted experience. If you are not looking for anything plot-heavy, and want to remember what it was like to be in school and watch high school musicals, it is enjoyable. The choice of the plot for the play just seems obsolete. It is a story that has been repeated so many times that I felt like each next step was obvious to me. The play is an adaptation of the story, written. If the creators wanted to talk about social injustice, they didn’t have to go as far back as 60 years ago; they could have stayed in modernity. If they wanted to reminisce on the topic of flower skirts and beehive hairstyles, they could have skipped the attempt to put everything inside this play, because the result is like a strong cocktail that mixes vodka, whiskey, wine, and beer.

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The play is a musical, featuring several songs by the 1960s star Petula Clark. Tanya, played by Crystal Lucas-Perry, frequently steals the spotlight with her incredibly powerful singing. The dancing in the play is similarly entertaining. Everything about this show is colorful: the costumes, the set. The couch in Cindy’s apartment is bright yellow. The letters of the title are colorful, with a font similar to the one used for the titles of SpongeBob episodes. The happiness can sometimes be too much, especially when intertwined with some of the events that take place in the play.

 

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