Ivan Radford | On 01, Jan 2024

Director: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Cast: Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Nathan Lee Graham, Ayo Edebiri, Owen Thiele, Caroline Aaron, Amy Sedaris
Certificate: 12

“This will break you. This will destroy you.” That’s the sound of Theater Camp preparing a new cohort of teenagers for a summer of thesping – and that indicator of how seriously they take it gives you a clue of just how funny the next 90 minutes are going to be.

The camp was founded by Joan (Amy Sedaris), who longed to give outsiders with a flair for the dramatic a place to be included and valued. But that was years ago and, with Joan suddenly going into a coma, the camp is facing serious financial troubles – and her son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), is a clueless tech-bro who’s less on the same page and more in a different book entirely. In the meantime, longstanding camp teachers Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) try to keep things running.

Making their feature directorial debuts, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman helm the mockumentary with a flawless eye and ear for character as much as comedy. Over an hour and a half they cram in so many tiny details that every one of the attendees and staff members ring true. There’s the young boy who already thinks of himself as an agent. There’s the girl who brought in a tear stick, only to be accused of being the “Lance Armstrong of acting”. There’s Glenn (Noah Galvin), the under-appreciated technician who was told he wasn’t good enough in front of the curtain. There’s deadpan blagger Janet (Ayo Edebiri), who lied about her experience to get a job teaching stage combat and mask work. And even Tatro’s try-hard Troy ultimately cares about his mum as much as proving his own worth.

Running through all of them is a gentle thread of insecurity, which is epitomised most of all in Rebecca-Diane and Amos. Old friends who met at the camp when younger, they share a sense of the importance of their work, as much as their own need to establish an artistic legacy – that they’re both chasing this in the most fleeting, transient form of art possible only makes that funnier and more tragic.

They are both brilliantly self-absorbed, Molly Gordon’s music teacher quietly aware that her own opportunities to chase her dream are slipping her by and Ben Platt’s dramatic lead determined to produce something special that will cement the camp in everyone’s memories. They are flawless together, sharing the joy of creating something, the desperate frustrations of improvising songs at the last-minute, the challenges of learning to encourage each other and not hold each other back, and an ability to attack each other’s most vulnerable spots. But as needy as they are, they’re also both earnest, and that ability to turn what might be caricatures into rounded people ensures that Theater Camp’s ensemble is sympathetic at all times.

That foundation means that the cast can throw in as many jokes as possible without sacrificing heart for humour, and they do so impeccably. Packing every minute with improvised gems, the result is a non-stop, natural flow of chuckles, giggles and guffaws, from the way the staff get the kids’ attention in the morning to the fake musical numbers the children sing at auditions. The campers feel, and look, their age, which makes their precocious dedication to their craft all the more endearing as well as amusing. A sequence where they are doing “immersive theatre” – read: serving dinner to Troy’s guests, while inventing backstories for their waiters – is hysterical, while a running joke about Amos always being hard on them is beautifully observed.

Amid the deceptively controlled chaos, Patti Harrison has fun as an investor from the posh rival camp next door trying to trick Troy into selling up, and Nathan Lee Graham is wonderfully poignant as a dance teacher who wears their emotions on their sleeves. But it’s a group piece above all, and what emerges is ultimately a celebration of creativity, expression and belonging. It will break you, build you up and make you laugh and laugh and laugh.

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