Not only does Theater Camp have a shaggy dog charm, it also makes you feel kind of bad for disliking it. The characters are well-meaning and earnest, while all the gentle mockery comes from a place of affection. It has won over audiences at its Sundance premiere, as well as during its limited run in New York and Los Angeles. Despite all those positive vibes and good intentions, or maybe because of them, Theater Camp stumbles through its highwire act. There is a razor-thin difference between “good parody of bad theater” and “bad parody of bad theater.” More often than not, the filmmakers do not understand the difference.
Directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman imagine a camp in the Adirondacks called “AdironACTS” where, for three weeks every summer, theatrically inclined indoor kids work on musicals and hone their acting chops. After the longtime camp director Joan (Amy Sedaris) falls into a coma, the place is in a minor tailspin. Joan’s son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) takes over Joan’s job, much to the chagrin of the staff, since he’s an aspiring finance bro with little appreciation for theater. The show must go on, of course, and the directors follow the counselors as they put on a production and have their own personal dramas. Gordon co-stars as Rebecca-Diane, the New Age musical director, while her co-dependent best friend Amos (Ben Platt) runs the drama department. There are characters like the Black, queer directors of the dance and costume departments, although they lean more into caricatures. Either way, the buildup toward the big show dovetails with the news the camp possibly faces foreclosure, and of course it is up to the campers to save AdironACTS from financial ruin.
Gordon and Lieberman, to their credit, almost openly acknowledge that they are borrowing from Waiting for Guffman and Wet Hot American Summer. The mockumentary style means Theater Camp leans into cringe comedy, like when characters make up songs on the spot or when another attempt at corralling the campers lands with a thud. That kind of self-awareness leads to a lazy kind of shorthand, which is to say the characters and situations are underdeveloped. The script routinely goes for the easiest laugh, like when we watch the counselors have another ego-fueled tantrum or a group of preteens audition with roles that require them being wise beyond their years. There is a little sense of surprise or spontaneity, except in the frequent title cards that serve as the film’s strongest punchlines. When a film makes its audience laugh hardest with white text on a black screen, that speaks to deeper problems.
This is the rare film where it might benefit from a longer runtime, or the transition into a full-on TV miniseries. That would give Gordon, Lieberman and their co-screenwriters a better opportunity to flesh out their story and characters. As it stands, they have a bunch of half-formed ideas that are strung together with a flimsy narrative and an overreliance on audience goodwill. A great example of this happens toward the end of the film, where Troy goes to Rebecca-Diane – who claims to have supernatural powers – and asks her to speak to his mother, Joan. Theater Camp develops Troy as an idiot, but he’s not that dumb, leading to a situation where we must suspend our disbelief for a comic situation that does not much have of a payoff or punchline. Ironically, in this scene and others, the film is partially undone by the quality of its cinematography. Nate Hurtsellers captures the hazy, sweaty feel of summer camp, while the production design looks lived-in and accurate, which adds to the incongruity of the more outlandish sequences.
The problem with many mockumentaries is the affection the creators have for their subjects. That is why The Office and even Waiting for Guffman get kind of tedious: there is a nagging sense they would be more effective, maybe even more empathetic, if the people behind the camera did not pull their punches. The counselors in Theater Camp may act like hard-asses, to the point where Amos is thanked for his “tough love” approach to teaching, but that only underscores that Gordon, Lieberman and the rest are pushovers where it matters most. Nonstop references to musical theater suggest Gordon and Lieberman know this world inside and out. If that’s the case, why don’t they also take the lesson from their characters and skewer their targets with a little more tough love? Real-life theater kids, old and new, all understand that nonstop rejection comes from a career in the performing arts, anyway.
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