The Kid

The sharp-toothed wit of sex columnist Dan Savage’s writing is buffed down to a sitcom sheen in The Kid, a contempo-casual Off Broadway musical based on his 2000 memoir, The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant. As Savage (a likable Christopher Sieber) and his boyfriend Terry (Lucas Steele) croon through the trials of gay adoption, the dark comedy of their ordeal is undercut by easy punchlines and bland songs that cling to the cheesy, cymbal-riding vernacular of the modern soft-rock show tune.

But when the humor clicks — as it does when Dan’s mom (Jill Eikenberry) politely translates her son’s foul-mouthed musings for the audience, or when Dan and Terry go for broke with a nothing-but-the-truth interview with an adoption agency — you wish the show would ditch the music and simply tell the story straight, so to speak. B-

(Tickets: thenewgroup.org or 212.279.4200)