To be fair, it's a tall order mounting the third iteration of an art work, especially when both the original book and Stephen Frears' s 2000 film version were so well-done and well-loved. South Shore native David Lindsay-Abaire (a 2006 Tony Award nominee for his play ``Rabbit Hole"), composer Tom Kitt, and lyricist Amanda Green have stayed true to the story line: Rob, a commitment-phobic, pop-music-obsessed record-store owner whose girlfriend, Laura, leaves him for the pompous New Age guru upstairs, goes into an adult-onset tailspin which involves rehashing his dismal romantic track record via a series of Top 5 lists.
The record store's clerks and patrons function as a sort of slacker Greek chorus. Rob's ex-girlfriends materialize in a succession of fantasy sequences. Rob makes a few more mistakes -- ``I Slept With Someone (Who Slept With Lyle Lovett)" opens Act 2 -- before figuring out what matters.
That number is one of the show's best: a genuinely wry tune that doesn't sound like mock rock radio. There are a smattering of sparkling moments in ``High Fidelity": among them ``No Problem," an off beat charmer performed by Christian Anderson as the mousy store clerk Dick, who steals the show with his fabulously maladjusted delivery, and ``Conflict Resolution," an effervescent ensemble piece that channels the spirit of Guns N ' Roses and the Beastie Boys to hilarious effect.
Green's lyrics are very good: smarter and funnier than the moon-June rhymes that litter so many big-budget Broadway productions, although some of the credit must go to Hornby's snappy prose, which is occasionally transplanted straight from the written page to the score. Jay Klaitz hews closely to the film version for his portrayal of the manic music snob Barry, a calculated risk that pays off. While there isn't an actor around who can lasso the lunacy Jack Black brought to his break-out role, Klaitz (a short, chubby ringer) is winningly bullish.
