On Theater:

New York City is anything but ordinary, especially for a young person (I reveled in the Big Apple while soaking up a wealth of theater there on USO tickets back in the day). Yet it’s the perfect focus for Adam Gwon’s miniature musical “Ordinary Days,” now on stage at South Coast Repertory.

The four young people in this 80-minute all-singing exercise each are looking for something — a connection, a career, something. It’s too early in their lives to define exactly, but whatever it is, they’re searching passionately.

“Each of the characters is in a relationship with New York,” director Ethan McSweeny offers. “They’re falling in and out of love with the city.”

This element drives the show from the lyrical to the visceral.

Gwon has constructed four vital and determined young people who express their innermost emotions in verse, singularly or in pairs. And we truly care about them and their quests, which is why “Ordinary Days” works so beautifully.

As musical director Dennis Castellano accompanies splendidly on piano, the foursome strike out in different directions before arriving at a satisfying whole. All have excellent voices, with the pipes of David Burnham demonstrating exceptional power.

Burnham portrays Jason, a young man sharing an apartment with his lady love (Nancy Anderson), who harbors serious commitment issues. Her Claire is an edgy contrast to the more freewheeling Jason, yet they’re obviously very much in love, though her inner angst may derail their romantic train.

Elsewhere, Deb (Deborah S. Craig) is a frustrated graduate student who’s lost her notes on her thesis on Virginia Woolf — and her paper is due immediately. Fortunately, her writings are discovered by Warren (Nick Gabriel), an offbeat artist surviving by distributing leaflets for an incarcerated poet and house-sitting his cat.

Craig nearly matches Burnham’s vocal acumen, and delivers a wrenching portrayal of a young woman searching for an unknown goal.

It may or may not be Warren, but they hit it off splendidly after a dicey inaugural.

As Burnham’s Jason observes, New York is “a hundred-story city where you’re always moving fast, but going nowhere.”

His number expressing that sentiment, backed by the other three, is the standout of the production.

Set designer Fred Kinney’s, unfettered three-level staging area makes for an ideal playground, and Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz’s lighting effects serve the production quite nicely. Director McSweeny guides the players smoothly and effortlessly in and out of the various performance levels.

“Ordinary Days” demonstrates what a skilled theater craftsman such as Gwon can accomplish in less than an hour and a half, given a company such as the one now present at South Coast Repertory.

If You Go

What: “Ordinary Days”

Where: South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 2 and 7:45 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays until Jan. 24.

Cost: $20-$65

Call: (714) 708-5555

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews appear Fridays.