At first, we thought Broadsword's cast was too muted. What with Paul Tei, Scott Genn, Greg Weiner, and Erik Fabregat, the play should have been louder than life, as loud as the play's dark, metallic final song (for which several of the actors had to learn to play instruments). Later their sobriety came to seem entirely appropriate. As a band of aging, might-have-been rock stars from a working-class New Jersey town, these were men whom life had nearly beaten. Their shared tiredness communicated almost everything we needed to know about their shared history. Sofia Citarella, as the band's former biggest fan, and Weiner, as an impresario with a not entirely trustworthy smile, are the only ones who give off a whiff of life. Together they hint at the joy and the danger the rockers must have felt in their music, back when they still knew how to make it.