tunefulness

“The Little Things You Do Together,” “Sorry-Grateful” and “Marry Me a Little” tackle the subject from different angles, but they prove that lyrical complexity and tunefulness can go hand in hand.

The opening melody, gently plucked on Sharrock’s guitar against a tumble of drums, promises a conventional, even folksy, tunefulness.

“Ramones,” the band’s debut album, was released in 1976, and established punk rock’s blueprint of songs that were brutish and short, though with a tunefulness and winking humor that few could match.

The second symphony unfurls with an ease that becomes more disturbing as, from behind the wit and tunefulness, emerge flashes of heartbroken nostalgia and martial terror.

Watching both productions, I felt we might be on the cusp of a breakthrough, with serious theater makers here channeling the vulgar and gleeful tunefulness of “Avenue Q” or “The Book of Mormon.”