Spelunking for Showtunes
Reviewed
3/18/06
Spelunking for Showtunes
Reviewed
3/18/06
iTheatre Collaborative has yet to choose the path most traveled. Their daring ways have produced some excellent pieces, many unfortunately unseen by the community at large because of what seems to be their lack of marketing prowess. Choosing to mount their first musical, it only figures that they won’t go for the obvious, or the recognizable, or the easily accessible. They could have chosen a musical with a small cast, but instead they chose a show with a cast of 14. They could have chosen a musical from a well-known composer, but instead they have gone with an early work of Adam Guettel, the son of Mary Rodgers and the composer of the recent Tony Award-winning The Light in the Piazza. They could have chosen canned music, but instead they have collected a very professional-sounding seven-person orchestra. In mounting Floyd Collins, and tapping the veteran director Jeff Kennedy to helm, iTC has created quite a high level of expectation for itself. It has met this…to a point.
The show they’re offering is dense, depressing, and grating. Guettel’s score is equal parts Sondheim and Bluegrass, with intricate harmonies and discordance counterbalancing beautiful melodies. The subject is relentless. Collins (Patrick Dulaney) was a Kentucky caver in 1925 that became stuck in a cavern, prompting a weeks-long media circus as America read the daily exploits of his family and others to extract him. What’s grating is that with such a stylized production, the requirements for precision from the actors is even higher. Many deliver, but a few key personnel do not, and that magnifies problems.
Kennedy has created a lot of interesting blocking and symbolic movement throughout the show, and the pacing is consistent. The minimal set and props support just enough when combined with Todd Norris’ period costumes and Charles St. Clair’s expressive and precise lighting. Some of his stage pictures become repetitive, but there’s still a lot of imaginative work that’s been done here. One problem that hurt the show was Scott Westerveld's sound design. He has created an excellent effect that is inconsistently used.
While the subject matter is dire and the music and lyrics are intense, the largest problem is the inconsistency of the cast. A few, including the always dependable Dulaney and Emily Mulligan-Ferry as Floyd’s religious stepmother, are highlights. Dulaney creates an endearing Floyd, and he does his best with a vocally challenging set of songs. Mulligan-Ferry is sweet in spirit and voice. Others, such as Robert Vance as Floyd’s dapper brother Homer, Greg Alkema as the heroic reporter “Skeets” Miller, Bruce Alvin as Papa Lee Collins, and David Roberts as the haughty H.T. Carmichael have several highlight moments of acting and singing that balance some of their struggles with text and score. A few of the supporting cast and ensemble do not survive the struggle. The most obvious example of grating is Amber Whitworth as Floyd’s “tetched” sister Nellie. When she finds her key, she is a fine singer, but there are many-too-many times when her voice goes horribly awry, and it is truly painful to sit through. Other cast members are too presentational or out of synch with the rest of the proceedings. The result is a show that can sometimes set an audience member’s teeth on edge. When having to grope through the subject and the musical element, it’s made that much harder when the ensemble as a whole isn’t able to guide the viewer through the labyrinth.
Like many of iTC’s offerings, this show’s not for everyone, but if you prefer spelunking through a musical and leaving the theatre sadder-but-wiser, then there is a lot that you’ll like.
