The
very best anyone can say for Wendy Kesselman’s musical The Black Monk is
that it’s better than the season’s one bona fide train wreck, John
Patrick
Shanley’s ill-begotten musical, Romantic Poetry. I realized, when I opened the program,
that I
knew a few too many people involved in it to allow myself unguarded
candor in
public print—which probably sounds misleading; I don’t mean I would
have
written harshly of them otherwise, the situation’s subtler than that—so
I
won’t go into much detail. Which isn’t warranted anyway, as it will
soon
vanish, almost certainly forever. Suffice it to say that it’s ineptly
adapted
from a short story by Anton Chekhov
and it’s about a young, newlywed artist who is constantly seduced by
the vision
of the title character, urging him to forsake all other pleasures in
pursuit of
his genius. (Actually, the Monk’s agenda isn’t nearly that clear or
straightforward, but I’ve made the adjustment its author hasn’t, just
to avoid
having to explain its vague contortions.) Indeed, vagueness is the
problem. The
musical can be a fairly versatile venue for theatrical exploration, but
it’s
never a good vehicle for characters with existential crises, because at
their
most active, they outline a quest for something intangible, and
musicals are all
about characters aiming at specific targets, doing specific things for
specific
purposes, and revealing their inner life through the actions they take,
and the
consequences they have to process. The reason for this is that songs
thrive on
emotional urgency, and need something solid-seeming to push against.
Here what
our hero is pushing against has all the dramatic consistency of jello,
and the
show as a whole has about as much cohesion. Best tio leave it at that.
Steroid
use as a metaphor for exploring the turning point when one’s character
turns
from righteous to dishonorable, is the subject matter of Itmar Moses’s clever, 90 minute baseball play Back
Back
Back. The dread word “steroids” is never
used, nor does
Mr. Moses actually spend much time on the physical consequences of
addiction,
but rather on the abstraction of what constitutes ethical behavior, and
where
the line gets drawn. (Even though this is not a musical, it’s
appropriate to
note the difference in approach between Back Back Back and The Black Monk. The existential crisis here may be
about the
subject of honor, but it’s made manifest by something concrete: the
use, or
refusal to use, a drug. When you’re presented with “hands on” issues
and
imagery, philosophical ideas become vibrant, because we see them
examined in
practical terms with real consequences.) Taking place over the course
of two
decades, the play focuses on three players: Raul (James Martinez) and Kent (Jeremy Davidson) as The Ones Who Do; and Adam (Michael
Mosley) as The One Who
Resists. Mr. Moses lets the
issues develop in the same kind of gray area that allows for the
rationalization of wrongdoing, which lets us in the audience viscerally
experience the uncertainty that develops when peer and job pressure are
brought
to bear, and wonder ourselves what harm a little chemical enhancement
can do.
The magic of theatre is that we never have to pay the piper for our
momentary
ambivalence along with the characters who succumb, and get to use that
experience as a barometer for real life.
This
is not to suggest that Back Back Back is a somber, pretentious or brooding
play. There is, in fact, an
almost gossamer lightness to it, and its trio of players breeze through
it with
wit, impeccable timing and subtle nuance. The equally elegant direction
is by Daniel
Aukin and one doesn’t
have to be
“into the sports world” (and I’m not, for the record) to be into what
he and
his compatriots are cooking up.
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