Playwright: music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, book by Tina Landau. At: Bohemian Theatre Ensemble at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-975-8150; www.theaterwit.org; $18-$28. Runs through: July 15
If disaster had to strike, it couldn’t have chosen a better time than 1925. Not only was the public hungry for vicarious sensationalism, but advanced technology made it possible for news media to bring it right into their homes almost as fast as it happened. Why be alarmed at social injustice, government corruption or inhumane business practices when you can chew your hankies while anticipating the fate of an unlucky youth trapped miles underground in a Kentucky cave? You could even drive to the site (in your new Model-T Ford) to witness the anguish first-hand.
Opera heroes are usually of noble lineage, so the slow death of a hillbilly boy might seem an unlikely subject for a musical. Even with Tina Landau’s book calling our attention to the commercial interests looking to capitalize on the tragedy—a phenomenon still observed today—the bulk of the narrative focuses on our immobilized victim’s isolation and the futile rescue efforts of those overhead. Compounding the topic’s inaccessibility is Adam Guettel’s eccentric score, consisting of compositions based less in actual melodies than in sequential phrases suggesting familiar passages from the U.S. repertoire.
The Bohemian Theatre Ensemble turns its small auditorium to advantage, beginning with Diane D. Fairchild’s rocky landscape, featuring an elevated orchestra that allows us, at one point, to see diggers crawling underneath. Director Peter Marston Sullivan locates our prisoner’s subterranean cell downstage in a pool of dim light, thus confronting us with his agony throughout the dramatic action. Sullivan also varies the positions of the ambulatory characters—in danger of being rendered stationary by Guettel’s fondness for soliloquies—to keep our eyes constantly moving over the stage picture.
A cast led by Jim DeSelm as the doomed Floyd (with impressive support from Greg Foster as a cub reporter whose slight physique leads him to become a participant in his own story) likewise draws us into their universe by emphasizing the play’s emotional content, rather than striving for recital-grade pitch or harmony. Music may be the language of the heart, but what engages our empathy is the filial bond shared by the Collins siblings and the indissoluble faith it sustains even as hope of survival wanes. During the rare moments when Floyd breaks free of his untimely grave to join his brother in kinetic recollection or to reunite joyfully with his kinfolk, our exhilaration at his respite is as palpable as it it illusory.