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Such is the case with The Fortress of Solitude, the new musical at The Public Theater based on Jonathan Lethem's 2003 novel of the same title. It has all the makings of a sure thing: a powerful story that fuses race relations, contemporary politics, and fantasy; a book by an accomplished playwright (Itamar Moses); a score by a composer well known for doing off-kilter extremely well (Michael Friedman); a talented director (Daniel Aukin); and even a first-rate cast with one hot young rising name (Adam Chanler-Berat), an established star (André De Shields), and just about every other type of solid performer in between. What it lacks, and quite forcefully, is the spark of necessity and extra-strong devotion to artistry that might link the pieces together. The opening scene seems promising, recreating with a jolt the unpredictable panoply of Brooklyn in the mid 1970s. We slowly focus on the white Dylan Ebdus (Chanler-Berat), an almost-teenager, and the black Mingus Rude (Kyle Beltran), the friend he meets almost by accident. Beyond this, the funk (the musical kind, that is) of the streets explodes into its populace, with each of a dozen different denizens doing dances (choreographed with careful precision by Camille A. Brown) and singing their own strains, but somehow blending into flawless harmony. Add in the slick, ghostly presence of a suave Motown-style singing group melting into this, and you have a shimmering portrait of a time, place, and people as only the theatre could paint it.
Friedman, a mastermind behind the civilians and the resourceful tunesmith of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, settles for monotony often by settling for pounding bass (the orchestrations are by John Clancy) that never builds into the bone-rattling excitement it portends. Friedman's pastiche tunes, counting rap in addition to R&B and more traditional theatrical forms to better highlight the subdued racial conflict at the work's center, are decently managed, but they, and the rest of the score, are lifeless, listless, and moodless, even when trying to recreate the initial magic in lengthy biography scenes exploring the histories of Mingus's father (Kevin Mambo) and grandfather (De Shields). Though Moses gets a bit further, his contributions aren't particularly strong, either. He ushers things along well enough in the busy first act, centering on Dylan and letting us see how others fall in line around him, from the nerdy but enterprising Arthur (David Rossmer) to the thuggish Robert (Brian Tyree Henry) to the saucy stoop girls (Carla Duren, Rebecca Naomi Jones) who always see and have an opinion on everything. But the second act, set in the late 1990s, limps along, largely disinterested in plot or digging into the complex psychologies that drive so many of the interactions here. It's almost more that Moses is providing continuity for disparate songs than a libretto for an integrated musical. As a result, it's difficult to care much about these people or what happens to these people across the 20 years the action documents. The physical production (the gritty sets are by Eugene Lee, the just-right costumes and lights respectively by Jessica Pabst and Tyler Micoleau) sets the appropriate atmosphere, but Aukin fails to tie it all together. Besides serious pacing issues, most notably in Act II, he's apparently directed his gifted cast to sing noticeably below the vocal abilities they've demonstrated in other shows, which doesn't help make the evening more musically or dramatically satisfying. That makes the actors have real trouble connecting with the material or with us. The only exception: De Shields, who's overlaid on his natural flamboyance a thin layer of menace that suggests he's forever half a step away from exploding; seeing how, or if, he maintains his cool is one of the few continual joys The Fortress of Solitude provides. Chanler-Berat and Beltran share a nice, curious chemistry in their scenes together, but are less effective apart; Chanler-Berat lapses into full-hipster mode and Beltran threatens to disappear altogether. Jones has plenty of personality as the blabby girl Lala, but she's forced to squelch most of it as Dylan's later girlfriend, Abby, especially in her endless (and terrible) second-act song "Something." Rossmer and Ken Barnett, who plays Dylan's depressed father, make the most of their smallish roles. Most emblematic, however, would be Mambo. Though superb in his scenes, which he infuses with the correct desolate longing for a man who's lost the only life he wanted, his restrained singing sinks him in the songs—not least because his character is supposed to possess unique abilities that could have let him be a superstar had things worked out only slightly differently. Both men, in other words, are hampered by their inability to be themselves. The Fortress of Solitude, ironically named after the one place Superman could himself live without fear as a son of Krypton, after its dynamic start, frustrates for exactly the same reason.
The Fortress of Solitude
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