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Certainly flights of romantic fantasy are as old as the integrated musical play itself—look back no further than Lady in the Dark or Oklahoma! to see how firmly in place it was even in the 1940s—and as shows have grown less realistic and more experimental in recent decades, audiences have become even more accustomed to the notion that what might be can be just as tangible as what actually is. Even Milburn and Vigoda's own supremely accomplished earlier work, Striking 12, existed significantly (if not primarily) in the realm of the imagination. Alas, our mundane world does not give way to melody easily, and not just any story is a proper vehicle for bringing it about. David Schulner's play An Infinite Ache is highly theatrical in nature, chronicling some 60 years in the life of Charles and Hope, from the evening of their first (almost) date onward, in much the collage-style, hyperaccelerated manner of Thornton Wilder's The Long Christmas Dinner or Dan LeFranc's more recent The Big Meal. It sings in the way it progresses inexorably toward its inevitable conclusion, while not losing grip of the fancy at its core. But in adapting the play into Long Story Short, Milburn and Vigoda haven't expanded and enriched its narrative, but instead shrunk it to almost microscopic size. Though there are plenty of things to sing about in love, sex, children being born and growing up, aging, and death, as many other shows have unlocked, the time and attention required to flesh them out into songs eat away at the specific that define the two people at the heart of it all. Here, Charles (Bryce Ryness) is little more a semi-lapsed Jewish man with a vaguely defined job, and the Asian-American Hope (Pearl Sun) derives most of her wit and wisdom from the Chinese mysticism passed down to her from her family. Admittedly, the conceit is a dodgy one; whether you believe that their relationship is imagined by the ill Hope or Charles as he cares for her, every detail is invented by one of them out of whole cloth and thus not an ingrained part of a consistent character. But we barely get to know them, whoever they are, before they're fighting, breaking up, cheating, reuniting, and coping with various tragedies, few of which the writers have had a chance to build into something capable of moving us. Various musical sequences guide us through moments of crushing loss or across sprawling spans of time (their daughter ages from "first grade" to "first day of college" in approximately two minutes), but when we must learn some crucial tidbit about Charles's anal-retentive watering of plants or Hope's innate sense of personal empowerment, it tends to appear before the time is right. The result is an evening in which you spend 90 minutes with only two characters, and yet never come to know them. The songs should help with this, but neither the words nor the music probe very deep; neither Charles nor Hope has much in the way of a lush, searching solo that will let us see why either of them matters so much, and most of what they do sing is the equivalent of chit-chat (When decorating: "Um, not right there / Okay, we'll find a little closet space somewhere / It's just that I'm, I'm so used to having lots of room / Between the bed and chair"; during one of their times apart: "So I'm back from four dates with four men in four hours / Four cups of coffee then four whiskey sours"). Nor do they much tap into the magic of the concept, only exploring its twisty avenues later in the chronology when they can echo earlier strains of hopefulness, but still without conjuring much in the way of absorbing feeling. Ryness may be too likable as Charles, keeping us from seeing the extent of the role he plays in the couples' troubles; Sun is contrastingly too cool and businesslike, her Hope an outwardly poor match for Charles with nothing that really explains how they make up the difference. Both sing well, though Sun, an avid belter, sounds as though she's pulling back in an attempt to soften Hope that only makes her itchily unsteady. Kent Nicholson's direction makes the most of things, keeping the action pressing forward at a good clip; David L. Arsenault's versatile bedroom set and Vadim Feichtner's fleet leading of the six-piece band provide cheerful additional support. Even the best elements here struggle in aiding the illumination of Charles and Hope amid the murkiness of their surroundings. This makes Long Story Short seem both too long and too short: too little information told with far too much filigree. Maybe these two really are destined to be together, and need their fantasies to prove it. But Milburn and Vigoda have not succeeded in using those same techniques to prove it to us.
Long Story Short
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