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The New York Musical Theatre Festival 2015
Sorry, but comparisons to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's acclaimed Sunday in the Park With George are inevitable here. Both that musical and this one concern a young artist equally tormented by love and the pieces he's compelled to create, the ever-burbling rivulets of history that erode souls as easily as they fuel them, and the potentially dangerous relationship between patronage and the creative process, and both contain scores that are emotionally and psychologically intricate. But for better or worse—mostly better, I'm happy to say—that's where the similarities end. Spot on the Wall's central figure is Paul (Robert Hager), a gifted photographer whose first show at a prominent museum is threatened by his last-minute choice to include something called "Daphne's Sunrise," which may be powerful, but deeply offends the museum's richest and most influential donor (Neal Mayer)—who also happens to be Paul's father. Both the current curator (Charles West) and Paul's art-expert girlfriend Laurel (Madison Stratton), who's angling to replace him in that role, are on his side, but aren't exactly disinterested observers either, for reasons that only gradually become clear. Jaeger's book compellingly and convincingly weaves together these elements within the shadow of Paul's now-deceased mother, whose statue of the Greek god Apollo and the naiad Daphne is itself on evocative display at the museum. We learn, too, that that statue is more than just scenery, and as it comes to life (Michael Warrell and Lisa Kuhnen in dance-heavy, yet critical, parts play the figures) it forces the characters and us to confront its messages and decide just how far is too far to go for something or someone you love. This may sound as though it verges on the pretentious, but it never crosses over. There aren't endless discussions about the artist's obligation to society and/or himself that aren't directly tied to the story, and the individual costs associated with these people's decisions are not ignored. The writers and their fine director, Devin Dunne Cannon, know that the museum and its exhibits are vehicles for delivering greater truths, not the final result in and of themselves, and everything about the show is constructed with that goal in mind. So the score (Mitchell wrote the music to Jaeger's lyrics) must veer between sweeping themes of external validation and intimate personal agonies, and it does so delicately but emphatically. The most inventive number is "Who Cares," a sprightly meandering, high-minded flirtation that examines how Laurel and Paul find their roles in the world and with each other by losing themselves. But almost every song is packed with vivid feeling, as the quartet must confront uncomfortable new truths about where they are and what they want when such matters are called into question; and Mitchell's brushstroke-like music (rendered with cool tenderness by musical director Mike Rosengarten and his two bandmates) sounds like the ideal language of these people's tormented thoughts. Hager has the flashiest role, with the most throat-stretching solos that adroitly echo Paul's tightly wound confusion, and he brings an uncertain ease to it that's just right for a young man on the brink. But everyone is wonderful: West and Mayer convey straitlaced and uninhibited variations on a single paternal theme, without ever overplaying; and Warrell and Kuhnen, whether speaking, singing, or dancing Allicia Lawson's anguish-riddled Hellenic-inspired choreography, bring a surging eroticism and surprising sadness to their deceptively important roles. Perhaps best of all is Stratton, whose sophisticated but saucy manner and superb upscale soprano brand her as a sumptuously intelligent talent who loudly echoes Lynne Wintersteller while bearing a unique style all her own. Though most of what's here is excellent, the evening is not perfect. "Living Life in a Museum," though technically correct, is an imprecise opening number that fails to properly prepare us for the show that follows. There may not be much narrative waste in the second act, but there's a talkiness about it that borders on the excessive. (Act II is also longer than Act I, which also throws things off a bit.) And though the plot eventually comes to revolve around the tension that forms between Paul's father and the curator, they have no duet to codify their relationship— despite sharing a brutally effective scene near the end of the show that seems to set up just such a song. Finally, there's the title. Spot on the Wall connects somewhat with the story, but not with us; it promises a blank slate waiting to be filled, not an abundant collection of colorful matter crying out to be properly organized. The only thing these characters are missing is the knowledge that they're not missing anything: They already have the tools they need to cope with success, loss, and everything in between, but are struggling to learn to use them. That much cannot even be said about Jaeger and Mitchell, whose sublime efforts here show that they could be only another draft or two away from a Sunday in the Park With George they—and our current theatregoing generation—could be proud to call their own.
Spot on the Wall
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