Coram Boy

Photo by Joan Marcus

Imperial Theater

Not a musical. Not a play, by my standards. A spectacle? A not very spectacular spectacle, to be exact. This is Coram Boy which has somehow found a ship and sailed over from London to New York. And, I definitely did not like it. But, let me tell you why.

This is a story about the "Coram man" who takes babies away from mothers not yet ready to be mothers. Instead of bringing them to the Coram orphanage as he promised and collected a hefty sum of money to do, he murders them. Set against this are two young aspiring musicians from different lots in life, one on his way to becoming a great landowner, the other finding his way out of manual labor for the accomplished life of a musician. The great landowner unknowingly and unwittingly gets "into trouble" with a girl. And, when his father takes music away from him he leaves home never to be seen again...until Act II.

In Act II we find his semi-grown son magically brought to the orphanage by the Coram man's idiot son. A miracle of sorts occurs when the landowner's son is apprenticed to his unknown now musician father. And, the landowner's son's friend is apprenticed at the same time to the Coram man, now a wealthy man who sells the children into fates worse than death. At the end, all the right people find one another and the Coram man is exposed and will be put out of business.

It's a gruesome story. Watching the play is like walking through a terrible haunted house at Halloween where you are just watching what people have worked very hard to make look scary but comes off as just above camp. Never mind that the whole "play" is accompanied by tons and tons of music by none other than George Frideric Handel. Reading the press, you would think that the people who put this show on wrote the music themselves. Never mind that they didn't even take the time to research the fact that Messiah was never performed at Christmas until after Handel's death (which is where they place it) instead of at Easter which is the holiday that it was first associated with. Never mind that they cast someone as Handel and make it seem like he is already canonized in history, even though he is supposed to be current with the time of the play. He was well-known in his time, but not dead, gone and musically canonized.

Leaving the theater I got the sense I was alone in not liking this theater event. I was perplexed at what others saw and I missed. I think they saw a spectacle, expected a spectacle and felt satisfied with what they received. I feel that spectacles should be grounded in the spectacular, in real talent, in story, in amazing or daring acts. I felt cheated, not satisfied.

First, this event (sorry, I just can't call it a play) failed to pass two very basic tests that I run on Broadway shows. I ask whether this play could filter down to community or high school theater and still survive in tact, with less budget and I can only trust less talent. I do not think this passes the test. Any redemptive qualities were based on enormous budget. Without the fancy, awful sets and the relatively decent cast asked to do strange and weird things--without this production it does not survive. Next, I ask whether it would work on an off-Broadway stage where good things happen all the time in New York. No, it could not. Some movies are made for the small screen, some for the big. The same goes for theater. This was made with only one sized stage in mind. It was made for a spectacle-sized stage.

Why would it not survive if moved to another less wealthy venue? Well, first it depends to an extraordinary degree on decent musicians who can make it through all of the superfluous Handel. And, that could go terribly wrong--trust me. Additionally, the human element, the reason we go to the theater, was absent. We want to see hearts torn open, emotions exposed, not babies killed for money. Or, if they must be killed we want to see someone truly weep and make us weep. This lacked the human element and let me tell you why.

Almost all of the characters were complicit in some way in the baby killing. The rich were not sharing their wealth. The rich were producing the problems. The Coram man was obviously complicit. His idiot son was complicit. The maid was complicit. You get the point. But, not one of those characters had more than one side. Not one asked, "What have I done?" and became three-dimensional. The characters were all complicit, but they were quickly pegged as either good or bad and never became fully human. They never had a chance or a hope for change. They were simply cogs in the story, not real characters.

Now, let's talk about the sets for a moment. They were horrid. They were modern set against the Baroque era. Like the Handel and the Baroque and the church setting would not have flown without the MTV generation twist being thrown in there to boot. Handel goes modern goth. What a great idea! Kidding. The stage was meant to look like there was no off-stage. The weird extras changed in the corners into their next stage element or costume and all moved in a creepy way at the same time. The stage was dominated by a green wood turntable, set against darker reds and wood tones on the stage. The turntable spun at relentless speed from five minute plot segment to the next five minute plot segment, as if we could not take in a slow story line. Not to mention, and this was the most distracting bit of all, that every five minutes we had a stomp fest (without rhythm) as children who were in the play had been instructed to run around in chaotic patterns of blocking to get us from one plot segment to the next. It was chaotic, it moved both too slow and too fast and it was awfully loud hearing all the running on to the turntable and the stage and running off. If I had to change one thing (assuming it stays around two days past its opening) I would put some pads on those children's feet or take some of the sound from the wooden beams that keep getting stomped against.

Obviously, don't go. Even if you have free tickets, your time is still worth something. Trust me. If you loved LeStat and you were one of the lucky few to catch one of the few shows before it tanked, you will love this. If you love Handel and empty spectacle and Baroque goth, this one's for you. If you love theater, passionately, ardently and you love human drama and great, original music you have about ninety-nine better ways to spend your evening around town. Run for your life and save your time and/or your money.