Darkness abounds at the Boiler Room Theatre in Franklin,
where only those most-stooped in their obsession of musical theatre will recall
an obscure musical called “Floyd Collins”. The musical ran a disappointing 25
performances Off-Broadway in 1996, bypassed that year for the media’s darling,
“Rent”, but not forgotten thanks to a well-produced and well-received cast
album. The music and lyrics come from Adam Guettel, of “Light in the Piazza”
fame, and grandson of the great Richard Rogers with book and additional lyrics
by Tina Landau.
The
musical tells the story of a Kentucky cave explorer named Floyd Collins, who
searches for glory in “Sand Cave”, but ends up being trapped for 14 days while
family, friends, mining companies, and the National Guard try to dislodge him.
The
music for “Floyd Collins” is, while not flawless, unquestionably intricate, and
impossible to fully grasp in one listen. I find it almost inevitable to not
compare this musical with the similar “Parade” with music by Jason Robert
Brown. Both include critiques of media sensationalism and tragic deaths. While
Brown’s score is more accessible to the common ear, Collins is much more
rewarding upon frequent listens. The orchestra at the Boiler Room is held
onstage thanks to the intimate accommodations of the theatre, and in true
Guettel fashion contains a heavy amount of strings. The production begins
bravely both musically and dramatically when Floyd enters the Sand Cave and
spends the first fifteen minutes of the show singing of “The Call” of the cave.
Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. The first part of the song is
incredibly catchy, and has well-suited lyrics to match. And the yodeling, I
believe it would be called yodeling, but whatever it is, it is fantastic.
Guettel even effectively reprises it in another standout ballad, the finale,
“How Glory Goes”. While fantastic musically, during “How Glory Goes”, Guettel
falls into another Jason Robert Brown trap: He has a great title, concept, and
base-line melody, but he circles around it with verses and bridges that take
away from the great chorus he has created. Floyd sings the words “How Glory
Goes” one time, and it is so beautiful, I can’t help but want more! Maybe that
was the goal musically, but I hate it. The rest of the songs were fairly
unremarkable, aside from the tuneful, “Lucky” and the tightly harmonized, “Is
That Remarkable”.
I do have some problems with the
book, thank you for asking. The basis of Floyd Collins, unlike most musicals in
the last twenty years is not love, well not romantic love. Lindau seems to
understand that she can’t keep the storyline solely based on a man who’s stuck
in a cave after the first scene: fantastic. So at the beginning she tries to
connect the audience emotionally with the Collins family with forced songs like
“Heart An’ Hand”, but then in the second act she abandons this plan, and the
book slips into an emotional mess.
Her scenes are disjointed,
especially in the second act when she shows the family reaching an emotional
climax, and beginning to fall apart, but then she never returns to them, and
the musical ends. And then you think to yourself, “That was an incredible waste
of time” or maybe, “Who were those people?” or was that just me? Again
paralleling with JRB’s Parade, the writers want us to feel this grand emotion,
but they don’t do enough to relate us to the characters. I felt the most emotion
when Skeets Miller, the reporter who is able to sneak into the cave, and Floyd
spoke together in the cave. They share a beautifully open conversation, where
Lindau uses her most raw dialogue. Had the relationships in the show been
modeled similarly to that one, the whole show would have been more cohesive and
clear. For the opening scene, the logical choice in my opinion would be to start
the narrative with a scene showing Floyd with his family. But, Lindau foregoes
the traditional approach, which in hindsight does allow Floyd’s relationship
with his family to develop through flashbacks and memories, but even though
it’s an admirable method I’m not sure it captures the full essence of emotion
the audience needs to feel the pity for Floyd that the writers are trying to
garner.
In conclusion, “Floyd Collins” is
an excellent entrance onto the musical field for Adam Guettel, and his music is
unlike anything ever attempted on a Broadway stage. His score is performed
admirably by the cast and orchestra at the Boiler Room, and it is certainly
worth the trip.
