Theatre in Review: The Total Bent (The Public Theater)

	Vondie Curtis-Hall. Photo: Joan Marcus

"We're not really doing a musical," Stew, the author and co-composer of The Total Bent, told the New York Times the other day. This is not a surprise: In Passing Strange, his previous work of whatever you'd like to call it, Stew took a potshot or two at traditional musical theatre, and at one point in his current offering the show stops dead so he can comment, "That lyric will never make it to Broadway, never!" Well, everyone is entitled to his opinion, even if the joke has worn thin, and it's not as if anyone expects a show by Stew, produced at the Public, to be anything but experimental in nature. After all, the Public has become the official center of innovation for musical theatre, what with, in addition to Passing Strange, Here Lies Love, Fun Home, First Daughter Suite, and a little thing called Hamilton.

But even if you're determined to blaze new trails in the musical theatre form, there are still fundamentals that must be mastered. Musically, The Total Bent compares favorably with Passing Strange; once again Stew and his colleague Heidi Rodewald have come up with a savvy, sexy blend of soul, funk, and jazz, with lyrics that are often devastatingly pointed. From the moment that the great Vondie Curtis Hall steps up to the microphone and insinuatingly croons the show's opening lyrics ("He forgave me my sins/And then we made amends/And you know, that's why, that's why/That's why he's Jesus and you're not, Whitey"), it seems clear that the iconoclastic intelligence that powered Passing Strange is once again operating at full tilt.

Sadly, this musically vital show represents a major step backward in terms of storytelling. The Total Bent's "text" -- Stew doesn't do books -- starts out reasonably well, only to become vaguer and more confusing as it goes on, in the end relying on the songs and a couple of sizzling performances to keep the audience engaged. It's only too appropriate that a show concerned with the appropriation of black music by white culture should star Curtis Hall, of the original cast of Dreamgirls, a musical that explored similar themes. Then again, the actor's presence only serves as a reminder that Dreamgirls confidently tracked the fates of eight principals, while The Total Bent struggles to make sense of its three main characters.

Curtis Hall plays Joe Roy, once a popular evangelist, now sidelined by a sex scandal. He is in the recording studio, trying to make an album using songs written by his son, Marty. We are in Montgomery, Alabama ("Bluntgomery" in the text) in the early '60s and Marty is trying to reinvent his father's career with songs of social significance. It's an uphill battle, however, since Joe Roy resists having his talent put to such political purposes. Instead, he sings: "Shut up!/And get back on the bus/And take a back seat with a smile/Shut up!/And stop makin' a fuss/And suffer your oppression with style."

Father and son are at loggerheads and, worse, Marty can't take over Joe Roy's microphone to sing for himself. Enter Byron Blackwell, an English "producer" -- really more of a con man -- who first aims to make a star of Marty, then later switches his attention to Joe Roy. In the meanwhile, Marty restyles himself as glamorous figure -- think Prince or Michael Jackson -- who takes London by storm with his highly sexualized -- but, I think, still Christian -- act. His new stardom has a devastating effect on Joe Roy, who is back to preaching on television and now seems painfully aware that the world is passing him by.

Anyway, that's what happens, as far as I can tell; somewhere around the halfway point, The Total Bent becomes little more than a song cycle, leaving us to puzzle out what is happening on stage. Interestingly, given its determinedly ironic point of view, especially regarding the identities one assumes in performance, the show never stops to consider that Marty -- who is almost assuredly gay -- has merely exchanged one mask for another in switching from his previously semi-closeted persona to his homme fatale image. In one confrontation with Joe Roy, Marty makes reference to his bisexuality, which made me want to say, Girlfriend, please: who are you fooling? It also seems strange that Marty morphs into the kind of performer more likely to succeed in the 1970s, many years after the time frame of The Total Bent.

As long as Stew makes room for dialogue, there are some memorably salty exchanges, such as Joe Roy's scathing assessment of the civil rights crowd as "that invading army of uppity northern niggas, black Quaker faggots, poet-preachers, meddlin' New York Jews, and they bus boycotts messin' air-thang up." And the lyrics also bristle with spiky wit; Marty sings, "I've got a Bible back at home, baby/next to some thing by this cat called Genet/And in their way both of them own me/Kinda sad but true/I wanna bring the wrong one to church one day." The music consistently insinuates itself into your head, wrapping itself around the words, creating a deep indigo mood that keeps the house rocking, even when one hasn't the faintest idea where the action is headed.

Curtis Hall, a performer gifted with enormous presence, adds a hint of brimstone to his portrayal of Joe Roy, retaining an authoritative quality even when facing the possibility of being marginalized by his own offspring; after all these years, his singing is still sensational. Given the opportunity to blossom in full audience view, Ato Blankson-Wood makes Marty into the kind of star who is driven to seduce the audience; his singing all but blows out the ceiling separating the Public's Anspacher Theater from Martinson Hall. These two actors help to give shape and definition to the father-son conflict, even when the script seems hopelessly muddled. David Cale is solid as Byron, who, at least for a while, seems to have a yen for Marty -- one of many points brought up only to be dropped without resolution.

Joanna Settle's direction emphasizes the star's scintillating vocal performances, otherwise maintaining a tight pace that allows Stew, his fellow musicians, and a couple of supporting characters to step in and out of the action in rapid-fire fashion. Andrew Lieberman's recording-studio setting is an evocative piece of work that is easily transformed into a theatre by the addition of a couple of stage decks. Thom Weaver's lighting works a heavily saturated palette to highly theatrical effect. Gabriel Berry's costumes draw strong contrasts between the characters -- Joe Roy's brightly colored suits and Byron's three-piece plaid ensembles, for example -- and also chart Marty's transformation in acutely observed fashion. The sound design by Obadiah Eaves and Sten Severson is loud, of course, but largely intelligible.

If only the text were more intelligible. Stew remains a gifted musician with something to say, but, as of now, he is still looking for a totally coherent way of saying it. When his characters stop singing, they become distressingly tongue-tied. -- David Barbour