Theatre in Review: Floyd Collins (Lincoln Center Theater/Vivian Beaumont Theater)Is Floyd Collins a thrilling piece of lyric theatre or an insoluble problem set to music? Despite some unforgettable passages, I lean toward the latter view. It's an evening of intermittent electricity, occasionally leaping to life before sinking back into a reclining position. It uses the most active of theatrical genres to tell a passive-voice story: Can one really make a musical rooted in futility and stasis? With a title character who, trapped in the first fifteen minutes, is left immobile, waiting to die? As the title character, Jeremy Jordan is put through his paces in his first number, "The Call," riding an elevator that jackknifes up from the stage deck, climbing it, grabbing a rope, and dangling, singing gorgeously all the time. (The business of airborne stars is becoming a trend in musicals written and directed by Tina Landau; see this season's Redwood, in which Idina Menzel spends much of the evening defying gravity.) The sequence is quite the workout, and it ends with Floyd, who has been looking for a cave he can flip into a tourist attraction, stuck underground, one foot pinned by a fallen rock. For the rest of the evening, he is mostly confined to a chaise longue at stage right, patiently waiting for a rescue that will never come. Based on an incident in 1925 Kentucky that became one of the first modern media events, Floyd Collins gazes impassively as this life-or-death situation becomes a carnival: Egged on by wall-to-wall newspaper coverage, thousands of rubberneckers show up, eager to see Floyd rescued, or not. (And you thought reality television was a new idea?) Oddly, neither the book nor Adam Guettel's songs seemingly know what to make of it all. One number, "Is That Remarkable" assembles a pack of newshounds cynically exploiting Floyd's plight, but -- possibly because everyone involved knows the subject has been done to death from The Front Page to Chicago -- the musical isn't interested in satire. Yet, as family, neighbors, and various interlopers gather, fretting, planning, and achieving nothing, the show provides surprisingly little emotional engagement. This is tragedy viewed from a distance, its sidelined hero resembling a butterfly pinned to a board. The show's pulse quickens whenever the music allows, aided by a cast that, with one exception, digs into their characters, often finding gold. Even if the book forgets about Floyd from time to time, Jordan lends him an unshakable dignity. (Facing the possibility that he may lose a limb, he sings, "After this is over, Lord/Will there be a girl for me?/I could try to behave like proper company," and one's heart quietly breaks.) Equally fine is Jason Gotay as Floyd's devoted brother, Homer, holding onto hope but increasingly distracted by offers from film and vaudeville promoters looking to monetize his connection to misfortune; the sibling duet "The Riddle Song" provides the first act with a shiver-inducing finale. Sean Allan Krill is effective as the blustering mining entrepreneur who commandeers the rescue operation with no success. Marc Kudisch is touching as the Collins patriarch, bewildered by his disappointing children, comforted by a solid Jessica Molaskey as his no-nonsense second wife. As the none-too-concerned owner of the land where Floyd is trapped, Wade McCollum capably leads a Greek chorus of kibitzers, fascinated by the hubbub around Floyd but uninterested in helping. ("Well, I sure wouldn't mind having my picture in the paper," he muses, declining to lift a finger.) Taylor Trensch is surprisingly affecting as the cub reporter who, to his horror, launches the media frenzy around Floyd, then puts himself on the line trying to rescue him. The one weak link is Lizzy McAlpine as Floyd's sister, fresh from the asylum and possibly a seer. Possessed of a considerable belt, her acting is deficient; she and Jordan lack the poignant chemistry shared by Christopher Innvar and Theresa McCarthy in the 1996 debut production (also directed by Landau). Alternating between scenes of crowds and confinement, Floyd Collins is a tough show to design; it's a tall order to suggest claustrophobia on the vast Beaumont stage. The scenic collective, dots, which has spent much of the season providing largely neutral spaces, continues that theme here. Providing crucial assistance are Scott Zielinski's lighting, which expands and contracts the stage as needed, and Ruey Horng Sun's projections, which range from fireworks to abstract color compositions. (In one especially striking moment, a festive tableau is slowly drained of color, signaling the dawn of a new reality about Floyd's chances.) Anita Yavich's costumes have the right hardscrabble quality, contrasted with outfits worn by city slickers who invade this obscure patch of Kentucky turf. Dan Moses Schreier's sound design is pleasingly transparent; he also provides an array of effects -- echoes, wind, the shifting of ground -- that make Floyd's predicament feel desperately real. After a first act that struggles to find a focus and a clear point of view, Floyd Collins gathers force as his fate is slowly sealed. (Like the real Floyd, he is confined to his underground prison for fourteen days; think about that.) The climax, "The Dream," is a hallucinated happy ending, quickly replaced by "How Glory Goes," one of Guettel's finest numbers, in which Floyd stares down the end of his life. (The song's lengthy melodic lines and minor harmonies will etch themselves into your consciousness no matter what you think about anything else.) Jordan fills this contemplative aria with the drama of a man looking into the void, finally accepting whatever comes. It's a moment that is likely to haunt you for days. Even in its most powerful passages, however, one is left to wonder why the story of Floyd Collins attracted Guettel and Landau, and what they wanted to say about it. (For contrast, see Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder's blisteringly melodramatic, savagely satiric film, which fictionalizes Floyd's story to stunning effect.) It's a strangely aloof piece, filled with ideas that need more flesh on their bones. In a way, there's something radical, in this moment of American triumphalism running amok, about staging a story in which friendship, family ties, and a can-do belief in technology prove useless in saving a life. Still, the overall effect is muted: One is left with the devastating image of a young man, poleaxed by fate -- but the circus that arises in his wake vanishes without leaving a trace. --David Barbour 
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