Flawed Collins: How Glory Kinda Goes
A Critwink from the Intelligent Showmosexual
*In case you missed it: “critwinks” are mini-reviews turned out in a single draft
As an adolescent showmosexual in the 1990s, before the internet had developed into the vast resource it is today, I kept a scrapbook of theatre reviews, news articles, and advertisements that I thought I might later want to reference. (I also put a picture of Annie Potts and me outside The Vagina Monologues in the souvenir picture frame from my junior prom, but that's less relevant.) Today, my scrapbook is an amusing curiosity literally overflowing with clippings that are headscratchers. What future use did I think I would have for a gossip item about Sarah Jessica Parker's negotiations to take over from Calista Flockhart in an extension of Neil LaBute's Bash off-Broadway? (Never happened…I guess a little show called Sex and the City started making more demands on her time.) Why did I feel a need to preserve the first ad for The Life that touted Lillias White and Chuck Cooper as Tony winners, as if they were dear friends of mine whose special moment I would want to look back on and remember?
But every now and then, I'll come across something that feels significant, something that truly stayed with me. Often, it's a passage from a review that affected the way I approach and/or evaluate theatre—sometimes so deeply that it takes rereading the clipping for me to remember that it actually introduced me to whatever philosophy it imparted. One such nugget came in Vincent Canby's NY Times review of the widely lambasted stage adaptation of Victor/Victoria. After enumerating a litany of flaws in Blake Edwards's direction, Canby wrote, "Mr. Edwards does know one thing: if the choice is between having a good first act or a good second act, choose the latter." Believe it or not, thirty years after first reading that sentence, I'm still contemplating whether I agree with it, why it may or may not be true, and the value that may be gained or sacrificed by rejecting or adhering to it.
No recent theatergoing experience has made me think more of Canby's remark, or seemingly confirmed it as an indisputable axiom, than Lincoln Center's current revival of Floyd Collins. Despite being transformed into a highbrow cult classic by its original cast recording, this true story of a cave explorer who becomes trapped underground is rarely produced…and I spent a lot of the first act thinking, "I can see why." Much of what precedes intermission somehow manages to be stressful but tedious. The story feels small, and the characters feel broadly drawn. The music is complex yet devoid of variety.
Then, something shifts in act two. As Floyd's situation becomes more dire and public interest transforms it into a media circus, we become more interested in the people that his crisis involves, and more aware of its larger implications around voyeurism, culpability and responsibility, ambition, and class. By the time Floyd sings the musical's best and final song, "How Glory Goes," tears were streaming down my face and I was reminded…well…not just of the uniquely powerful catharsis musicals can provide, but also Canby's theory about the importance of a good second act.
The inconsistencies in the material, which features music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, are reflected in, and occasionally exacerbated by, director and book writer Tina Landau's revival, especially in her casting. Most representative of the piece's highs are the performances of Jeremy Jordan in the title role, and Taylor Trensch as Skeets Miller, the green reporter who breaks Floyd's story before becoming unexpectedly invested in his rescue. Both actors have spent years doing solid work on New York stages, and both are delivering career-best performances. Jordan's previous work has been most memorable for his otherworldly vocals, which he applies with equal brilliance to both the buoyant and elegiac extremes of Guettel's score, but he has never sculpted as dramatic or effective of a character arc as he does here. His boyish exuberance in the beginning of the piece invites us to transfer American optimism and entrepreneurship onto Floyd, and the sincerity of his decline grounds the tragedy in reality. Trensch—who has delighted in some of the weirdest, most inspired clowning on Broadway (particularly in Hello, Dolly!)—brings his token eccentricities to his portrayal of Miller, but also profound earnestness and feeling. The humanity of their work allows the musical to take on allegorical significance. Marc Kudisch and Sean Allan Krill bring the same integrity, intelligence, and craftsmanship to their smaller roles that they've brought to their Tony nominated turns as leading men, reminding us why they've deserved such long and varied careers.
Unfortunately, Jason Gotay and Lizzy McAlpine do not rise to the same level in the pivotal roles of Floyd's brother and sister. Gotay sounds nice enough to understand why a music director might have wanted to cast him, or at least call him back, but his acting lacks depth and distinctiveness. He is, quite simply, boring. A major reason why much of act one feels dramatically inert is its focus on his character. But at least he carries himself with generic professionalism, which can't be said of McAlpine who's frequently so amateurish, it's cringeworthy. She has a gorgeous voice, which accounts for her success as a singer-songwriter on social media, but it is not sufficient justification for her presence in a complex role on Broadway. Sure, often when she sang, I couldn't help but be moved by the beauty of her instrument…but that's all there was. Nothing was happening behind her eyes or in her guts. When she has to deliver dialogue, it's downright embarrassing, reminiscent of a high school junior who's been thrown a few lines by the drama teacher because she's paid her dues in the chorus since middle school (and even did tech that one time in sixth grade). She is the production's greatest liability, and severely undermines the text's flirtation with fate and spirituality.
It's novel that Landau has also been represented on Broadway this season with Redwood, another musical with nature on its mind that she directed and co-wrote. Floyd Collins is infinitely superior material staged with stark sparsity; Redwood is shockingly bad writing with elaborate and dazzling visuals. I've heard many theatergoers wish that Floyd Collins had more of what Redwood is offering in terms of physical production, but it literally takes place in Barren County, Kentucky. The vast emptiness of the space feels intentional, feeding into Floyd and the entire company's hunger for more even as it contrasts with the narrow confines of where he's trapped.
I believe that every article I've ever read about Guettel makes a point of mentioning that he is the grandson of Richard Rodgers, essentially triggering a reflexive comparison of their work and an impossible standard for the younger composer to meet. Floyd Collins is not as well constructed or fully realized as the vast majority of musicals Guettel's grandfather wrote with Oscar Hammerstein II, but it feels similarly ambitious; and, in its most powerful moments, most notably Jordan's delivery of "How Glory Goes," it even feels as beautiful. A glimpse of that beauty even in only one of life’s acts is worth navigating the rockiness of the rest of the caves.
the not-a-bottom line
🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)
a guide to ticket-buying
With my TDF membership, I paid $63 for Orch D504 on a Tuesday night. Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater is one of Broadway's only "thrust" spaces, meaning it's about three-quarters in the round. D504 was in the rightmost section, which of course isn't ideal for sightlines, but the view was decent and felt reasonable for the price-point.
a key to the pictures
In 2003, much of the original off-Broadway cast participated in a reunion concert at Playwrights Horizons, including Jason Daniely, Martin Moran, and Cass Morgan. The title role was played by "tour Floyd" Romaine Fruge. A slime tutorial can be found on YouTube.
The revival is getting a cast recording, but while we wait for Jeremy Jordan's version of "How Glory Goes," it's worth relishing those of Audra McDonald, Kelli O'Hara, and "original Floyd" Christopher Innvar.
Fun fact: the real Floyd Collins's nephews built my grandparents' garage and subsequently stole stuff from them. (When my grandmother learned that there was a musical about Floyd, she got mad and huffed, "Ugh! Them Collinses!") It's a show that I admire on an intellectual level but have never been able to actually warm to because I'm too close to the real world of the source material and the show sounds nothing like that world to me. It's a really strange sensation.