Not Quite Seeing What I Wanna See At Signature
It's hard not to want to love See What I Wanna See, the Michael John LaChiusa musical being intimately staged in Signature's Ark theater. You've got an ambitious composer trying to do more than produce commercialized Broadway drivel. You've got jazzy musical moments of sheer pleasure. And you've got Bobby Smith.
And yet, the evening never really comes together.
See What I Wanna See is kind of all over the place, a piece which interweaves three stories with an intersecting theme: objective truth is harder to find than you might think. The theme, though, lends an unnecessary heavy-handedness to the evening, making it feel like LaChiusa is really after something profound beyond entertainment, yet never really getting beyond a fairly simplistic thesis.
What he is offering us is a couple different stories: a brief encounter between two lovers saying goodbye (murderously), a take on the Rashomon story which presents a murder from three points of view, and a tale of a priest's post-9/11 crisis of faith. Each interlude has its own issues.
The lovers' meeting, set to the song "Kesa," suffers from overly flowery and, occasionally, distractingly adult, lyrics (comments about member size are inoffensive, but jarring). A moderately intriguing noir story is brought down by abrupt musical interludes and a cartoonish performance from Matt Pearson as the is-he-or-isn't-he murderer. And while the priest's morality tale is the most emotionally absorbing, as a character he stretches credibility.
And yet, See What I Wanna See still contains satisfying moments. The aforementioned Smith is a pleasure to watch throughout, whether he's stammering his way through his role as a reluctantly participating janitor or tackling heavier subjects as the disillusioned priest. LaChiusa's wandering score is consistently interesting, often bearing little resemblance to traditional musical theater tunes. And Channez McQuay, whose role as the priest's religion-is-the-opiate-of-the-masses aunt, commands attention as she works her way through "The Greatest Practical Joke," a pattering uptempo number where she waxes atheist while alternately making sure her nephew's had enough Italian food.
LaChiusa will show up again on the Signature stage soon; his world premiere Giant bows at the end of the month. There's enough value in See What I Wanna See to justify a second meeting, but with the next one poised to stretch 3.5 hours long (with two intermissions!), he better be worth it.
See What I Wanna See runs through May 31. Tickets are available online.