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Keep Ishmael
A New Rock Musical
Book and Lyrics by Mat Smart
Music by Ethan Deppe
Directed by Evan Cabnet
Produced by White Horse Theatre Company
Inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
At The Theatre Building Chicago
1225 W. Belmont
Chicago, IL
Call 773-327-5252, tickets $20
Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 2 hours 10 minutes with intermission
Through September 16, 2006
Keep Ishmael sinks from a valiant attempt to overachieve
White Horse Theatre Company, over the past few years, has mounted revitalized productions of I Sing, Merrily We Roll Along and the terrific, The Cradle Will Rock. This talented troupe has proven that they understand how to mount smart, sure productions of obscure troubled musicals. Their Merrily We Roll Along and last season’s The Cradle Will Rock were among the joys of the non-Equity musical theatre world. Now they venture into uncharted waters with Mat Smart and Ethan Deppe’s rock musical, Keep Ishmael.
Unfortunately, Keep Ishmael doesn’t live up to the high expectations that White Horse has presented with their past shows. Mounting a completely new musical is a far more difficult endeavor that remounting known material. Sometimes a troupe gets so involved in a project that their emotions overtake their critical judgment thus allowing a flawed show to be produced. Keep Ishmael tries too hard to be too many things thus it lacks focus, continuity and consistency. It is part absurdist, part coming of age saga, part parody and part heavy metal rock opera. The book is clichéd ridden as are the inept lyrics as the show tries to be several stories with no cohesive through line to anchor the show. The overwhelming and over amplified heavy metal score lacks melodies and rhythms that seemed to fight the singers instead of underscoring their voices.
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Severe technical problems in the first few numbers hurt any chance for the audience to connect (and understand) the lyrics since none of the eight actor’s microphones were working. Either they were not on or they were set too low, but almost nothing could be heard, much less understood from the opening numbers. The music drowned them out. This is a crucial error since the opening number is the key to a musical since it sets the tone, introduces the characters and establishes the ‘promise’ of the show. I became lost quickly and I never got to care for any of the key characters. What ever happened to tech rehearsals?
Besides the much too loud music (I question the choice of heavy metal music for a musical), Keep Ishmael suffers as a predictable coming of age storyline that can’t make up its mind if it is an absurdist piece, a comical parody or a cutesy, camp satire or a standard musical. It wonders all over the place with some long, slow-paced scenes that lead to several meaningless, unremarkable songs diluted by sound problems.
The story finds four typical suburban 20something’s (with too much inside pokes at Naperville, Illinois that didn’t play well with the Chicago audience) who are so bored with their lives that they get themselves fired from their mundane jobs. They decide to take a road trip to Alaska to find adventure on a fishing boat. We have Izzy (Nick Mills, all charm and smiles) who turned down Q’s (Tawny Newsome) marriage offer. She follows him on his odyssey. A-Train (Jonathan Wagner, the manic excessive lover of Nina (Bridgid Titley) who drugs the others so he can drive to San Diego instead of Alaska to stalk Nina and her whale, Shamu. Starbuck (Casey Campbell), the gay coffee house manager has to be hog-tied to get him on the road trip.
After A-Train confronts Nina and stabs Shamu, all the Napervilleans sign on to a tuna fishing boat out of San Diego to escape the police. A-Train inexplicitly becomes an accented character out of Melville’s Moby Dick who is obsessed with finding the whale who coincidentally escaped when they did from the water show. The show becomes a parody of sailing, whaling yarns filled with shouting. The preposterous story rambles on only interrupted by several mundane songs that didn’t enhance the show much. There is a gay love interest which has become a staple of political correctness in many shows these days. Finally, after the requisite ship wreck and the miraculous saving of the hero, Izzy, the story ends in Naperville. Izzy finds courage inspired by Q, his enigmatic love interest. If my description sounds forced, trust me I’m not too far off.
Keep Ishmael is an uneven, poorly paced, technically flawed show that needs a massive re-write and a re-thinking of its music style. This ship sinks from over ambition and lack of direction. It played like a high school production. I never cared about the key players since they were underdeveloped. Instead of absurdist, the show played as a silly, sophomoric enterprise. White Horse Theatre Company is entitled to a bad show and we’ll forgive them this one as we look forward to their mounting of The Wiz and Evita.
Not Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: August 18, 2006
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