Theater Review: A muddled Hans Christian Anderson features a fine singer

Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real and Imagined

Written by Eve Wolf

Directed by Donald T Sanders

Starring Jimmy Ray Bennett and Daniel Moody

Ensemble for the Romantic Century

The Duke on 42^nd Street, Manhattan

May 4, 2019

Eve Wolf has become known for creating plays based on the lives of famous people, using integrated media and music to give a sense of their lives and eras. There were raves in New York about her past biodramas about Tchaikovsky, van Gogh, Dreyfuss, and (Russian poet) Anna Akhmatova. These subjects all had in common a mix of great talent with personal stories placing societal, medical, sexual, or other limitations on their genius. Wolf’s company, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century, therefore seems to specialize in the tragic, doomed, romantic genius. Hence to the famed Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). As detailed in excellent program notes by musicologist James Melo, Anderson had a complex for overstepping his abilities and stalking famed dancers, playwrights, and others, trying to impress them with his varied talents, always getting shot down in the process. Likewise, he sought the unobtainable in his personal life. Andersen was likely bisexual or gay, and pined after an unavailable friend (Edvard) his whole life, eventually being buried next to him and his wife, only to become alone again when Edvard’s family had the couple disinterred and buried elsewhere. So Andersen’s story is indeed fascinating—that of a literary genius whose world-renowned skills were not enough to overcome his personal frustrations.

Would that this muddled play have captured more of this fascinating story! Like most of Ms. Wolf’s work, this play was a selective traverse of the writer’s life, interposed with snippets of his works (e.g. The Princess and the Pea) and with music (two pianos and a fine countertenor, Daniel Moody), puppetry, percussion, and lighting effects. If done well this mix could have led to a mood of whimsy and fantasy aligned with Andersen’s work. Here, the poor execution and wooden writing made for a dis-integrated goulash (if Danes cooked that sort of thing) that had some fine ingredients but failed to cohere as a dish. Most disappointing was that, of all the fascinating aspects of Andersen’s life to select, the author chose mostly predictable moments that you would see in your own family picture album—graduations, births, etc. These details are important to the family, but rarely to anyone else. Oddly, despite the obvious life events portrayed, there were times when events were portrayed without adequate background or preparation, as if we all know Andersen’s life story in advance. Andersen’s tortured, frustrated longing for the unavailable Edvard was neither written well nor shown convincingly by actor Jimmy Ray Bennett, who never seemed to center on how he was portraying the central character. While the gorgeous singing of Mr. Moody would be an apt object of Andersen’s love, the writer and director gave the actor-countertenor no real emotive personality to portray as an actor, wasting a fine opportunity. Overall, this show was one of the most poorly written and disorganized biographical sketches I have seen.

The other multimedia elements fared better, but were still inconsistent. The puppetry featured creations that were highly disparate, ranging from Muppet-like (think Bert and Ernie) to antique European, without any real rationale for the style differences. The puppetry itself, done by black-garbed puppeteers, was mediocre and failed to evoke the needed fantasy. While Mr. Moody’s clear, expressive countertenor voice (the highlight of the show) was a treat, I was uncertain why he was singing particular pieces when he did. As he sang, was he a Greek chorus? Was he Edvard, the unavailable love interest? It was utterly unclear, and somewhat confusing, to have him alternate between a real character (Edvard) and a vague singer-of-songs commenting obliquely on the events of the play. His memorably ornamented performance of the frozen god’s aria “What Power art Thou” from Purcell’s The Fairy Queene was superb, but how did an aria of a snow-god singing about how he was frozen and cold fit into the play? The good duo pianists played lots of Benjamin Britten, perhaps a logical choice given that composer’s closeted homosexuality (paralleling Andersen), but the excerpts chosen were rarely evocative of the text of the play, especially the percussive and contrapuntal Burlesca from his op. 23 (1)—a cool piece, but puzzling in context. Perhaps the one time all night that I saw music and drama align was in Mr. Moody’s beautiful final aria “Sure on this Shining Night”, ending:

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder

wandr’ing far alone

Of shadows on the stars

This song nicely evoked the angst of this romantic, frustrated, solitary writer of children’s stories. I wish more thought had gone into the other musical selections, or that the director had made some effort to connect the dots. There were moments of effective offstage percussion and some nice lighting touches, but these were a case of too little, too late. Overall this production was a missed opportunity, and a poor execution of an interesting concept.