Going Off Road

Mad Beat Hip & Gone – Promethean Theatre Ensemble

I have a confession to make. I have never read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It didn’t make it into a reading list in high school or college, and I think that’s the window for reading it. After that, it’s just never going to float to the top of my perpetually lengthy To Read list. Like Mark Twain once said, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read.

I’m getting that out of the way now because I think it’s an important disclosure before I begin discussing Promethean Ensemble’s latest production, Steven Dietz’ Mad Beat Hip & Gone. It is the story of two young men, Danny and Richie setting out on the road to find what they are looking for, whatever that is, and Honey, a woman retracing her mother’s footsteps across the country. Both sets of journeys end up shadowing Kerouac on the journey that forms the basis for his classic novel. And I can only think to say it this way: I didn’t get it. The story of a young man who learns his father is not who he thinks he was or a woman coming to terms with loss are staples of storytelling for a reason. But paired with the road story and the look at 50s Americana and, especially toward the end of the show, the Kerouac-style stream of consciousness monologues, the stories got lost. I’ve said this before about other shows, and it applies here. A choice to upset the chronology or staging or setting of a narrative has to do more than make a change for change’s sake. It has to do or show me something that a traditional staging of a story can’t, and I just don’t think that happened here.

The reason I put my ‘confession’ at the top is I want to balance what I just said by reminding myself that just because I don’t connect to or respond to something, that’s not necessarily the show’s fault. To someone better versed in Kerouac, they could find connections and resonance that I do not. Heaven knows, as a musical theater fan, I know most shows live and die by how well they can evoke some pretty esoteric source material. That said, I will balance my balancing by saying I think a show has to be able to stand alone and even if it doesn’t excite the same things in someone not familiar with the inspirational work, it still has to function as its own piece. It’s great when a show rewards a die-hard fan, but that can’t come at the expense of the other people in the audience.

All of my questions and concerns aside, the cast is very good. The standout for me was Elaine Carlson as Danny’s mother, Mrs. Ferguson. She brings the perfect balance of wry humor and anger and resignation and cautious optimism that are what we have left when our first youthful dreams don’t turn out the way we think they will.

In the end, I think the show gets lost in its source material rather than finding something new to say about either its characters or Kerouac. I fully acknowledge that if I were more familiar with or felt more of a connection to Kerouac or that era generally I might feel differently, but like I said, I think a work, even one steeped in and meant as an homage to another, has to stand on its own. The talented and charming cast gives it their all, but their work gets lost in the stream.

Somewhat Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented April 27-June 1 by Promethean Theatre Ensemble at The Edge Theater Off Broadway, 1133 W Catalpa Ave. , Chicago.

Tickets are available by visiting www.promeatheantheatre.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.