Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – In TRAVELS, James Harrison Monaco pushes the boundaries of music theater and storytelling

• By drediman
• April 4, 2024
• No Comments

Earlier this week, Ars Nova’s production of Travels by James Harrison Monaco opened Off-Broadway at the company’s cozy Hell’s Kitchen home base (for a while, the company was mounting shows at the historic Greenwich House Theater). Ars Nova has had a long history of mounting out-of-the-box presentations that engage theater audiences in new and often exciting ways (a prime example would be Dave Malloy’s singular Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which made it all the way to the Great White Way). I’m happy to report that Monaco’s storytelling-driven Travels — a curious musical travelogue based on true events that straddles concept album and the ancient prismatic storytelling traditions of the likes of One Thousand and One Nights — is no exception.

The last time I encountered Monaco in a full theatrical production was in the 2020 Bushwick Starr production of The Conversationalists, in which he operated as one of the two members of the storytelling outfit known as “James and Jerome”, sharing the creative spotlight with longtime collaborator Jerome Ellis (Ellis has since departed New York and turned his focus to other artistic pursuits). In Travels, Monaco has collaborated with a tightly-knit ensemble of talented performers to develop a tapestry of nuanced, frequently interconnected stories (there are eight of them in total). If anything, this latest offering feels more cohesive and unified than anything he’s produced in the past — making for a more satisfying evening than simply sitting through a collection of independent tales — all the while emphasizing that individual stories cannot do justice to the fullness of our complexities. Central to the endeavor is the incorporation of music and electronic beats into the proceedings, resulting in a hard-to-classify piece that transcends both storytelling and music theater — pushing the boundaries of both genres.

The production has been directed by Andrew Scoville, who gives Travels a deceptively simple presentation on an essentially bare stage. But in concert with some striking sound, lighting, and projection/video design, the nicely calibrated staging brims with possibility and vitality, compelling audiences to fill in the gaps with their collective imagination. As ever, Monaco is a vivid, exuberant storyteller. Even though singing is not among his strongest suits, his commitment to and enthusiasm for his craft carries him through. His fellow storytellers are more deftly inclined to music-making, however. Together, they articulate each “track” — often in multiple languages — with startling clarity and force, layering their own sense of selves in their conveyance of Monaco’s compelling web of first person and embedded narratives.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

TRAVELS
Off-Broadway, Musical
Ars Nova
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 20