Maybe music really can soothe a savage beast.
On Wednesday, I attended the opening of the Civil War musical "Atlanta" at the Geffen Playhouse. It's by Grammy-winning songwriter Marcus Hummon, who's composed hits for the Dixie Chicks, and Adrian Pasdar, a star of the NBC series "Heroes" who happens to be married to the band's lead singer. Wow, what a train wreck. You could come up with about 100 jokes about "Atlanta" going down in flames again. And believe me, during some of the clunkier scenes, co-directed, it seemed, for maximum awkwardness by Pasdar and Geffen artistic director Randall Arney, my unconscious kept churning out zingers. ("Lincoln was right -- a musical divided against itself cannot stand.")
But the kicker is that Hummon's score -- a mix of country, soul and bluegrass that's marred only occasionally by Disney-ish anthems -- has so many arresting moments that savagery eventually turned to sympathy. How could this bumbling, sweet-sounding show, the Geffen's first world premiere musical, rescue itself?
The first thing that occurred to me was that Hummon should package the numbers as a concept album and invite Ken Barnett, Moe Daniels, Leonard Roberts and Merle Dandridge, four of the more vocally captivating cast members, to perform the work as a song cycle. Unfortunately, this sort of quasi-dramatic offering usually translates into a real snoozer.
The music needs a context. Plus, there's some vibrant dramatic potential in Hummon and Pasdar's book that would be a shame to lose. Trouble is, no play doctor is going to be able to fix the show. This is a job for a genuine playwright, who'd basically have to start from scratch, the writing equivalent of a gut renovation.
Still, the setup is inspiring. Paul (Barnett), a Yankee fighter, is stuck behind enemy lines in the hills of Allatoona, Ga., after killing a Confederate soldier. Even though the Southerners are beating a bloody retreat, this young Northerner is forced to wear his enemy's uniform to survive the treacherous battlefield.
Two complications arise -- one romantic, the other histrionic. On the person of the fallen soldier, Paul comes upon a stash of love letters from a woman named Atlanta (JoNell Kennedy). The more he reads, the more his own heart stirs with longing for her -- a tricky problem considering he's just offed her man and knows her only by her fancy penmanship, which is projected, like a greeting card commercial, onto a screen at the back the stage.
