STAGE REVIEW : ‘Dunbar’: Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

The musical “Dunbar” has been workshopped on and off for seven years. Perhaps that is longer than is good for the health of any show. As seen in a bare-bones production at the Cast Theatre, “Dunbar” appears to be suffering from a multiple-personality breakdown.

First, the title. It is derived chiefly from the fact that the show’s lyrics consist entirely (and, one assumes, faithfully) of selected poems by the graceful turn-of-the-century African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, set to music here by composer Charles Neuschwanger.

There are insistent references to Dunbar in the book by Jim Holmes, but the book’s connection to the poet is at best marginal. He makes just two brief appearances in this show--charismatic ones as performed and sung by the elegant Harry Waters Jr., but dragged in by the coattails, nonetheless.

This is, finally, a musical that wants to be poetry, poetry that wants to be opera, opera that, harsh as it may sound, is not much more than extended soap opera.

This could be said, with a degree of logic, of most operatic libretti. But this tale of rival theater/literary critics, with a distressed damsel caught between them, is a fairly humdrum, humorless black-white affair (no pun intended).

The good guy, Jordan Paine (Ben Bottoms), is a champion of the poet Dunbar and of racial equality, even if he is a reluctant and often clumsy defender of the cause. The bad guy, Edward Cyrus (played by book-writer/director Jim Holmes), is a prototypical villain: invidious, mean-spirited, bigoted and, to make matters about as bad as they can get, married to a woman Paine had once loved and lost.

This woman, Ada Cyrus (Teresa Parente), carries--oops--a dark secret that is revealed in the course of events. The trouble is that neither its revelation, nor the events leading up to it, are especially plausible. (Clue: They owe something to Oscar Hammerstein’s book for “Show Boat.”) The finale is in the purest tradition of Victorian melodrama. “Gaslight,” if anything, comes to mind.

Not that any of this is intentional. Far from it, no doubt. But it is the odd matching of styles and elements, along with an awkward and self-important subplot involving an African-American reverend (Milton Clark Jr.), his congregation and their fight for unsegregated classrooms, that makes “Dunbar” such an oddity.

Charles Neuschwanger’s complex, ambitious score is frequently atonal and exacting to sing (the performers hesitate in spots but eventually get through it). It creates madrigals, draws from gospel and remains strangely superimposed on the story.

This sense of detachment is partly due to the Dunbar lyrics that, since they predate the stitched-together book, relate to it forcibly, as opposed to naturally.

Bottoms’ Paine is seductively bumbling: a man who is adapting badly to that new-fangled invention, the telephone, and who would rather be left alone than fight the battles he’s pushed into fighting. He also sings like an angel.

Talya Ferro makes the best of an unfinished role as a woman in search of her daughter, and Parente sings well as the sketchily drawn Ada Cyrus.

Terrah is appealing as Paine’s feisty housekeeper and Eric Henderson contributes some tidbits of athletic dancing, choreographed by Smith Wordes.

Most of the other characters are too incomplete, although Vernetta Jenkins does some spirited gospel singing and Monica Calhoun offers warmth and intelligence as a young boy named Nathan. Holmes tries his level best to be dimensional as the villainous Cyrus, but the character, lacking any redeeming features, is mired in stereotype.

So . . . why “Dunbar”? Why the title? Why this show? There may be very good answers, but not readily audible or visible ones. To underscore the mystery, no credit is given for orchestration, musical direction or performance.

To suggest going back to the drawing board seems cruel and unusual punishment.

‘Dunbar,” Cast Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 20. $12; (213) 462-0265. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Carl Ray Bell Jediah

Ben Bottoms Jordan Paine

Ellen Blake Mrs. Billings

Monica Calhoun Nathan

Milton Clark Jr. Rev. Adams

Talya Ferro Melissa Jenkins

Eric Henderson Charlie

Jim Holmes Edward Cyrus

Vernetta Jenkins Hattie

Dan Lawson Jr. John

Teresa Parente Ada Cyrus

Terrah May Rogers

Harry Waters Jr. Paul Laurence Dunbar

A presentation of Diana Gibson for Ted Schmitt’s Cast Theatre, in association with CJ Productions. Associate producer Andy Daley. Director Jim Holmes. Book Jim Holmes. Lyrics Paul Laurence Dunbar. Music Charles Neuschwanger. Sets Susan Gratch, Adrien Jones. Set dresser Sandee Terzis. Lights Ilya Mondlin. Costumes Tom Slotten. Choreographer Smith Wordes. Projection designer/assistant director Jonathan (Yona) Levit. Stage manager Justin Tanner.