Nick's Place

Nova Town

Nicholas Barnard 10/8/2000

Nova Town was an interesting combination of genres. I find trouble fitting it into the mold for either a straight theatre piece, a musical, a band performance, a dance piece, or an astronomy lecture. In performance Nova Town was a successful blending of these different genres.

This unique blending of styles, for me, is a totally new style. I found it invigorating to see all of these areas reinvented into one piece. If I were forced to describe Nova Town to a casual theatre patron, I would call it a convergent piece with the emotional depth of Phantom of the Opera, with the choreography of Cats, and the intellect of Carl Sagan.

Mr. Good's story, while refreshingly vague, broke out of the realistic theatre mold. The story is generally followable, leaving the audience to fill in the intermediate connections in the story. The dialogue at some points became a bit simplistic and cliché, but it served the needs of the characters well.

Nova Town contains a story told at multiple layers, requiring the audience to provide a super-suspension of disbelief. We tend to accept in musicals, the need for spontaneous dance and song, but only when its comes from the characters themselves. The interjection of dance at times was unexpected but quite acceptable. The musical backing, often spoke for the characters, and as such, it would have been more effective, if a greater effort was made to place these pieces as coming either from the character themselves, as internal dialogue, or from a decidedly omniscient narrator.

The acting in Nova Town was generally believable. Most of the character relationships were for the most part believable, but the relationship between Spats and his girlfriend needed to be more natural, it seemed at times forced.

The half of the cast with a traditional acting background seemed more at ease, and in general was more believable. Nate Cooper, who played Spats, seemed at sometimes to be playing the scene more for the comic moment, and not always for the general good of the play or his character. He tended to play Spats broadly, and with the general strokes, as expected from a dancer, but this part also required the nuances of an experienced actor.

Sheila Ramsey's character was in many ways the guiding, mother like cornerstone. The one moment during the play that struck me as decidedly out of character, or at least without reason, was when Officer Brown had just alluded to killing Spats, and Kitty, Ms. Ramsey's character explodes in a loud bellowing anger. This shocked me because this anger seemed to come out of nowhere, without a realistic building of anger. Ms. Ramsey may have been playing the character with an externally repressed building anger, but this did not seem apparent. It should be noted though, that I was in general more attentive and critical of Ms. Ramsey's character for personal reasons, unrelated to Nova Town as a whole.

Ms. Leahy's direction was admirable. I believe the decision to place this piece in the 1920's was quite advantageous. While it could have been placed in the sixties or seventies, setting the piece in the twenties removed it from the comparatively fresh memories of the sixties and seventies, allowing the piece to borrow mood and style from the twenties, but not political baggage. Ms. Leahy, used the stage well, and balanced all of the compositional and esthetic considerations, admirably. The beginning dragged a bit, but I appreciate the necessity of requiring the audience to invest into the piece for the payoff.

Technically Nova Town avoided the burdens of realism, instead providing the dingy, burnt out mood in the minimalist bridge allusion, and the lack of a solid rear drop. The lighting for Nova Town was quite appropriate, setting the mood quickly and effectively. Technically the one glaring error, was the fact that when Kitty drank from the jug, there was no sound, while when Spats did, there was a trickling sound.

The Audience seemed in someways puzzled by Nova Town, but I believe they enjoyed the level of responsibility Nova Town required of them, versus as realistic piece. It garnered a standing ovation, so I must believe that even if the audience lost some comprehension, they enjoyed the visual, scientific and auditory spectacle at least.

As a whole, Nova Town holds much promise for becoming a regional if not national draw. I believe the audience in general is longing for something different, having tired of the forced realism that they have been subjected to for so long on television, movies and the stage. I welcome this entry into that void, and look forward to seeing more pieces like this.