Newsday.com: A smart, edgy trek between Japan and New York

OFF-BROADWAY REVIEW

A smart, edgy trek between Japan and New York

BY LINDA WINER
STAFF WRITER

October 31, 2005

Well, hello again. A dozen years ago, a new voice from musical-theater's future declared itself - fully-formed - with a ravishing, sensual, grown-up chamber piece called "Hello Again." It was the creation of Michael John LaChiusa, the same gifted triple-threat composer, lyricist and author whose droll and delightfully odd "First Lady Suite" had introduced him that same year as part of George C. Wolfe's debut season as head of the Public Theater.

A couple of high-profile projects - the tediously high-minded "Marie Christine" and the erratically overproduced "Wild Party" - slipped LaChiusa down the roster of great young hopes for the American musical. Until now.

"See What I Wanna See," which opened last night as part of Oskar Eustis' debut season as head of the Public Theater, is a return to the delicate yet audacious, restrained but explosively original sensibility that made LaChiusa a name we had to learn to spell.

This is a small piece - really a pair of tenuously linked smaller pieces - with enough big-time challenge to have attracted Idina Menzel (in a project too adult for the former green witch's pubescent female "Wicked" fans) and Marc Kudisch (taking a break from scaring tiny children in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang").

Aside from the cheesy title and an unpersuasive twist at the very end, the chamber musical switches tone and stories with smart, often heart-thumping unpredictability. With just five terrific leather-lung actors and minimal sets, director Ted Sperling makes the connection between medieval Japan and Central Park seem as natural as an episode of "Law & Order."

The reference is no joke. For the first act, "R Shomon," LaChiusa uses the short story that inspired the Kurosawa film, "Rashomon," to present five different crime-scene interpretations of a 1951 murder in the park. The second, "Gloryday," takes another story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa to manipulate interpretations of faith a year after what New Yorkers in the park daintily refer to as "the tragedy that hit this city last year."

Each act has a prelude in ancient Japan - established by designer Thomas Lynch with just two long drapes of puckered red silk. The first half begins with Menzel in classic Japanese robes (by ever-imaginative Elizabeth Caitlin Ward), singing a seductively meandering melodic monologue about sex with her lover before she stabs him. The second act starts with Kudisch preparing to kill her. Each gets overheated about the notion, "This is what it's like to be God."

Bam. We're out of exotica and into a police interrogation room. Henry Stram, finally in a project that deserves his everyman versatility, is the janitor who didn't want to get involved. Aaron Lohr is the showboating crook who wants to be the monster "who terrorized New York City in 1951." Mary Testa - with remarkably restrained, witty poignance - is the psychic.

If there were any doubt about Menzel's breadth, forget that now. She slinks through the first half as different sides of a wife who is, or is not raped, while her husband is, or is not murdered. Menzel still has that massive, creamy voice with the steely top. But she can sing softly, and be soft, as both this vamp and the insecure actress in the second act.

The second half has Stram as a priest who lost his faith and, as a furious hoax, pins up flyers that promise a miracle. Kudisch, no longer the delicious rich man in the noir satire, is a disillusioned CPA living in the park.

Through all the moods and stories is LaChiusa's music - less pastiche than a sponge of cultural references processed through a singular sensibility. He resists the lure of pop sentimentality, moving through Japanese woodwinds to third-stream jazz, from '40s swing to classic comic patter and twisted tango. Good to have him back.

SEE WHAT I WANNA SEE. Words and music by Michael John LaChiusa. Directed by Ted Sperling, Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. Tickets: $60. Phone: 212-239-6200.