Login / RegisterThe Boy Who Went Outside stays stuck in its head
Written and directed by Conrad Alexandrowicz. A Wild Excursions Performance production at Performance Works on Thursday, May 27. No remaining performances
The Boy Who Went Outside, writer-director Conrad Alexandrowicz’s exploration of the life and work of composer Harry Partch, feels like an illustrated lecture. It’s always ambitious and sometimes clever, but it’s also so academic that I felt like I was back in university.
In the script, a playwright named Lily has been commissioned to write a drama about Confederation, but D’Arcy McGee holds little appeal for her, so she spends her time writing about Partch, who died in 1974.
Speaking directly to the audience, Lily feeds us biographical information: Partch’s parents were missionaries in China; as an adult, he moved 16 times in 15 years. This is all dully declamatory. And other attempts at theatricalization—including a number of staged phone calls—fall flat.
Lily also explains in detail the difference between “equal temperament”, the 12-tone scale we’re all familiar with, and “just intonation”, the 43-tone scale that Partch championed. Other actors emerge to concretize the notion of sonic vibrations by waving a rope up and down, or to show us different types of harmonic relationships by joining hands and spinning in a circle or joining hands and spinning in a spiral. This is instructive rather than theatrical.
Alexandrowicz may be trying to invent a new aesthetic language with this piece, a theatrical response to Partch’s sonic experiments, but the results are only mildly interesting.
That’s largely because the two central characters are so unsympathetic. In this play, Partch insults other artists and potential mentors. He refuses to compromise. Alexandrowicz presents the composer as a misunderstood genius, which he may have been, but he also comes across as a self-defeating curmudgeon. Lily is similarly unyielding. She fails to deliver her Confederation script and she runs out of dough, then she boo-hoos to her mother, who reassures her that her life as an artist is worthwhile. To me, both Partch and Lily look far more self-indulgent than heroic. And Lily’s dwindling bank account yields zero dramatic tension.
Near the end, Alexandrowicz gives us a tearful scene between Lily and her subject, but I didn’t feel prepared for it and didn’t buy it. No other important relationships are developed; Partch’s lovers and other characters merely appear and disappear in a boxcarlike series of cameos.
Linda Quibell plays Lily, which is a good thing, because this actor can convey intelligence just by showing up. Five different performers play Partch, a clear comment on the unknowability of the subject. In a strong cast, Josue Laboucane is particularly playful and engaging as Partch and in a number of other roles.
The composer’s estate refuses to let his music be excerpted, so Lee Gellatly and Patrick Pennefather offer their responses to his sonic legacy. The results are interesting, but being denied the real thing feels like a tease.
The element that works best in the script is its metatheatricality. Having the playwright’s avatar on-stage hardly ever works. Here, however, it feels funny and fresh when an actor breaks a scene to say, “Miss, I don’t feel like I’m a very specific character.”
The script tells us that Partch’s goal was to integrate all elements of the performance experience, but The Boy Who Went Outside stays stuck in its head.
Otherwise, without the music to give it life, the play's interrogation of tuning systems was just one big yawn except for the music nerds in the audience. Frankly, no one outside of music cares about the argument of Just Intonation and Equal Temperament, so it's not important enough to hang dramatic tension on.
What else did the play offer? Not much except some strange incarnations of the 20th Century's most important composers including a darkly violent, madman caricature of normally sweet-natured composer John Cage and a posh take on a very able-bodied Darius Milhaud - a composer who actually spent most of his life in a wheelchair. As an audience member, I couldn't help feeling that the playwright identified so strongly with the "outside" status of Partch that not even the refusal of the Partch's estate to let him use the music was going to stop him from making this play. Big mistake. Without his music to give him life, the theatrical story of a composer is painfully silent and simply not worth telling - even as a lecture. Because lectures on composers are always illustrated with examples of their music.
His writings are another matter however, and he once taught a course on his music and the tuning theory embedded in it, at the University of California, San Diego, in the late 60's. Even then, among the enlightened graduate music students there at the time, he found it emotionally draining to have to grind this out. He had great success at the University of Illinois (1956-1962) in a research capacity of supervising the performances of his great music-theater works, but it is said that when offered an ongoing position there that required teaching academic courses, he bolted.
Music theory and theoretical conversation was not his cup of tea. He stopped at the 11 limit, and mint juleps often mixed about 3 p.m. It was the klang of music that excited him, and imagining musicians getting out on stage as actors, movers, dancers, and singers, having thrown off the incubus of tight coats and tight shoes.
I did notice my staying power was enhanced in this state.
This tale comes from a contemporary composer-friend of Partch's who shared his bed, but only for one evening. While this composer surely can be considered the American Mozart, he was most surely not an authority concerning non-descended testicles. I am sure the night was cold. Check out Gilmore's book for further reading.
Is it possible that this same Danlee Mitchell was responsible for not allowing the producer of The Boy Who Went Outside to use Partch's music in this honorary theatrical festshrift? If so, it wasn't a good choice. If not, I apologize in advance for the insinuation. But I think that whoever owns the rights to Partch's work should participate in further productions of this project. Alexandrowicz is nothing if not enamored by Partch's contributions to our cultural life and it would do Partch's legacy great honor to include examples of his music in this play. Then, perhaps, it could have a life - one that is richly deserved.
1. Mr. Black is, indeed, erroneous in his recollection. Upon Harry Partch's death, his estate and rights transferred to his executor, Mr. Danlee Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell had been Partch's assistant for many years, and Partch had entrusted him with his lifelong creations and materials. There was not only no "long court battle", there was no court contestation at all.
2. As to whether or not Partch's music - in one form or another - should be used in productions such as this, one need only look to the writings and wishes of the creator himself for guidance. Throughout his life, Partch was steadfast in his refusal to excerpt his music. It is well-documented that he turned down opportunities to use his music in movies that would have aided him financially, and he found the concept repugnant. He would never stand for music being used as background to other action, severed from both an intrinsic corporeal direction as well as devoid from the context of the piece itself. One may argue that in being as intransigent as he was in these matters, Partch repeatedly shot himself in the foot, but that was indeed his artistic creed: complete fidelity to the original intent and construct of the work. To treat his music (which is but one facet of most of his mature output) in this manner is to relegate it the status of "yardage goods", to be sold piece-meal for purposes unrelated to it's original intent. In a way, not using his music in a production such as this honors this stance admirably. Partch would, most likely, counsel them to strike out in their own direction, as Mr. Alexandrowicz has.