Preludes: Theater review by Adam Feldman
One step to surmounting writer’s block, they say, is to give oneself permission to fail. In that sense, Dave Malloy’s Preludes may be considered a positive step. Like his marvelous musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which had the same director and ace design team, the piece is set in czarist Russia, with many anachronistic nods to the present. But whereas Comet had a firm spine in its Tolstoy source material, Preludes feels boneless and blobby: a two-hour mishmash of navel-gazing vignettes about the difficulty of being an artist, scored with snatches of classical music and meandering arioso.
The subject is composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (played jointly by the lanky Gabriel Ebert and the talented pianist Or Matias), who is consulting a hypnotherapist (Eisa Davis, barefoot and aglow) in 1900 to get over the brutal reception of his first symphony three years earlier. But aside from a solo for Sergei’s wife (Nikki M. James), there are few moments of conflict or human connection. Flashes of intelligence notwithstanding, Preludes is largely hermetic and dull. I look forward to whatever Malloy does next.—Adam Feldman
Claire Tow Theater (Off Broadway). By Dave Malloy. Directed by Rachel Chavkin. With ensemble cast. Running time: 2hrs. One pause.
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