July 28-August 3, 2005

theater

Howling at the Moon

by David Anthony Fox

Icarus died by flying toward the sun. Now Frank Wildhorn proves it's possible to crash and burn with similar pretension by Waiting for the Moon.

In his previous shows, composer Wildhorn routinely drained literary works (Jekyll and Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Dracula) of their art. Still, to transform Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald — those fabulously, tragically talented embodiments of the Jazz Age — into a pair of schmaltzy vulgarians? That takes a special touch.

OK. Let's be fair. The Fitzgeralds aren't entirely blameless. Zelda was clutchy, self-absorbed and greedy. Ditto Scott. They cheated on each other, too. But he was also one of America's greatest prose stylists, with peerless insight into the lost souls of the 1920s. Zelda had artistic gifts — she wrote and painted — and was a legendary charmer.

Leave it to Wildhorn and his Moon minions to take the low road every time. So the interminable first act goes something like this: First, we see a courtship rife with cliches. Zelda escapes her smothering mother, and Scott wins her over at an outdoor cotillion dripping with willow boughs. Fitzgerald, that most elegant of writers, expresses himself here in lyrics like "Am I just dreaming or could this be real?" and rhymes like "Under Wonderland." Next, we watch the couple as they relentlessly pursue success and its perks. "I've Got Things to Say," sings Scott. "We Have Money to Burn," gloat Scott and Zelda. Guess what happens? They tire of each other. (No surprise here. The audience has been fed up with them for hours.)

Astonishingly, there has been virtually nothing about Scott's creative process. He and Zelda might as well be any pair of self-absorbed lovers.

A serviceable score might offer compensation, but again, we're in Wildhorn land. There are more numbers than I could list — all of them generic, not a single one memorable. Hardly a nod is made to the feisty sound world of the era. Indeed, several of the songs have an inapposite 1950s quality, and every production number looks like something from a TV variety show.

By Act II, even the music dried up. Perhaps it's a gesture to the increasingly serious tone, as Scott and Zelda degenerate. (He drinks; she does too, and also goes crazy.) But Jack Murphy's book is no better than Wildhorn's score. The Fitzgeralds remain cartoon figures.

Poor Jarrod Emick (Scott) and Lauren Kennedy (Zelda), on whose fragile shoulders this bomb is dropped! Emick sings and acts with dignity, but everything about him (American Idol vocal inflections, gym-and-tanning-booth good looks) is contemporary. Kennedy has all the same problems and none of Emick's virtues, and her many high-flying, climactic vocal phrases make her sound like an air raid siren.

Trust me, there's no waiting for this Moon. From start to finish, the show is sheer lunacy.

WAITING FOR THE MOON Through July 31, Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center, 130 Tomlinson Mill Road, Marlton, N.J., 856-983-3366