THE NIGHT HART CRANE KISSED ME by the company (Spindrift). Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. July 8 at 1:45 pm, July 9 at 10:15 pm, July 11 at 2:30 pm, July 12 at 5:15 pm, July 13 at 4 pm, July 15 at 7:30 pm. See listing. Rating: NN
This ill-conceived homage to American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) is a confusing collage of theatrical techniques and subject matter.
The shows greatest mistake is to assume that its audience is already familiar with Crane and his life. If you know that Crane was travelling by steamship with Peggy Cowley (Julia Porter), his only known heterosexual partner, but propositioned a sailor (Chai Lavie), was beaten up and committed suicide by throwing himself overboard, you will at least have a thread to help make some sense of the onstage antics.
The shows main setting is the ships cabaret with the magnetic Shawn DeSouza-Coelho as the lascivious emcee. Yet flashbacks, sudden instrumental interludes, chats with the audience, boxing, a magic trick, karaoke, recitations of Cranes poems, excerpts from letters to and from him and memories from the actors’ own lives are so mixed up together that they obscure more than illuminate the poets life and work.
