Beau Fib

by Myles Nye

music by John Graney and Andy Hentz

L.A. Theatre Ensemble @ Powerhouse Theatre - November 14, 2009

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

The L.A. Theatre Ensemble deserves a lot of credit for committing to new voices and young actors – and for tackling theatrical pieces that dare for substance and eschew obvious restagings or cheap crowd-pleasers.  Having pulled off some pretty heavy numbers – like the Red Alert-recommended Wounded and The Island – it’s understandable that they’d want to mix in some whimsy.  Enter Beau Fib, an R-rated musical inspired in some order by Tom Waits, The Wizard of Oz, Big Fish and the timeless tradition of tall tales.  Unfortunately, this particular flight of fancy makes a crash landing.

Operating from what sometimes seems to be a first draft by playwright Myles Nye, the motley cast of Beau Fib ping-pongs through scenes without much discernible direction.  At the center of the story is the titular character, a scamp with an aversion to the truth and a fairly boring mystery hanging over his head:  why did he put on his special occasion shoes this morning?  As he hunts for an answer, he picks up a few other not-so-merry men, receives a death threat from a clown, and travels to hell to retrieve a toe.  A lot of the principals – including Nye and director Andy Goldblatt – spend time in the improv world, where one of the cardinal rules is to always say “Yes” to an idea, no matter how wild, unconnected or half-baked.  In the theatre, though, just as in the real world, sometimes it’s a good idea to say “No” – or at least to ask “Why?”

Plenty of lovable liars and rogues have commanded the stage; Beau Fib (Christopher Young) isn’t one of them.  He also isn’t particularly unlikable.  Despite the script’s insinuations, he doesn’t seem to be particularly good at lying.  Or storytelling.  Or singing.  He’s just sort of there, talking quickly, and frequently breaking the fourth wall to underscore a groan-inducing pun.  He spends an early scene trading ten-cent words with the mysterious object of his affection, the requisite feminine cipher Perdu (Catherine Talton), but then either the protagonist or the playwright misplaces the thesaurus and no one talks quite like that again – which is indicative of the consistency issues that plague Beau Fib.  The rest of the repartee is limited to things like a solider mentioning psychological warfare just to have Beau Fib counter that he doesn’t think psychological war is fair.  See what he did there?  Or a parish priest who says he’s apt to perish.  Et cetera and, unfortunately, ad nauseum.

Beau Fib’s companions provide some comic relief: there’s the disillusioned alcoholic priest Father Christmas (energetically painted in broad strokes by Chris Sheets), good girl gone hooker Honey (Cat Davis) and, best of all, the earnest and lovestruck young soldier Mike (Scott Palmason, who’s also the best singer in the cast).  The songs are mostly forgettable, often substituting energy and speed for memorable melody and overrelying on profanity for comedy, but Davis gets a bawdy showpiece in “Filthy Little Whore,” and Palmason wins a big laugh in an unexpected place in “And It’s Goodbye.”  Soldier Mike is given one of the few coherent arcs in the script, and Palmason plays him as a character, not just a concept or comedic device.  In a separate part of the play, Perdu warns Beau Fib that she is no mere metaphor, either, recalling Kate Winslet’s similar warning in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  But a metaphor, of course, is precisely the purpose of Perdu, and it’s an unfocused one at that.

What’s it all mean?  In the world of Beau Fib, you invent your own answers when the real ones fail or fade.  Yet our young rapscallion doesn’t make this seem like a very good way to spend a day, even vicariously.  After two and a half hours (!) of lies and loose ends, I found myself thinking not of Tom Waits but of John Lennon.  Next time around, just gimme some truth.