The Wrong Man

C

The first clue that perhaps this was not the right show for me was that I had never heard of Ross Golan (2016 BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year), who wrote the book, music and lyrics for this new musical at MCC Theater. What started as a single song in 2005 about a man unjustly convicted of a murder in Reno has been developed into a concept album, an animated film and now a 90-minute sung-through musical. Since there is no dialogue, one must hang closely on every word of the lyrics to extract the story, a task that I occasionally found difficult. There is little back story or character development. The music itself sounded monotonous to my uneducated ear and the rap-style rhymes were often awkward (e.g. Reno rhymed with Evil). On the plus side, the three lead roles — Duran (Ryan Vasquez; Hamilton), the Sunday alternate for Joshua Henry (Carousel); Marianna (Ciara Renée; Big Fish) and The Man in Black (Anoop Desai on Sundays) — are performed by superb singing actors. They are supported by an ensemble of six whose performance of Travis Wall’s (“So You Think You Can Dance”) exciting choreography is a major strength of the piece. The set by Rachel Hauck (Hadestown) is a mostly empty stage flanked by bleachers on two sides. Chairs and benches are moved around as needed. The musicians are seated at the back of the stage with a plastic shield over the percussion. The main visual element is the lighting design by Betsy Adams (Daphne’s Dive) featuring wall-to-wall rows of colored LED lights that flash in various colors and combinations. Perhaps they are meant to remind us of the bright lights of Reno, but I found them distracting. The monotone costumes by Jennifer Moeller (Sweat) & Kristin Isola (A Walk in the Woods) are in shades of grey. The reason for the repeated donning and doffing of jackets escaped me. Attempting to replicate the magic they worked in Hamilton are director Thomas Kail and music arranger and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire. Most of the people around me seemed to be having a very good time. I envied them. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

NOTE: Once again the possible use of color-blind casting puzzled me. I had assumed that the casting of a black actor as Duran was at least partially intended to illustrate how unfairly blacks are treated by our deeply flawed justice system. The casting of a white actor as his alternate made that theory seem less plausible.