BWW Reviews: Theatre22's THE HOURS OF LIFE Lacks Focus, Structure and Coherence

Considering the notes in the program say they have been working on Theatre22's World Premiere musical "The Hours of Life" for four years, I can only assume there have been a number of workshops of the piece. But in all that time did no one let the author, Paul Lewis, know that the framework for the show doesn't make sense? And that's just one of the many issues I had with this show that needs so much help I'm not sure it could be worth salvaging.

In this show which seems to take a lot of poetic license with history, we focus on the love affair of Edgar Allan Poe (Brian Pucheu) and fellow poet Sarah Helen Whitman (Meg McLynn) following the death of Poe's wife Virginia (Sara Trowbridge). In the play the two meet due to Whitman's admiration of Poe's writing and eventually become engaged much to the chagrin of Whitman's Mother (Macall Gordon). As a further impediment, Poe is pursued by Maelzel (Michael Ramquist), an inventor who blames Poe for his hard times for uncovering the hoax he perpetrated with his robotic chess playing machine.

The show tends to meander back and forth between the story of Poe and Whitman and the vendetta Maelzel has with Poe making me wonder which story they were trying to tell. Furthermore there is some sort of machinery motif throughout the songs of the show that is somehow supposed to correlate to Poe and Whitman's relationship but for the life of me I couldn't see the connection other than a threadbare one with Maelzel. This lack of structure and good storytelling could be forgiven if the songs in the show were engaging but the lyrics (as well as the dialog of the piece) are so heavy handed and laden with exposition in order to tell the story that they lack any kind of grace or fluidity that a love story would require. And I have to mention the repetitive nature of the songs. Repeating a word ad infinitum does not make for an engaging song or do anything to drive a story and this device was used several times. In fact Lewis seemed to think that it was such an effective device that his song which went on about "the bells bells bells bells bells bells bells bells bells bells bells bells" in Act One had a reprise in Act Two and in either rendition I could never figure out what the bells had to do with the story.

The leads do what they can with the script. McLynn and Pucheu are engaging enough and manage the best in the show vocally and with some kind of character but they are so laden down with clunky dialog that it became hard to care about them. Gordon too does an admirable job vocally but isn't in the show that much. The rest of the cast does a commendable job with the piece although they looked to be in severe need for more rehearsal to get their timing and vocal parts down.

I've seen some truly wonderful things from the inaugural season of Theatre22 but considering how excited they seemed to be about this show I wonder if maybe they were too close to it to see its flaws. With my three letter rating system I have to give this a NAH. It's just not ready for public consumption.

"The Hours of Life" performs at the Cornish Studio Theatre through December 14th. For tickets or information visit them online at www.theatre22.org.

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