"Fly By Night," at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, through September 29.
By David Lyman
It’s been three weeks since I saw “Fly By Night” at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati. Not a long time, really.
But it’s been a tumultuous three weeks. A dear friend died. I’ve had waaaay too much work-related travel. I haven’t gotten enough sleep. And I feel like I’ve done nothing but see shows, do interviews and write. And write and write and write.
But I still haven’t written about “Fly By Night.” And that’s unfortunate, because of all the shows I’ve seen these past few weeks, “Fly By Night” is the one refuses to leave my mind.
It’s odd, because as I watched the show, I found many things to be problematic. The narrator was used too much. At two hours and fifty minutes, it felt too long. And I can’t count the times that I felt “OK, this is it – the show should end here.” And then it didn’t.
Normally, that would be the kiss of death. But every time writers Kim Rosenstock, Will Connolly and Michael Mitnick added another scene, I found myself liking it. A lot. Every time, I was thankful they hadn’t ended the show earlier.
And finally, when it did end, it was completely unexpected. And shocking. And sad as hell. But then, I don’t know how else the playwrights could have ended it.
From left; Brooke Steele, Michael Gerard Carr. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.
The plot does a little does a little time-hopping. But at the heart of it is Nov. 9, 1965, the day a massive power outage left more than 30 million Americans and Canadians in the dark.
Of course, several of the musical’s characters are in the dark long before that, especially Harold (Michael Gerard Carr), an aimless shmoe of guy. His life consists of trying to write a song – it’s taken him months to complete a couple of measures – and making sandwiches for the cranky Crabble, a deli owner played with an oddly appealing zest for meanness by Michael G. Bath.
There’s a love triangle, too, with Harold at the center of it. Somehow, he manages to fall in love with two recent arrivals from North Dakota. They are, of course, sisters. Daphne (Maya Farhat) is convinced she will be a Broadway star. Miriam (Brooke Steele) wants to be a waitress in a diner.
From left; Michael G. Bath, Nathan Robert Pecchia, Michael Gerard Carr. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.
There is so much more that goes on in this story. There’s Harold’s Dad (Phil Fiorini), a recent widower who has begun carrying around a record player in order to give spontaneous performances of “La Traviata.” And a loony producer (Patrick Earl Phillips), determined to make Daphne star. And, of course, there is music director Scot Woolley.
And a Gypsy fortune teller, played by narrator Nathan Robert Pecchia. That’s where the magic comes in. Literal-minded audience members would probably call them coincidences. Or quirky happenstances. But the playwrights, I bet, would disagree. This is a plot – an entire show, in fact – that is touched by magic.
“Fly By Night” is touching and joyous, heartbreaking and downright tragic. It has more emotional upheaval than any one show should. And when the peaks and valleys of real life aren’t enough, the playwrights take us on fanciful side-trips, some of them achingly poetic, others that rely on improbable dramatic twists.
From left; Maya Farhat, Brooke Steele, Phil Fiorini, Michael Gerard Carr, Michael G. Bath, Patrick Earl Phillips. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.
Is all this unlikely? Of course it is. There’s nothing logical at all about it. So the playwrights wrap their musical its own universe of logic. And because we like these characters so much – and the performances are all so uniformly exquisite – we are willing to buy into it.
ETC is the only theater in Cincinnati that could possibly do this show. It’s not that our area’s other professional and near-professional theaters aren’t capable of it. But D. Lynn Meyers, who directed this production, has never been one to let logic have its way. Working with a team of designers willing to teeter on the edge reality with her – Brian c. Mehring (Sets, lights), Reba Senske (costumes), Matt Callahan (sound) and Shannon Rae Lutz (props) – Meyers regularly dares logic to outwit her. Things don’t always work out the way she wants. But with “Fly By Night,” it does.
The result is enchanting.
“Fly By Night,” Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. Tickets: 513-421-3555 or www.ensemblecincinnati.org/
