Max Understood
Nancy
Carlin (Book & Lyrics); Michael Rasbury (Music & Lyrics)
The first
two minutes of the new musical, Max
Understood, are two
of the most captivating minutes I have ever seen in live theatre. Against a white wall on darkened stage
with one spotlight on him, a small boy silently and erratically shakes, twists,
smiles, and frowns. Welcome to the
world of a seven-year old with autism.
For the next 75 minutes, we will live in that world with Max (via the
amazing performance of fifth-grader Jonah Broscow), seeing the people and
colors and hearing the music, squeaks, and squawks as he does. It will be an out-of-body experience for
us as audience that is often difficult to make sense of but truly one never to
forget.
After
Max’s opening soliloquy of sorts, we are soon introduced to the daily
challenges and frustrations of parents who desperately grasp at how to deal
with a child who only likes waffles (and never pancakes), who watches and then
quotes TV commercials incessantly (“Don’t just clean it, Oxyclean it”), and who
repeatedly hits the button of recorded sounds and phrases on his plastic, press-and-play
board. But this same kid quotes to
anyone who will listen minor facts about presidents, the importance of Einstein
and relativity, and details about string theory. Dad and Mom (Teddy Spencer and Elise Youssef) clearly both
love their only child but are also tired, overwhelmed, and losing touch with
their own realities and relationship.
Just getting to work or doing the laundry become almost too much for
them. As we watch them through
Max’s eyes, they often become robot-like, stuck on repeated phrases and stilted
movements, mirroring and echoing probably how they experience dealing with Max
on a daily basis.
Max meets
during this ‘typical’ day three kids who initially taunt him for being
different and ‘stupid’ (although he seems not to notice the razzing). But in later encounters, each of these
kids begins to find a way to bridge into the world of Max and show that they,
too, are ‘different’ in their own ways, so different as actually to be similar
to aspects of Max himself. As
overweight Peg, Hayley Lovgren is wonderful in finding her own child as she
bounces and rolls around her ‘back yard’ with Max. Jeremy Kahn as the gawky, curly-headed teenager (who may be
somewhere on the autism range himself) engages with Max in some of the best moments
of the entire production as they exchange facts about presidents and explore
old books of poetry found at a dumpster.
The third teen, a punk girl named Fin (Alyssa Rhoney) takes the longest
to warm up to this odd boy she keeps running into but clearly makes an
impression on him as she becomes for him a mermaid who encourages him to relax
and make a daring (but maybe not altogether smart) plunge.
Throughout
Max’s day, we and he are surrounded by a collage of exaggerated sounds (effectively
presented by The Norman Conquest).
We watch as his world swirls and twirls at angles via the tilted,
rotating, hexagon stage (Alexander V. Nichols, designer). We also must listen to songs (since
this is musical), and it is this aspect of the storytelling where things often
break down a bit. Part of that is
due to lyrics that sometime just do not say much or advance the story. The music, when rapped, fits with the
story but when more traditionally sung (especially by the three adults of
varying voice abilities– Mom, Dad and a funky leaf-blowing gardener), leaves
little lasting impression. The
bombastic explosions of sound and electronic music help us understand Max’s
world. The choice of expressing
some of that world and other’s experiences in it through ballads or
Broadway-like tunes works less well.
The
strength of this premiere production is Max’s continually exposing us to what
it is like both to be him and to see/hear those around him from his
perspective. The weakness is that
we get confused when we are actually in his head and when we are experiencing
the realities as seen by the others in his world. That confusion may be intentional (after all, it must be
bewildering for him and them, too); but it does make the experience less impactful
than perhaps it could be as we are often left guessing from which angle we are
seeing things.
As the
sun sets on Max’s day (in a scene a bit too much like the ending of The Wizard of Oz), we along with his family reach an important
conclusion after being with him during this ‘typical’ day: “This is normal.” For us as audience, this is significant
on many levels of understanding and empathizing with families living with
autism. For that reminder and for
the privilege of being Max via the amazing Jonah Broscow, Max Understood is a very worthwhile sojourn.
Rating: 3
E