I have to admit, I am not one often seen on the Great White Way; musicals aren’t usually my cup of tea. So as I was charged with reviewing a new musical, Whida Peru: Resurrection Tangle last night at 59E59 Theaters, I decided to call in reinforcements. I brought an amazingly talented and breathtakingly beautiful friend of mine that just happens to be of the Broadway persuasion, just in case I had any questions.

My concern turned out to be unfounded, as Whida Peru is not really a “musical”  in the traditional sense: rather, it’s an encounter with a character straight out of the mind of Chuck Pahlaniuk set to music Stravinsky or Shostakovich would be happy to hear.

The show is a monodrama, one woman alone on stage for almost an hour weaving a drama of intricate emotion. Seasoned Broadway performer Judith Blazer dominates the small black box stage as Ms. Whida Peru, a post-op transsexual agoraphobic psychic. Her mile a minute dialogue (yes, despite this being a monodrama there is dialogue) written by David Simpatico presents the supernatural and psychotic as commonplace and never questions the authenticity of Whida’s relationship with her spirits.

The music by Josh Schmidt I would best classify as Neo-Primal, with free uses of dissonance and brutality, hightened by the intense presentation of the text by Ms. Blazer. But what really struck me throughout the piece were the traditional operatic forms and gestures used; an “overture” comprised of thematic material used later in the piece, leitmotifs representing characters or actions which are embellished or diminished based on the dramatic context, even an aria and stretto for Ms. Peru during one of the more climatic moments of the piece. I would love to see this work orchestrated for chamber orchestra and presented as an opera; I think some added orchestral colors would make an already compelling piece even more intricate and developed.

Really though, Judith Blazer is the show and the reason it excels. I must admit, aside from the occasional Dame de Monte Carlo, I rarely see a piece of any real length performed by one person. After witnessing this stirring performance by Ms. Blazer, I realized how hard and trying this type of piece is on a performer; to hold the audience and progress the story of the work for almost an hour on your own is a Herculean feat.

The word that kept coming to mind throughout the show was “vicious,” but after consulting my trusty thesaurus I find the perfect description of Ms. Blazer’s performance is “savage; dangerously aggressive.” She is a force of nature, and communicates to the audience without apology the drama and emotion of the work. She makes art seem not haughty and overthought, but base and animal, and in a way pure.

Inner Voices: Solo Musicals
Uploaded by primarystages. – Arts and animation videos.

The program also featured a second monodrama, Mosaic, with a book by Cheri Steinkellner and music by Georgia Stitt. Heidi Blickenstaff played a video blogger for the piece and has that kind of Broadway belting voice that can sometimes send shivers up the spine, but unfortunately after five minutes of the music I was yearning for some kind of dissonance.  The music was homogeneous throughout all the moods of the character, from joy to fear to humor to love; all the same major and minor chords with the same figures in the accompaniment.  I felt like I wanted to enjoy the emotional potential of the drama, but without some sort of effective use of music I can’t get behind this as a musical.

In the coming season, NYCO will be presenting a triple bill of monodramas by Schoenburg, Zorn, and Beckett & Feldman. After experiencing Whida Peru, my first monodrama of proper length and quality, I am even more excited about NYCO’s presentation.

Photo:   Marilynn K. Yee