Jouét: Looking Down On All Us Mortals
Zachary Scott Theatre Center,
through May 13
Running Time: 1 hr, 40 min
This Zachary Scott Theatre Center production of Allen Robertson’s original musical Jouét is a slick theatrical product. Robertson’s story is about a modern-day diva, born and raised in-flight, giving a last concert before taking off to live out her life in the air. Robertson’s songs run the gamut from pop-rock to calypso to ballads to torch songs, and director Dave Steakley and his designers have surrounded Robertson’s script with enough gadgetry to make the most high tech among us salivate. Michael Raiford’s set design consists of a lo-o-o-ng runway thrusting into the center of the Kleberg Stage, with three oblong video screens hung high overhead, onto which are projected images of news programs, photographs, corporate logos, and the like. Jason Amato’s lighting design adds the color that Raiford’s set purposely lacks, splashing varied patterns and bright, rich hues onto Raiford’s runway and screens and using every type of angle to illuminate the departing diva. Leslie Bonnell’s costumes are opulent and fit like second skins. Meredith McCall’s title character is a mix of the experienced exotic and the seeking child, and her amplified voice, like the music from the band, fills the space with a rich, powerful sound.
In the end, however, the production left me cold. While there certainly are highlights — McCall’s rendering of a conversation between a young Jouét and her mother; a lovely song about fairy tales; a stunning video at production’s end — they are the exceptions. The production has no real soul, and it begins and ends with the story. Robertson hands us a hook, intimating a tragic relationship between Jouét and someone named Neil that we allegedly know all about because of omnipresent media coverage, but Robertson never reels us in because there’s no meaty payoff. Jouét, as written, is little more than a human cartoon. Much is made of her indeterminable European accent. She speaks English well, but she didn’t come to America until late in life. Her name is French, but her accent is British, German — something. Huh? This lack of focus plagues the story, but the biggest problem is that it’s difficult to sympathize. No matter what Jouét may have suffered (in the end, it isn’t really that much), she can afford to live her life on a never-ending flight, looking down on all us mortals. At one point, she comments that she could save a Third World child’s eyesight for the price of a sip of wine — and then quaffs the remnants of just such a beverage from her crystal goblet. What exactly am I being asked to feel here?
Throughout the show, one of the band members holds up a digital readout counting down the time until Jouét’s final flight (and, ostensibly, the time until the show ends). Like many other things in the production, it’s a clever bit that doesn’t work. The Kleberg seats are famously uncomfortable, and the show is performed without an intermission. I’m all for taking chances, but why take a chance that you’re reminding us of how long it will be before we can get out of those cramped seats and stretch our legs?
This article appears in April 20 • 2001.