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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > June > 01 > Entry
Revlew: ‘Faster Than the Speed of Light’
“Faster Than the Speed of Light” is billed as new sci-fi, multi-media musical about robots, love, and chaos. It comes off more as a live-action music video for a Bowie/”Blade Runner” concept album love child. It’s catchy, but nonsensical, and fun and occasionally emotional, but with the ephemera of pop.
Brilliant scientist Atom attempts to create the perfect life for himself in the form of robotic domestic bliss. What comes out are two sides of himself, Chaos and Serena. Both want him, for ominous or romantic reasons, and he must choose.
At least, that’s my reconstructed gist of the story. More like an opera than a traditional musical, “Faster” eschews dialogue for music. Unlike an opera, there aren’t notes providing back story and the songs favor capturing the sense of a moment over its plot points. It’s all exciting energy and little clear exposition.
That said, the music, created by producers and lead actors Stanley Roy and Jeremy Roye, is almost enough to push the play forward. Combined with a sci-fi shabby set design and costume aesthetic ripped from a dystopian American Apparel shoot, the music sets a tone that can range from the uncanny to the sentimental. Drawing from a palette rich enough to include stripped down drum, bass and vocal arrangements or piled on with electropop, cello, bassoon, and ukulele, the accompanying album might be a necessary purchase just to satisfy the inevitable earworm.
Ultimately it’s not quite enough to make the experience of the production itself last. The second half, which centers more on Serena’s lost love than the frenetic, mindless followers of Chaos, gets an emotional hook through the presence of a lovelorn and talented Kathleen Fletcher. But by that time it’s hard stay involved with the world of Atom, played by a sometimes off-pitch Roye, and Chaos, played by a permanently leering Roy. Throughout, though, the play is buoyed by Clock. Mute, sentimental, and comic, Clock is assistant to Atom and the latest in a line of Andrew Varenhorst’s standout (and varied) side roles in rock musicals.
A lot of the right elements are in place for “Faster.” It just doesn’t gel well into a final product. The story could be interesting, but the broad strokes push it towards inaccessibility and ridiculousness. The songs could punctuate climactic moments, but they stand alone. And there are hooks to show, but they’re in the music, not on the stage.
(“Faster Than the Speed of Light” continues Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. through June 13 at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd. $12. 474-7886, fasterthanthespeedoflight.org.)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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