If war is hell, then “Soldier Songs” should rank somewhere around “purgatory.”
David T. Little’s hourlong opera, which made its NYC debut Sunday, takes a serious and exciting idea — the experiences of ordinary soldiers before, during and after combat — and reduces it to a mishmash of verbal and musical clichés.
Little wasted no time in delivering the obvious. As the audience entered the theater, a tooth-rattling bass reverbed, as if to proclaim, “Important message incoming!”
After some recordings of soldiers reminiscing — the only part of the show that felt honest — the curtain rose on a sandbox and seesaw, where baritone Christopher Burchett warbled in falsetto, “I wanna be just like my toy soldiers. Killing all the bad guys with the funny names.”
From there, it became less subtle.
The work includes 11 short songs, interspersed with enough artillery sound effects to give Michael Bay a headache. The wildly eclectic music ranges from Broadway pop à la “Les Miz” to 1950s romanticism to noisy suburban punk. This last style at least seems sincere, since the Princeton-trained composer was a rock drummer. But neither text nor music has anything remotely interesting to communicate about the experience of war — not even “what is it good for?”
That’s too bad, because everything about the presentation was smart, professional and seamless.
Burchett’s taut baritone neatly encompassed a wide range of chants and yelps, even while doing one-armed push-ups in the sand.
The eight-piece band Newspeak, conducted by Todd Reynolds, squeaked and thrummed energetically, and Yuval Sharon’s constantly evolving production held the eye even as Little’s music went in one ear and out the other.
Sharon entrusted some of the most complex dramatic action to child actor Zac Ballard, whose concentration and commitment could put most adults to shame.
“Soldier Songs” is but one of the offerings of the first Prototype Festival, whose other shows may well be better than this one. They could hardly be worse.