There’s a reason we don’t see Brecht’s “A Man’s a Man” very often: It’s not all that good. To come alive, it needs a brilliant production — and this clunky Classic Stage Company revival isn’t it.
The best you can say about this 1926 curio is that it features early versions of some of Brecht’s recurring characters and themes — which he developed in much better works like “The Threepenny Opera” and “Mother Courage and Her Children.”
This new production made news when an actor broke his ankle offstage during a preview, letting out what witnesses described as a bloodcurdling scream.
Sadly, that was far more exciting than what unfolds onstage. Those who caught director Brian Kulick’s equally flat-footed take on “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” last year will feel a nagging sense of déjà vu.
Once again, the director relies heavily on breaching the fourth wall, with the cast repeatedly commenting on the action and addressing the audience. By the second occurrence, it’s officially annoying — and there’s more on the way.
More rewarding is the return of “Spring Awakening” composer Duncan Sheik with a new batch of songs for this play with music. They’re quite pleasant, especially in the hands of Justin Vivian Bond.
Bond is well cast as Widow Begbick, the wily owner of a canteen catering to British soldiers in 1920s India, the play’s exotic colonial
locale.
A splash of color amid a sea of uniform gray, Bond’s Begbick tripped on lines of dialogue on a recent evening, but made up for it with effortless presence. Stephen Spinella (“Angels in America”) is fine as the sadistic sergeant, Bloody Five, but the rest of the ensemble is dull.
The story proceeds as a series of loosely connected vignettes as a quiet, unassuming porter named Galy Gay (Gibson Frazier) finds himself enrolled in a regiment, and undergoes a dramatic personality change.
As staged here, in a set made of movable orange oil drums, the action is both sluggish and incoherent.
When one of the soldiers, played by Steven Skybell, wonders out loud, “What is happening here?,” the widow turns to the audience and shrugs comically, as if to say, “Beats me.” You and me both,
Begbick.