Gold

Or: Tomorrow Belongs to Me

The 1936 Berlin olympics, high-note of the “Roaring Forties” (as some dub the storm of troubles that raged between October 28th, 1929 and August 9th, 1945) is a suitably epic topic for a suitably epic musical. In Gold (created under the auspices of David Bell, Kylie Mullins, Hannah Dunn and Max Rein) the Waa-Mu company grasps a flaming torch of a flaming time and holds it up to illuminate what the best of us may be, if only given a chance to try. And it shows that, contrary to popular belief, you can write, stage, and perform a credible musical about sports. Rejoice, ye people.

A grand mosaic of stories, Gold divides our attention between a wide array of stories. We follow the trials of the US representatives of the new formed sport of Basketball, coached by Gene Jones (Garrett Bear) lead, sometimes too tyrannically, by his younger brother Francis (Kyle Sherman) and buoyed by Francis’s best mate Harry (Max Rein) as family relations hit the wall on the court. Meanwhile two black women runners, the rising rookie Tydie Pearson (Drew Tildon) and oft-thwarted champion Louise Stone (Adhana Reid) try to play their best not only against the opponents but politics off the field. And cub reporter Mary Marvin Buckwater (Elizabeth Romero) latches onto the American Press Corps and the company of Joe Masterson (Zach Frier-Harrison), Eudolpha Pinkerton (Meghan McCandless) and Evelyn Paley ( Zach Piser), while beginning to discover the real story of the games; that of the Real Germany, hiding behind clean streets and straight smiles.

Now, dear reader, Gold may taste, to a lover of history, a little light and a touch too optimistic. It basks itself in the golden light of the Olympics, the sense that anyone if they try hard and give righteously may be immortalized as a hero, and a sense of hard-won self-surety that oft attach themselves to stories from “the last heroic time”. It is not until well into the second act that we see that the golden light is pushed before the storm-front of the roaring forties, coming down like a hammer stroke (and even less is said about the very real danger Pearson and Stone would have to ward against every day of their lives on the home front). But, suspending our knowledge of history alongside our disbelief, Gold is an undeniably sterling musical. Amid the majestic and serviceable splendor of Scott Davis’s set choreographers Nick Leighton, Alyssa Sarnoff and Katherine Watts have managed not only to get lively and specific large-scale dance numbers (on space eaten up by said majestic set) but also transform the hustle and bustle of Olympic events (especially basketball) into a balletic endeavor not only clear to the eye but striking to the heart. To add chocolate sauce to the sundae, it is also a treasure trove of superb songs: from audacious numbers that rouse the audience, like the company through-line “Bringing Home the Gold” or Christopher Anselmo and Jared Corak’s “Great All American Pastime”. to the hopeful, quick-tripping “Life inside the Lines” (by Mullins, Adam Rothenberg, and Charlie Oh, and executed by the dexterous touch of Frier-Harrison) to the hauntingly simple “A part of Forever” by Baurefeld and Oh) there’s not one flat note, not one filler tune; every tune expertly executed helping lay a brick in the road to the podium.

Though sometimes steering close to clever-clogs self references (which mostly go right over the heads of those without an intimate knowledge of the 2014 Northwestern Season or a healthy love of Meredith Wilson), the script Gold upholds itself as a stately, sober story. There are plenty of wry jokes, and handsome folk in gorgeous 30’s get up and tight fitting athletic ware, but the show conducts itself with better grace than many Waa-Mu shows of the past. I remember days when the inspired but unfortunate suggestion, “I did Nazi my graduation coming” would have been have been nailed on as the senior song for a lark and left us all feeling amused but cheapened, (in reality Anselmo and Corak’s “When It’s Over” is the best of senior song I’ve come across; neither swaggersome nor sorrowful, but hitting just the right note or glad regret). Like a good athlete, the show does nothing more than try to accomplish its herculean task, in the best manner it can: to be exactly what it is meant to be.

This is not to say that Gold is lacking in faults. Also like a good athlete it has an unfortunate tendency to overextend itself. None of the many narratives are ever confusing, but the juggling give us no time to mature the characters, or story lines, as they need to be. The trials and attraction of wary decathlete Glenn Moss (Fergus Inder) and saucy swim captain Eleanor Penning (Zoe Nadal) remain disappointingly under cooked; a delicious looking a great pie that was never put in a warm oven. It’s not that Nadal or Inder are wanting in stage time, songs, or skill (the flashing silver cornet of her voice and the brimming golden oboe of his both mingle sublimely); but the story fails to hand them the means to smooth out their characters rough edges, to take them out of Harrison Bergeron and put them in the struggle and sweat of the arena, where we would really pull for them. Reid suffers an opposite problem as Stone is rather defined by her struggles then by herself; fortunately, she manages to claim her own life in the fabulous “Flying” (an inestimable gift furnished by Baurefeld and Mullins) which Reid delivered in a soaring, polished marble voice that filled the house to the rafters.

She is joined by a host of excellent artists lending their best to their craft. Comic relief is happily tendered by the multi-hatted Mullins and Carly Cozad as Mitzi Moss and Blanche Gallaher, respectively, swimmers under Penning, and the many faces of David Greenblat reporter for the times (Alex Christ) who gets knocked down peg after peg, while we all cheer. Three stand out performances, each deserving a medal of their own are Baer’s Jones, Romero’s Buckwater and Tildon’s Pearson. As the po-faced Jones, Baer not only drums up a good crop of jokes and humor (his tirades against base-ball never fail to rouse out smiles) and lifts his songs with his deep salty bass, but always manages to pull us into his struggles by doing the base minimum, letting Jones’s worry and fury live in the square of his shoulders or the depth of his eyes (and still make us see it from the back of the house). Romero couples a similar gift for character depth (layering doubt and courage and wryness and rage into a delicious parfait of a moment) with a great strength and dexterity of voice. Her intonations are not only bell-clear and bone-resounding but she can patter like no one’s business. And as for Tildon, her lark-like voice brings Pearson alive in every word she sings, while her off the walls energy, well-founded wisdom and iron strong determination give make her valiance glow.

Gold is filled with glorious pieces, excellent performances but I must say, hands down, my favorite moment was Anselmo and Corak’s “Sunrise Over Berlin”, where, after exposition, introduction and nautical hijinks the cast and the audience finally sail into the fated city. In ones and twos the entire company drifts to the railings in the rising light to sing of their hopes and their fears, their disappointments and dedications, the folk left behind them and the future waiting before. A rich melding of voices wondering how they got so far and how they will attempt to do the impossible and win glory for themselves. It is a sterling moment for the musical, again striking just the right tone, but it reflects the months of work that the whole Waa-mu team must have put into raising Gold from the ground up, each member stepping into the arena and daring greatly, passing the torch so that they might make a great light.