Renascence – Abrons Art Center, New York

Danny Harris Kornfeld, Hannah Corneau and Mikaela Bennett in Renascence at Abrons Art Center, New York. Picture: Carol Rosegg

Renascence continues at the Abrons Art Center, New York until 17 November 2018.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

In 1912 the budding 18-year-old American poet Edna St Vincent Millay submitted her poem ‘Renascence’ to a poetry contest, winning fourth prize. But there was a general uproar that her poem was the best and the controversy that arose around the contest won the young writer instant fame and a wealthy patron who financed her education at Vassar College. Later, as you poetry fans all know, she went off to the Bohemian life in New York City, becoming a celebrated and distinctive feminist voice of the Jazz Age and beyond.

The poem, the contest and the time at Vassar are pretty much the substance of Renascence, the adventurous new Off-Broadway musical produced by the adventurous Transport Group. Rather than a bio-musical, the show, with a score that fits Millay’s poetry to lush and invigorating music, is more an evocation of a personality, her writing and in particular, the poem of the title.

The show’s book is by Dick Scanlan, perhaps best known for the book and lyrics for the considerably more conventional Tony-winning stage adaptation of the movie musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. It uses a company of six actors, all, except for the woman portraying Millay, taking on multiple roles, as specified by Scanlan. There is gender fluidity in the casting designations, which Scanlan says in his author’s note, reflects Millay’s own challenging of gender roles: she went by the name Vincent. She challenged those roles in her sexual adventures as well.

Scanlan also co-directs in collaboration with Jack Cummings III, artistic director of Transport Group. Most of the show is enacted on a thrust stage placed over a goodly number of rows of audience seating. The actors establish the script’s various locales by moving about the rudimentary pieces of furniture: some chairs, tables, benches. Behind the playing area, the curtain is closed on the theatre’s actual stage. It pulls the audience into the action most intimately, No fourth wall here. When they aren’t singing or speaking intently to each other, they’re doing so to the audience. And the singing is indeed prodigious, often gorgeous.

The music is by Carmel Dean, a musical director and/or arranger, whose Broadway credits include such diverse shows as American Idiot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Renascence marks her compositional debut, and an impressive one it is, further enhanced by Michael Starobin’s rich and intricate orchestrations. They’re played in rapturous style by the eight-member orchestra situated in the wings and conducted by music director Geraldine Anello at the piano. The singing by the cast is to a person glorious, bordering on operatic heights and seasoned with contemporary embellishments, including the occasional show tune nod.

The feeling of the cast as an ensemble is established in the prologue, when simply as actors, prompted by one of them, they put together almost word by word the start of the poem ‘Renascence.’

“We need one syllable that rhymes with ‘way’” at one point says the actor leading the exercise. Eventually, we’re told: “There are many more stanzas to write before this poem is what we want it to be,” and the show moves into the first musical number, ‘Travel’. It’s a brisk, exhilarating piece, suggesting Millay’s metaphorical journey, ending with: “there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take… no matter where it’s going.”

The poetic mood holds throughout the show, as the actors take on various characters in Millay’s life, with little or no change in the fairly contemporary-looking costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter.

At the centre of the free-flowing narrative, Hannah Corneau endows Millay with the sense of a fiercely determined spirit in the making, while, in addition to various other persona, Katie Thompson is a warm assuring presence as Millay’s mother, and Mikaela Bennett and Danny Harris Kornfeld bubble over as Millay’s sisters. Kornfeld also convinces as Millay’s fluttery female patron of questionable motivation.

Donald Webber Jr is a troubled, compelling presence as Millay’s estranged father, then he along with Bennett become a giddy pair of Millay’s Vassar gal pals and presumably amours. Jason Gotay makes an engaging editor and a publisher who also becomes a Millay amour and is an amiable presence as well when directing the audience to turn off their cell phones, along with some other more surprising instructions that come much later.

It’s then that the poetic mood explodes into something like a totally immersive production for an exuberant musical setting of the title poem, a poem that takes us from a very specific horizon to universal perceptions, from grim to understanding, and even “the face of God”. The curtain that has been covering the theatre’s actual stage opens to reveal canvas drops on which have been painted a sky of blue with fluffs of white clouds. The set design is by Brett J Banakis, shimmering under Jen Schriever’s lighting.

Placed in a semi-circle formation are rows of slim blue chairs. The audience is gently ordered to come on stage and experience for themselves a poem that someone is writing. “It may change her life…,” we’re told. “It may make them the voice of her generation – which may be forgotten by generations to come. But come what may, the poem that someone is writing will be unlike any poem that the world has ever known. Can this be that poem?”

As performed by this ensemble of six actors with passion, soaring musicality and propulsive movement (the choreography is by Scott Rink), ‘Renascence’ may indeed be that poem. But if you’re still not fully convinced, it’s hard to believe that the inventive theatricality of the show, the music and the majestic talents of the performers won’t win you over.

Ron Cohen