To be perfectly honest, a play about lying through your teeth and living life like it were one big storybook sounds promising. Add feel-good jug band music, a “The Wizard of Oz” parallel in the first act, a killer clown and an Orphean voyage into the underworld, and the play becomes irresistibly enticing.
Then you actually see “Beau Fib” on stage and it betrays all of your high expectations.
“Beau Fib,” the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble’s first foray into musical theater, does not deliver on its show’s potential. The play’s ideas are fun, fanciful and sometimes romantic. Ideas, however, do not make a show. Acting, costumes, sets, directing and a strong cohesive script make a play. These dimensions are lacking ““ in one way or another ““ in “Beau Fib.”
The play begins with the title character singing the joys of staying put in “A Static Life.” But when he discovers that he is wearing his best shoes, he decides to set out on a journey to find out where he is going. After all, you do not wear your best shoes unless you have a special occasion to attend. At the impetus of his ghostly female counterpart, Perdu, Beau immediately changes his tune to “A Life Nomadic.”
I get it. He’s a liar. He makes things up. And this is the plot’s forward-moving vehicle. The problem is that he is not a clever liar. His fibs are not believable because he has no motivation to not tell the truth. Rather, Beau gropes for the truth and changes his facts all the time, and nobody calls him out on it. Beau’s story is not compelling, yet it frames the entire two-and-half hour-long play.
And by the time you get to the play’s big turn at the end ““ the real reason that Beau is in his best shoes ““ the satisfaction payoff is just not that big.
In the first act, Beau happens upon Father Christmas, an alcoholic clergyman; Mike Gray, the sensitive soldier; and Honey, the soldier’s long-lost love who became a cabaret performer. Each character sings an introductory song that becomes his or her leitmotif throughout the play. It all rings so true to the formulaic journey down the Yellow Brick Road in “The Wizard of Oz.” Even Honey’s blue-checkered outfit is almost identical to Dorothy’s ““ except that Honey’s is about two feet shorter and reveals all of the coquette’s midsection.
The first act, consequently, becomes an hour-long exposition. It is not until the act’s end that a villainous voodoo-doll-toting clown instructs Beau to go to Hell to perform a menial task in order to save his friends’ lives as well as his own. The chore laid before Beau seems pointless, and once again, the plot becomes more unbelievable because it does not establish causal motivation for the hellish descent.
And though the second act does begin with a stunning barbershop quartet ““ the show’s best musical number by far ““ it quickly loses speed through the underworld until it dies at the hands of some ethereal, touchy-feely, I’m-making-my-big-point-right-now, collegiate dialogue between Beau and Perdu.
Besides the fact that Perdu’s name should probably be in its feminine form, with an “e” at the end, the play suffers from a non-comprehensive script. It does not help that the actors look like they were mostly self-directed, self-blocked and self-costumed. Rehearsal time is greatly in question, as almost all of the leads fumbled with their lines at least once or twice. The music is a fun smattering of the south from Mississippi Delta blues to New Orleans jazz; unfortunately, nary a truly great singing voice was to be found in the cast.
The exception to most of these pitfalls is Cat Davis, the Yale-educated actress portraying Honey. Her singing and line delivery is spot-on. Her blocking is fun, inventive and at times explosive. She sold herself on her role, and in turn, she sells her role to the audience.
Father Christmas, played by Chris Sheets, comes in second for his nonstop comical drunken histrionics. His performance is physically demanding, however, and he loses steam about halfway through the second act.
“Beau Fib” made me laugh. It probably wanted to make me cry as well, but it failed to do so. It was fun but not memorable. Great ideas require great writing, great actors and great production skills. “Beau Fib” comes up short in every category, and that’s no lie.
E-mail Boden at dboden@media.ucla.edu.