Two Roads Diverged...

The Yellow Wood
9.19.07

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth...

... I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference"

- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

One of the most famous poems ever written. Everybody knows it, right? That's what Adam Davies thinks, too. He feels like the only person who doesn't -- and the one who needs to the most.

The Yellow Wood is a riff on Frost's poem -- neither quite "based" on nor about the poem, it brings us to a day in the life of 17-year-old Adam, a high school student with an insatiable longing for normalcy. He's been working at memorizing the above Frost poem, and on this particular day, he must recite it in his 7th period English class. But memorization is not going well, and he's having trouble concentrating. Adam has ADD, but is becoming increasingly fed up with feeling like a freak who can't function without medication. It's the source of stress within his family -- his parents often argue about what is best for him, but as part of an attempt to treat him more like a responsible adult, they have, for one day, allowed him to choose whether or not to take his Ritalin. Adam hopes to prove that he's normal by functioning regularly without it.

What we get, then, with this riff, is a somewhat sweet, yet fairly compelling musical that plunges into some of our most basic concerns; this desire to be normal, does, after all, somewhat plague us all. Adam's story is gripping -- situationally perhaps not, but generally speaking, we've all been there, whether we like to admit it or not. We want to be normal. Like everybody else. The reality of which, of course, is more than mildly debatable. And in a way, that's what The Yellow Wood is about.

It's also also about the way we relate to and connect with art, which I found a pretty powerful thing for a musical to be about -- especially when a lot of people seeing the show have probably had their share of serious relationships with works of theatrical art. In his frustration, Adam seeks advice from his high school's rather mysterious librarian. He tells Adam that in order to be able to memorize and recite the poem, he must understand what it means. He must find whatever it is in the poem that he can connect with -- ask himself what it is that makes all the difference.

But on the whole, it's about self-discovery -- be it through art or experience or whatever else may trigger such epiphany -- which, unfortunately, can often be a bit trite. Adam is half-Korean, but because he doesn't look Korean, he's able to hide that fact from his teachers and schoolmates. His quest to crack the poem's code and understand what it means manifests itself as a sort of soul-search in which Adam must learn to accept who he is and the things that make him unique -- both those he likes and those he would prefer to hide. It's for this reason, though, that the show's two acts seem to display a significant amount of disconnect: the first act is, Adam's reality -- what a regular school day is like without his Ritalin. He meets a new friend -- a beautiful girl who encourages him to do some introspection. He confides in her that he's afraid of suppressing his overactive imagination even though it's a symptom of his ADD -- his imagination takes him to extraordinary places. The second act is almost entirely in his imagination -- he journeys through a metaphorical "yellow wood" of his own, which for a 17-year-old boy is fittingly an imagined video game in which he is faced with choices and battles and decisions about his priorities and problems. He has sacrificed his younger sister's well-being for the sake of letting his imagination run wild, disrespected his heritage and abandoned his best friend; he must find a way to right his wrongs. His enormous discovery feels somewhat contrived where it should be very moving, perhaps a flaw in the plot exposition: Adam comes to a very predictable, obvious "Oh, so it's choices that make all the difference!" conclusion. It's a tricky switch, but BD Wong's direction works reasonably well, and the video game mis en scene is a wonderfully creative way of dealing with a notion that can so often feel stale and overdone, for which much credit is deserved.

The show struck me as what a more serious, less whimsical version of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee might look like. The score is decent, with a handful of stand-out songs: I've had the Act One closer, "Dive In" stuck in my head for days. Some of the lyrics are slightly awkward, but others are perceptive and poetic. The book is better than the score, with an appropriately high dose of wit. It is quite difficult to write teenagers without making them seem caricatures, and thankfully Danny Larsen and Michelle Elliot avoid falling into the cliché traps. Jason Tam is perhaps more loveable as Adam than he was in his arresting performance as Paul in the revival of A Chorus Line. Yuka Takara has a much more beautiful voice than her recent roles might make you think -- she's a perfect fit for Adam's brainy little sister, Gwen. The performances are impressive all around, but particular mention to Randy Blair (as Adam's friend Casserole), whose comedy is endearing and silly without annoyance and Mary Ann Hu, as Adam's mother and other memberes of his Korean ancestry.

Imperfections aside but not overlooked, it's a show whose plot specificity doesn't severely limit its impact capabilities, a quality not to be taken for granted. Those of us who don't expect to relate to a 17-year-old boy may in fact be rather pleasantly surprised -- the show tells his story as a lens to something deeper (perhaps not unlike the poem itself). If not wholly successful just yet, that is one undeniabale mark of good art -- one that will hopefully, further in developent, be joined by other such token marks.