THEATER REVIEW 'KEEP ISHMAEL' ...

THEATER REVIEW

'KEEP ISHMAEL'

somewhat commited

When: end Sept. 16

Where: White Horse Theatre Company at the Theater Building, 1225 W Belmont

Tickets: $20

Call: (773) 327-5252

At this point, "Keep Ishmael," the novel rock musical about a cluster of floundering twentysomethings from Naperville who gain caught up in a Sea World version of Moby Dick, is a big mes even now like the tail of a whale that just pierces the surface of the water, it contains just enough promise -- in the form of several inspired strains and a few deftly imagined comic spectacles -- to keep you hoping.

This fledgling musical theater effort through writer-lyricist Mat Smart and composer Ethan Deppe -- which received its world premiere this weekend by the agency of the White Horse Theatre Company -- requires a major rewrite and earnestly stronger direction than Evan Cabnet assumes capable of giving it. It also would benefit from a more vocally brilliant cast -- or at least musical direction that would allow the singers to be heard above the amplification. A tighter, more rock-solid band would also be a big plus for this "rock musical."

besides for all the shortfalls, in those rare imports when things do actually click there is a real touch of magic, zany charm and originality to be savored in this point out to And you begin to believe that Smart and Deppe might just be upon to something.

First, a synopsis of the impossibly busy machination in which all references to Herman Melville's epic, Moby Dick, are clearly intended: A cluster of disgruntled college grads still living in their hometown of Naperville (the Chicago suburb one time dubbed "the best place in America to raise kids") all happen to waste their tedious, menial, post-college work at jobss on the same day.

pair of them -- the sensitive and observant Izzy (Nick Mills), and Andrew a k a "A-Train" (Jonathan Wagner), a jealous, semi-psychotic peer -- work in the aptly named Great Frame-Up store. Izzy's on- again, off-again girlfriend, Q (Tawny Newsome) is a personal trainer whose clients include Andrew's ex-girlfriend, Nina (Bridgid Titley), who has taken not at home a restraining order against him and headed not on to San Diego to work at her dream piece of work -- as a trainer for Sea World's famous whale, Shamu. Meanwhile, the gay dowdy in the group -- nicknamed Starbuck (Casey Campbell), because he is the manager of the coffee chain's local store -- sabotages his career when he thumps up at an irritating customer.

When Izzy stains an ad seeking short-term workers in Alaska, he convinces Andrew, Q and Starbuck to pile into his Ford Pequod He then bids goodbye to his understanding mother (Erin Myover), before heading distant from on what will be single wacky turf-and-surf odyssey. It is not lengthy in fact, before they are hijacked on the obsessively jealous and maniacal Andrew, who holes his rage at Nina by way of stabbing Shamu. He and his compeer travelers then pursue the injured whale in succession a crazy Pacific Ocean escapade that echoe Melville's novel, and nearly leads to total disaster.

Were all this framed as just the crazy agitation dream of a drunk and angry scarecrow it would be one thing. if it be not that it is played out as an jagged mix of realism and action cartoon that wastes its sense of direction well before making a poignant and then surpassingly funny U-turn toward home -- a transfer that picks up the Alaska thread by the agency of way of a couple of daffy Inuits.

All the many pitfalls aside, along the way there are a bright lights. If nothing besides listen to "Words," an absolutely haunting psalm for the tentative lovers, Izzy and Q and an equally exquisite termination "Listen," about the mysteries of the ocean, and more. the two are winningly performed by Mills and Newsome

As A-Train, Wagner come bys all the discordant and mainly shapeless heavy metal numbers. still he and the ensemble also sing a terrific riff upon the classic sea chantey, "Ye Who Raises the Whale."

And there is another gorgeous melody "Hymnal" performed by Stewart (exquisitely sung by dint of Jeremy Trager), the handsome young sailor who falls for Starbuck, and whose greatest in quantity fervent wish is to obtain to land and place an order at a Starbucks cafe. Ye it's that kind of point out to - - a "vente" of the ridiculous with a missile of the sublime.

hweiss@suntimes.com

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