Great story or The Greatest Story

By Joe Dwyer     2/26/09 6:00pm

During the first scene of The Greatest Story, when the commencement speaker begins to sing his address, viewers may think to themselves, "Is this really what the entire show is going to be like?"Luckily, no sooner does that thought form than the song abruptly halts, and one of the characters onstage asks aloud, "Who sings at commencement?"

At that moment, the audience knows everything is going to be okay.

Hanszen College junior Garrett Schumann's original musical opened last weekend in the Hanszen commons. The story follows college graduate Brian Sanders (played by Lovett College senior Paul Early) as he travels to Los Angeles to fulfill his dream of becoming a screenwriter but finds it to be much different than he had imagined.

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Schumann, who composed all the music himself and co-wrote the script with the help of his father, began brainstorming last February but didn't finish the finale until the beginning of last month.

"It's very much a living piece," Schumann said. "We had to contend with the fact that the script needed a bit of work [to make] it seem natural, especially at the beginning of the show with these characters that don't recur ... so that their brief existence would be more meaningful."

The musical does a lot with very little: The backdrop is literally painted paper and aluminum foil, the props are minimal and the costumes are mostly unremarkable. But the difference here is how the props and sets are used. Wiess College senior Kristen Hallberg and Hanszen College sophomore Tatjana Crossley (choreographer and set designer, respectively) have done a wonderful job utilizing the available space on stage. One number in particular, in which Sanders is driving cross-country, cleverly uses moving signposts and mile markers to create the illusion of Sanders flying down the interstate.

"I think the most special thing about this production is that it's completely original," Schumann said. "It's a huge collaborative process, and I think that's what's really the best thing about it - that we all bounced [ideas] off each other."

Both the dialogue and the lyrics are filled with self-referential humor and pop-culture references, such as an entire song about the wonders of Craigslist sung from within a ubiquitous corner coffee shop. One of the ensemble characters, a health-crazed jogger played by Baker College freshman Paul Wilt, quips that he uses bull shark testosterone to stay fit, obviously referring to Grand Theft Auto IV's self-absorbed fitness nut Brucie Kibbutz, who makes the same claim in the game.

The only part of the musical that feels a little off is the character interactions. Every now and then two characters are onstage and one of them chooses to address the ceiling behind the audience instead of looking at the other actor. In a musical, the decision to make an actor sing to another actor by looking directly at the audience or beyond the crowd is a tough one, but ideally audience members shouldn't feel like something is constantly happening behind them.

The Greatest Story features a cast of only six people, three of which (Wilt, Jones College sophomore Maria Failla and Hanszen College sophomore Erica Schoelkopf) are recycled from scene to scene to play various ensemble characters, such as a paralyzed dog or a 60-year-old New Jersey woman who has undergone extensive plastic surgery.

Early effectively portrays the unflappable Sanders, from his wide-eyed arrival in Los Angeles to his sudden transformation into a rich douchebag and then back again to a learned veteran of the Hollywood system by the end of the play. Hanszen College sophomore Erika Rodden plays the hard-drinking, scheming, has-been actress Norma Varden, efficiently making the character into someone the audience will love to hate. Sid Richardson College senior Quinn Shadko rounds out the cast as Jane Hudson, Sanders' amicable landlady who is always there for him.

Will Rice College junior Robert Li Kam Wa is responsible for bringing the music of the show alive on the piano, which he does effortlessly. In keeping with the show's Hollywood theme, Li Kam Wa plays snippets from various film scores during intermission, such as Superman, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter.

When asked about what he wanted people to take away from the show, Schumann said, "I want people, obviously, to be entertained, and I want them to like the music, and I want them to get engaged with the story, but really what I want is for them to be inspired, to see what they can create by just getting together with talented people they know.

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