Ang Lee’s minimalist, neo-Western romance “Brokeback Mountain,” which came replete with Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams, actors who were not just famous but gifted masters of their shared craft, is one of the most haunting and beautiful films ever made.
Combined with its source, a gorgeously lean 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, it forms intellectual property of a distinguished and famous order.
So any theatrical version, such as the one from the U.K. that had its North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Thursday night, first and foremost has to answer one question: How does it compete with the experience of watching, or re-watching, a film that won three Oscars?
It really doesn’t matter that the show says it is based on the Proulx story, not the film; it is selling tickets to the target audience on the back of the popularity of the movie. The audience wasn’t filled with folks in cowboy hats because of a short story.
Often, producers of these entertainments answer that question through music.
In the theater, characters can sing, thus expressing the inner feelings in a way not afforded to, say, the late, great Ledger, who had to rely on subtext. But this “Brokeback Mountain,” credited to the writer Ashley Robinson, has selected a half measure: one experiences the story, as first plotted by Proulx and now played out by the genial Harrison Ball (as Ennis Del Mar) and Jack Cameron Kay (Jack Twist), as traditional dramatized scenes on an effectively scrubby setting by Tom Pye. There’s a real campfire, too.
In between, a “balladeer” (Kat Eggleston) fronts a five-piece band off to the side and sings songs penned by Dan Gillespie Sells, the front man of the British rock band The Feeling, and whose score here has a country Western and folkic or roots-y vibe but with an emphasis on the plaintive and the melancholy. As befits the story, arguably.
As to whether the lyrics are a match for the action? I suppose, in terms of the broader themes, but it also felt to me like Sells was trying to avoid being too much on the nose.
If this is all new to you, and it has been more than 20 years since the movie, know that this is on one level a simple gay love story between two cowboys, one loquacious, one quiet, both raised in Wyoming in the post-World War II era. These are men who suffered abuse at the hands of their parents, married to conform to the social norms expected of them, and then exploded with passion for each other as they tended to sheep on the titular lonely peak in 1963, only to find themselves unable to find the all-American freedom they deserve.
On another, deeper level, “Brokeback Mountain” depicts two casualties on the long American rodeo ride toward freedom for all.
Those who never saw the film, or who can put it out of their mind, will I think have the best time here. And for superfans, it might well be enough to spend more time with these two memorable characters. Fair enough. I’m not about to compare these actors with Lee’s cast; they are all honest and capable and they all have their moments, especially the standout Cordelia Dewdney, playing a woman who has the misfortune to be married to one of these men, but I wouldn’t say anyone here is plowing new ground or reaching great depths.
Sex is more difficult in the theater and this is a story suffused with physical passion, so there is some awkwardness there; the show does not seem to know just how far it wants to go with all of that. I’d argue that it’s not really a question of literal action. The piece has to throb and, well, that is not the first verb that comes to mind in director Jonathan Butterell’s production, with all due respect for the sincerity of the effort and the intermittent effectiveness of the storytelling.
To my mind, if it is to have a life on stage, the piece wants and needs to be a chamber musical.
There is no reason why these characters can’t sing and, frankly, the current score here (if that’s the word) lacks structural variety and every song seems to wind up too slowly to give the piece the dramatic momentum it needs as it moves towards its tragic conclusion. Simply put, the show structurally is trapped in a no-man’s land between underscoring and dramatic intervention; I also found it strangely bothersome when Eggleston also became a character very late in the show, a decision that seemed mostly to imply there were not enough actors in the cast to tell the story.
But one can imagine the musical possibilities as Ennis fights his layers of taciturn self and as Jack realizes that his chirpiness is a defense mechanism yet to be unlocked. Both Jack’s parents (played by Thomas Cox and Eggleston) and both wives (played by Dewdney and Alina Jenine Taber) have plenty to sing about, too. Sure, “Brokeback Mountain the Musical” has the ring of a parody, but that misunderstands the piece, the emotional capacity of musicals and the iconic stature of these two characters, especially in Pride month.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Brokeback Mountain” (2.5 stars)
When: Through June 28
Where: Chicago Shakespeare’s Courtyard Theater on Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $65-$120 at 312-595-5600 and chicagoshakes.com
