The Threads of a Spider Web Review

Threads of a Spider Web
Written by Annie DiMartino. Music written by Carol Taubl, Jack Taubl, Sam Taubl James Taubl, Jeremiah Taubl and Emily Taubl. Performed by Sam Taubl, Anthony Rockford, Danielle Bonanno, Chelsea Dacey, Jeremiah Taubl, James Taubl, Dawn Williams, Jessica Coppola, Jane Logan, Nina Dicker, Gabriel DiMartino, Marisa Sullivan, Kira Topalian, Bowen Kirwood, Ryan Ronan and Erik Van Eck.

One final performance, 7 p.m. Aug. 27 at Long Wharf Stage II, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. (203) 787-4282, longwharf.org. Playing in repertory with the same troupe’s “Shake-It-Up Shakespeare” musical adaptation of Hamlet (7 p.m. Aug. 26).

Having seen this same Summer Youth Theatre ensemble’s rock theater rendition of Hamlet the previous night, I hied back to Long Wharf Stage II Thursday to see how they fared with an original piece (co-written by director Annie DiMartino, music director Carol Taubl and five of Taubl’s children). The stage set-up is identical—a live band at the back of the stage, a useful high platform and several lower platforms on a floor-level playing area. All the performers are high-school aged. All sing, several dance, and some join the band for the lusher string-laden songs.

Thematically, Threads of a Spider Web is a downer—more so than the group’s Hamlet, in the way that it dwells on the emotional after-effects of unthinkable family tragedies more. The songs, many monologues and much of the plot is concerned with loss and how to cope with it. As with Hamlet, the teen cast members play two generations of characters, though this time the ranks are enlivened with a young boy who plays an ill-fated five-year-old.

Where the SYT’s Hamlet let Shakespeare’s dialogue flow directly into lyrics by Queen, Eveanescence and Leonard Cohen, this show lets recitations of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and other famous poems prepare you for affirmative original soft-rock ballads. There’s less sonic variety than in the Hamlet, but the consistency of tone works for a show with such heavy themes. Staging-wise, Threads of a Spider Web is stylized down to the style of eyeglasses (heavy black frames) which several of the actors wear. It’s casualness and youthfulness is carefully calculated.

There are tragic circumstances involving two of the characters in particular, but all suffer in various ways. While the talk of death and heartbreak will be harrowing for some, the issues which are most relatable to audiences the same age as the teenage cast—worrying about being popular, being tormented by siblings, moving too fast into a longterm relationship—are tastefully and instructively handled. The often beautiful, neatly harmonized musical score underscores the central themes of perseverance and acceptance. The point of trusting one’s inner spirit is driven home not just through poetic muses such as Coleridge, Emily Dickson, William Wordsworth but through other spiritual muses who guide the central mortal characters through their disputes and confusions. Ultimately there are twice as many of these angel characters as there are living ones. The show gets rather crowded with all that spiritual guidance.

Given the preponderance of death and depression, Thursday’s audience was eager to lighten up when allowed, and James Taubl received big laughs for this pop-and-lock dance moves as the muse of “Matt,” played by James’ real-life twin Jeremiah. I found Anthony Rockford, an impressive Gravedigger in the Summer Youth Theatre’s Hamlet, to be an equally warm, upbeat and measured voice in Threads (the guy honestly interacts with whoever else is onstage), though he has considerably less to do than the main characters and their respective muses and/or mentors.

Threads of a Spider Web, a work in progress just getting on its feet before audiences, still shows the sort of unnecessary repetitions and overstatements which mark a lot of new work. What’s notable is the confidence and aplomb of the young cast, who flit through this dour narrative gently and knowingly, aware of its pitfalls. There are some gorgeous singing voices to be heard here, and some charming performances all around. It’s all rather Rent-like, without the Bohemianism. A key lyric for the grieving: “Today is Yesterday Tomorrow.”