To Nowhere and Back

missed the bus: The cast of The Middle of Nowhere is stranded, and not just at the station.

by David Anthony Fox

The minute I returned from The Middle Of Nowhere, the Prince Music Theater's evening crafted from music by Randy Newman, I grabbed Good Old Boys, my favorite Newman album and the source of several songs in the show. Listening to "Rednecks," I felt reassured. Yes, Newman remains a peerless songwriter-singer.

So what has gone so drastically wrong with Nowhere that even his best material seems second-rate?

In the program notes to Nowhere, Prince writer-in-residence Albert Innaurato describes Newman as "that quintessential troubadour of ironic discontent." Bingo — especially the troubadour part. Newman's husky, droll delivery is inseparable from most of his songs. Whether in person or on record, his personality leaps forward. The songs need Newman.

Here's what Newman's songs don't need: 1) A pretentious, cliche-ridden plot to house them, 2) to be fused into artificial, meaningless clusters, 3) overblown vocal arrangements, and 4) a cast of performers who deliver them with Vegas-revue slickness.

All this and more happens in the mind-numbingly misguided Nowhere. Tracy Friedman's book begins with a trite idea — five radically different losers stuck at night in a Louisiana bus station — and gets worse. Suddenly the mixed-race group begins performing a minstrel show (black dialect and all). Presumably this is to drive home some point about The Grand American Tapestry. But Newman's songs do that — subtly — all by themselves. Not only do they not benefit from this heavy-handed metaphoric showcase — they whither under it. Inept direction and choreography magnify the problem.

Frankly, I can't imagine anybody enjoying Nowhere, but Newman fans may find it downright unbearable.

The Middle Of Nowhere Through June 26, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700