Travels

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[avatar user=”Joel Benjamin” size=”96″ align=”left”] Joel Benjamin, Critic[/avatar]

Travels at Ars Nova isn’t just a story of the many places James Harrison Monaco has been.  That’s part of it, the most superficial part.

Travels is far more:  a deep look at the people in his life, two in particular, whose fascinating and moving stories emerge from a torrent of music, videos, lights and words.  In eight songs/scenes a very personal saga unravels until a chilling coda.

On the tiny Ars Nova stage, a console contains the control center of the production.  Constantly moving images give the illusion of flying into a vortex, soon replaced by more informative images that illustrate the stories told by Monaco and his very talented compatriots: El Beh, Ashley De La Rosa, Mehry Eslaminia and John Murchison.

Monaco begins with an innocent tale of a conversation with a driver who picks him up at LAX with whom he shares a love of Middle Eastern music.  It also turns out that the art of porcelain tiles is another obsession Monaco shares with his new friend Sa-eed.  Sa-eed is fascinated that Monaco might turn their conversation into a play.

Now others take over the narration, starting with El Beh.  She takes on Monaco’s journey to Rio de Janeiro where he meets a Swiss man named Thomas who tells him a love story involving Gerhard, a passionate affair that ends suddenly.  This leads improbably to a tortuously complex tale of a deadbeat Swiss man fathering children in the Dominican Republic, focusing on Leopoldo whose life eventually intertwines with Thomas’ back in Switzerland.

Story 3 introduces R whom Monaco meets at a party in NYC.  They manage to share their love of literature which R knows mostly in Persian translations including Proust’s magnum opus Á la recherche du temps perdu.

This begins R’s story which takes up most of the rest of Travels along with a brief return to Thomas’ tale of intrigue and Monaco’s romantic interlude in Mexico.  R’s epic saga about being imprisoned as a political opponent of the Iranian regime and his intriguing adventures, near-death experiences and epic journeys are told in brilliantly personal episodes.

There’s no way of going into all the fascinating details and observations that make Monaco’s stories live vibrantly in Travels.  He is helped immeasurably by the music made by Murchison and others, supervised by Monaco and Or Matias and the extraordinary contributions provided by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting), Stefania Bulbarella (projections), Nick Kourtides (sound) and Sarita Fellows (costumes).  This is a total and moving work of art using a multimedia approach that enhances the storytelling.

Andrew Scoville, the director, skillfully molded all the elements of the show into a moving whole.

Ars Nova is a respected source of innovation in theater.  Recent productions include Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, KPOP and Freestyle Love Supreme, all of which left Ars Nova’s nurturing bosom to move to larger venues with bigger productions.  Could that be the fate of Travels?

Travels (through April 20, 2024)

Ars Nova, 511 West 54^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.arsnovanyc.com

Running time: 105 minutes without an intermission