Word: oblio
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...adventures of a boy and his dog--isn't exactly new, might not matter if the details of this particular--version weren't equally old hat. Ostracized by a "lot of little pointy-headed people," for non-conformity (having a round, rather than a pointed, head), the boy Oblio (David Morse) is unjustly banished from his homeland. The Land of Point. He and his canine companion Arrow have a series of adventures--all too reminiscent of those of Alice in Wonderland--through which Oblio arrives at several earth-shattering conclusions: that the allegedly "Pointless" Forest to which he has been...
Jauchem's idea for adapting The Point for the stage was conceived at a time when rock musicals were enjoying a heyday. But it has taken almost four years to materialize, and during that time characters like the saccharine, boyish Oblio have left the stage and gone the way of Godspell. And even if rock operas were not bygones. The Point offers little that's original in the way of either choreography or music--two areas where the story might have been able to benefit from live production. The mime is for the most part strictly traditional and basic; there...
Where the show succeeds, it seems almost accidental. In yearning to return to the freedom of the cartoon form, the costumes come into their element. Animating the entire production with her lively imagination and sense of the ridiculous, costume director Martha Burtt uses everything from Oblio's pajamas and orange velvet tails to an ingenious suit of foam boulders for Rock Man and a new-born bird outfit for Baby Pterodactyl...
AGAIN, ALMOST accidentally, the sheer triteness of Nilsson's script is often the richest source of humor. Oblio meets a heap of rocks, Rock Man (Gerald Bernstein), a "stone person" with a deep, throbbing double-bass of a voice and an endless stream of outdsted jargon, "Being a rock," he intones, "is a very...heavy...life. We rocks are impervious to heat. We...stay...cool," And his coolness increases, strangely enough in direct proportion to the number of his cliches, which come fast and furious. His advice to Oblio is to keep cool--like "Mother Nature sittin' at the console...
...wrong to say that The Point is, or even should be, directed to pre-pubescent audiences only. Nilsson and Jauchem have obviously made a conscious effort to speak to a wider group, supplementing the simplistic, philosophical messages with a little soft-sell social and political commentary. The reasons for Oblio's banishment (caused ultimately by the whim of an affronted evil Count and the quirks of an unjust legal system) seem intended to bring up the issue of judicial injustice. Either the injustic should be made more real, or the issue should be left out altogether. Later on, however...
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