Is this inspired-by-real-life story as clear and detailed as it needs to be? Nope. Do we, the audience, feel as profoundly as we might if its characters were more richly written? Possibly not, though that is arguably an upside; the public isn’t exactly crying out right now for sad stories that bore into our very souls.
Still, “Floyd Collins” reaches the sublime, and that is a rare achievement in any work of art.
Amid the muchness of this musical, it is difficult to discern the creators’ primary impulse for telling the story. But if, for Guettel, it was about wanting to play with canon singing and echoes, all that layering of sound and melody bouncing off cave walls, that would be reason enough. The effect is exquisite, even haunting. (Music direction is by Ted Sperling, sound design by Dan Moses Schreier — both veterans of Landau’s 1996 Off Broadway production, as are Scott Zielinski, the lighting designer, and Bruce Coughlin, the orchestrator.)
Hearing an echo is how Floyd knows he has found a cave worth exploring. When we first meet him, he is jaunty, agile and easy in his own eccentricity — which is to say, given to making conversation with the cave crickets.
The son of a farmer, he intends to find his own fortune underground, by discovering a cave that he can turn into a tourist attraction, part of a local industry.
“Welcome to Floyd Collins’ Great Sand Cave!” he sings, trying out his spiel.
On a set (by dots, the collective) that starts out minimalist before rescue equipment crisscrosses it handsomely, Floyd scrambles and crab-walks and climbs. In his element, he imagines his financially secure future — and sharing it, magnanimously, with his family. Jordan swiftly makes us want that for Floyd.
