The most surprising and interesting thing in Brian Silliman's new play about a J.K. Rowling analogue and her make-a-wish visit to a dying boy is the music. The piece isn't a musical, mind you, but every fantasy scene involving the characters from A.R. Crowling's novels is scored with the sort of sweeping orchestral strains found in the more recent crop of sword-and-sorcery films. Larry Lees' original score gives these scenes -- which are hard to swallow, given the lack of lightning-bolt special effects or open flame -- an unexpected, even welcome emotional heft.
The same can't quite be said for the rest of the piece. Silliman has found something interesting in the interplay between Kicken (Paul Wyatt), a child dying of "undisclosed cancer" (surely the worst kind of cancer to have), and the characters from his favorite books, for whom "death is but a crossing." Silliman isn't willing or perhaps able to tell the story from the child's perspective, though, so the burden of protagonism falls heavily on the shoulders of Kicken's father, Ramsey, played by Silliman himself.
The interplay between Ramsey and Crowling (Shelly Smith, whose author is so breathtakingly histrionic that it's actually an explanatory relief to learn that she's a cokehead) doesn't really make for compelling theatre, and in fact one gets the sense that Silliman himself is a little bored with the relationship. He has, however, created a fantasy world that isn't the expected genre parody or Harry Potter in-joke fest, but a real and interesting place that bears revisiting. You can tell he thinks so, too, just by listening to the music.
Presented by Horse Trade
at the Kraine Theater, 85 E. Fourth St., NYC.
July 24-Aug. 5. Tue.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.
(212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.