When most baby boomers first heard Bob Dylan — whether it was the crackling vinyl of Freewheelin’ with puffs from a grassy joint (if they were cool) or hearing the already electric “Like A Rolling Stone” pouring from the radio of their Corvair (if they weren’t) — it was a turning point, the first step toward open-mindedness, free love, casual drug use and generally groovy times. Surely, if you told these young hippies that Dylan’s songs would one day become musical theater, they would think you the lovechild of Richard Nixon and Lawrence Welk, and probably kick you out of their sit-in. Hilariously enough, it is these same people, who are now fat and balding, that can’t get enough of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” with its loosely organized mash-up of smooth, show-tune Dylan songs and high-energy Twyla Tharp dancing. The play itself is barely more than the mixture of these two elements, and the already minimal story is relegated to the background. Fortunately, Dylan’s songs are almost universally genius (minus three prominent songs from Dylan’s born-again Christian-era Slow Train Coming) and the choreography is nearly as energetic and expert as a circus freak-less Cirque de Soleil, so if the play is skimpy on plot, that isn’t necessarily a terrible thing.
The hard-to-follow story involves a traveling circus that doesn’t travel, with typical Dylan ambiguity. The head of the travelin’ band is Captain Arab (from “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” suspiciously absent from the production), a limping womanizer played by Thom Sesma, who channels the eerie self-confidence of Tim Curry and easily has the most fitting voice in the cast. His son Coyote (Michael Arden) is the show’s lead, and apparently wants to quit his father’s circus business. He forces his fiery youthful rebellion into the form of Broadway belting, and soon falls in love with Arab’s ex-mistress and true love, the troupe’s animal trainer, Cleo (Jenn Colella). At least, this is the template with which the audience is presented before the 90-minute onslaught of dynamic dancing and Dylan begins. From here, it’s up to each audience member to decide what happens, since there is no dialogue to assure any mutual understanding of the plot, only the music, lyrics and choreography.
Tharp’s choreography is continually impressive, fleshing out more than a few memorable impressions of Dylan’s surrealistic lyrics. Dr. Filth and his contortionist patients in “Desolation Row,” marijuana rides on the moon in “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Arab facing his lonely death in “Not Dark Yet” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” perfectly combine the expert choreography and lyrical content. However, during much of the performance, song and dance combine abrasively, with each distracting from the other. Dylan’s songs seem arbitrarily chosen and are performed with a theatrical mock-passion, and the novelty of Tharp’s dances attempting to wring the meaning out of each phrase becomes laughable (says the pelvic thrust when “she makes love just like a woman”).
Most of the time, the seriousness and elegance of Dylan’s poetry is lost in the attempt to create a song-and-dance show for baby boomers. There’s no more plot than in a typical Dylan song; Tharp’s impressive choreography is just something to occupy the eyes while a grab bag of music is performed onstage. For a play that features Dylan music, it sells his existential insights short, playing only for the senses, not the mind.
“Times” is unabashedly aimed at the middle-aged — who once spent their night in front of a lava lamp and a bag of reefer, unraveling the mysteries of Blonde on Blonde, but now simply prefer to be entertained, and buy all the tickets for each showing. It adds nothing to the Dylan or Tharp legacy, instead coasting along the flats in the Cadillac of the pair’s past triumphs.
“The Times They Are A-Changin’” plays through March 19 at the Old Globe Theatre.
