Small ★★★ - The Recs

Robert Montano has amassed some great credits in his long theatre career: Kiss of the Spider Woman with Chita Rivera, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, Bess Wohl’s Barcelona, and yes, oh yes, the infamous, unforgettable Legs Diamond with Peter Allen. And when he finally graduated to a leading role on Broadway — Ozzie in the 1998 revival of On The Town — he shined.

Now Montano is strutting Off-Broadway in SMALL, a solo show he’s also written. An autobiographical coming-of-age tale, it recounts how as a small Long Island teenager he yearned to be a horse jockey, and the costs of seeing that dream through to fruition. Or close to it.

The naturally likable Montano certainly knows how to fill Christopher Swader and Justin Swader’s terrific set — a theatricalized segment of a racetrack stable — and director Jessi D. Hill presses the production’s physicality accelerator to the max; Montano never stops moving.

Never.

Much as it makes sense for Montano to be in motion when he’s reliving his training and races with the horses, those moments don’t register as they could because the lack of dynamics starts to dull the material. IT’S LIKE READING A LONG SECTION OF TEXT THAT’S IN ALL CAPS, BECAUSE WHEN EVERYTHING IS IN ALL CAPS, IT LOSES ITS IMPACT AND ONLY FEELS RELENTLESS AND LOUD.

Moments of stillness would benefit this show greatly. As Montano ceaselessly races back and forth, other equine-related plays like War Horse and Equus start to seem subtle in comparison, and those shows are spectacles.

They also have conflict. Only halfway through this 100-minute show does the drama’s true antagonist arise: the weighing scale, known in jockey land as “The Monster”. Horse jockeys are expected to weigh 100 lbs. or less, and as Montano starts to grow taller, meeting that weight becomes more and more impossible. He starts spending hours in the steam room, ingesting speed, and “flipping”, industry parlance for self-induced vomiting.

Inevitably Montano realizes that the eating disorders and drug use are unsustainable, and once he’s made the decision to move on, he almost immediately — at least as the story is told here — switches to a career as a dancer after being complimented on his moves at a disco.

It’s a late-story turn with approximately 20 minutes of showtime to go, a swerve that wasn’t set up in the early sections of the play, making it feel tagged on. Suddenly a play about a dream to become a horse jockey transitions to one about haphazardly becoming a dancer, and finding success in that arena. As a human, you’re happy he found his place and true calling, but as an audience member, you wish the show’s dramaturgy were stronger.