THEATER REVIEW : ‘Tintypes’ Needs a Story Line to Help Hold It Together

Can one glean much history of a given period in America through the songs of that time?

It’s a sobering thought. Do we really want to be remembered by Madonna’s “Material Girl” and a Barbra Streisand duet with Don Johnson in years to come?

Well, there is Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” And Lawrence Kasdan did create an alluring nostalgic feel for “The Big Chill” by using such ‘60s hits as “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “My Girl.”

But “The Big Chill” had a story underneath all that music. And a story is just what is needed by “Tintypes,” a musical ode to America, circa 1870-1920, at United States International University’s Theatre in Old Town.

Instead of plot, what we get is five actors playing a variety of types as they move through 50 Top 40 songs of America’s so-called Gilded Age.

There is the Jewish immigrant (Adam Pelty) doing Chaplinesque Little Tramp turns; the blonde showgirl (Marilyn Rising), an aria of giggles peeking out from white feathers; Emma Goldman (Sara Lang) striding purposefully on and off soapboxes; Teddy Roosevelt (Jerry Eiting), portrayed, oddly, as a model of pink-cheeked, self-satisfied complacency. and a stalwart descendant of slaves (Andrea Griffith).

The crew is talented enough, sparkling in occasional silent-movie and vaudevillian sketches. Pelty is an elegant hoofer, Eiting provides a boomingly bully delivery of his vocal numbers, and there are poignant moments too, mostly courtesy of Griffith, whose voice pours out like warm honey in such songs as “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

But two hours is too long for anyone to work in what turns out to be a vacuum of ideas. As Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, “There’s no there, there.”

What is the “Tintypes” concept? That there were immigrants? That there were popular songs?

“Tintypes” sailed into Broadway in 1978 in the aftermath of Bicentennial fever. It’s instructive to note how little is asked of an idea that is essentially celebratory in nature.

All right, so there is no story in “Tintypes.” What is “Ain’t Misbehavin”’ but a string of songs? What is “Suds” but a compilation of fifties pop music played by easily discernible types: the good girl, the bad girl and the undecided?

Ah, but “Suds” went for the laughs right from the beginning. And “Ain’t Misbehavin”’ has the focus of using one composer: Thomas “Fats” Waller.

“Tintypes” seems to want to be taken seriously, much in the spirit of Studs Terkel’s “Working.” But to do that, you have to tell real stories.

At the very least, director Andrew Barnicle might have used his two overhead screens to project newspaper headlines of the day during the show, rather than period photos of blimps and trolleys before and in between the acts.

It’s not as if there aren’t stories to be told. The idea of producing a musical about songs that would cover America’s progressive movement, a time of big business, great wealth and technological advances pitted against worker’s rights, agrarian depression and urban blight is not a bad one.

But, unfortunately, it is an idea whose worthy execution has not yet come.

“TINTYPES”

Conceived by Mary Kyte, with Mel Marvin and Gary Pearle. Director, Andrew Barnicle. Music director, Kerry Duse. Choreography, Tom Vannucci. Lighting, Deborah Rosengrant. Sets, George Yochum. Costumes, Bary Odom. With Marilyn Rising, Sara Lang, Andrew Griffith, Adam Pelty and Jerry Eiting (matinee performances with Amy Gilliom, Lisa Sanders, Tracy Hughes, John Barrowman and Josh Fischel). At 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, with Saturday-Sunday matinees at 2, through Jan. 29. At the Theatre in Old Town, 4040 Twiggs Ave., San Diego.