Bitter Musician Sings ‘Bike Crash Blues’
On the Actors Circle Theatre playbill to “Bike Crash Blues” is a provocative photograph: an angry, naked man in a wheelchair embracing a guitar. This spare image eloquently suggests a vast emotional landscape. Then Donald Wayne Jarman’s melodrama begins, and the metaphor gets silenced, shoveled under excessive exposition and saccharine greeting-card cliches.
The sitcom tale concerns a country singer’s bitterness after a crippling motorcycle accident. Ex-band members, old buddies and lovers drift into his Tennessee home, searching for vague connections. Original songs (by Hal Aaron Cohen) provide obvious clues to the confused motivations. When the play requires that the composer “reach out,” he sings, “Time to heal . . . something’s beginning to happen to me. . . .”
* “Bike Crash Blues,” Actors Circle Theatre, 7313 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 18. $10. (213) 882-6805. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
