OPERA REVIEW : Sellars, et al, on the Fault Line : New Song-Play Barely Registers on Richter Scale

The earth moved Friday night at the Zellerbach Playhouse. And nothing happened.

The cataclysm was supposed to be the central event, both real and symbolic, in an ambitious new opus called “I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky.”

Call it a work in progress. Call it a work in regress.

Call it a mess.

Whatever you do, don’t call it an opera. Ignore the simple fact that it stubbornly tells its story in music. Don’t even call it a pop opera--though that’s exactly what it happens to be. And, for goodness sake, don’t be cute and call it a popera.

The creators would prefer to avoid any reference to the dangerous and dirty o -word. They have labeled their thing a “song-play,” a “story in songs,” a “music-theater work” and, most evasive, an “earthquake/romance.” They also say, by the way, that the performance “should have the sense of a ‘club date.’ ”

The creators must know what they are saying. They represent an imposing trio.

The composer is John Adams, quasi-minimalist raconteur of Nixon-esque diplomacy in China and sociopolitical tragedy on the Achille Lauro. The librettist is June Jordan--celebrated poet, activist, playwright and professor of African American studies. The director is Peter Sellars (enough said).

After its much ballyhooed premiere here, “I Was Looking . . .” is scheduled to move to New York, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Paris and Hamburg, for starters. Call it important.

The multiethnic cast employs seven young, less-than-magnetic singing actors. They all go through their emotional motions microphone in hand. It matters not if they are making love or war. Call it clumsy.

The orchestral component is an eight-man electrified rock band, in this case the Paul Dresher Ensemble. Call it loud.

The players, stationed stage right, are conducted by Grant Gershon, who offers neat illustrative bounces while mouthing every word. Call him diligent.

The decors--probably the most striking part of the show--consist of two mural drops depicting Los Angeles in mythical cartoon-crisis, plus 23 vinyl banners (one for each song) created by a consortium of graffiti artists. The bright and brash spray-paint wizardry was overseen by an organization called I.C.U., which stands for “In Creative Unity.”

If only the pictorial energy, not to mention the pictorial integrity, were reflected in the music, words and staging. No such luck. For all their bold intentions and ambitious inventions, Adams, Jordan and Sellars have come up with an exercise in stultifying banality.

The plot, if it can be thus described, involves the interrelated plights of an innocent undocumented immigrant (Sophia Salguero), a reformed gang leader (Harold Perrineau Jr.), a sweet Legal Aid attorney (Welly Yang), a troubled grad student who works in a family planning clinic (Kennya J. Ramsey), a sex-hungry minister (Jesse Means II), a pretty reporter (Kaitlin Hopkins) and a conflicted cop (Michael Ness).

The lives of these kids, we are asked to believe, are brought together by cosmic coincidence, by one petty crime and by shared catastrophe. It is all so simple, so simplistic. Social protest coexists with soapy slices of life. Comedy underlies profundity.

One could always find a cheap streak even in Adams’ loftiest, most earnest endeavors. In “I Was Looking . . .” the cheap streak becomes the central force.

Citing the Bernstein of “West Side Story” and the Gershwin of “Porgy,” the composer has cranked out a series of ersatz pop tunes. There’s a little rock here, some soul there. A snatch of be-bop mingles with a bit of Broadway balladry. A jazz ritual turns up at one point, a gospel interlude at another. One waits in vain for the real Adams to stand up. Only the overture reminds us of his minimalist roots.

The secondhand sonic collage is very slick, to be sure. Also very dull, very easy and, perhaps, very cynical. There is no cumulative tension and little dynamic variety. The first act goes on forever. The second, though shorter, threatens to do the same.

One waits in vain for the climactic gesture. There is, of course, an endless, shapeless, turn-the-volume-knob explosion of cacophony at quake time. It doesn’t do the trick.

Not incidentally, two poems identified as songs in the libretto are spoken, not sung. One isn’t quite sure if that is a matter of intention, desperation or incompletion.

The self-conscious sentiment of Jordan’s libretto reads better than it plays. The words, in any case, are hardly elevated by the music, and the rambling structure of the collection resists dramatic focus.

The text can preach with primitive zeal: “Beat this message into your head / And lay down this base line deep on drums / We gotta use condoms condoms condoms / Or go to the movies instead!”

The rhetoric, ever-exclamatory, can stumble. When the girl reporter finds the boy cop unresponsive, she utters this straight-faced revelation: “Yes! / That’s what I said! / It just got through a really thick / part of my head! / Maybe you’re queer! Maybe you’re gay!”

The ultimate exit question, posed by the endearing attorney, involves uplifting gush: “What about love?”

What, indeed?

Sellars provides the biggest surprise of the evening. As we all know, he is one of the most innovative, most thoughtful and most iconoclastic directors on the stage today. And what does he do with this tale of elemental strife and contemporary desperation?

Nothing.

He lets the hapless and helpless characters stand around on an empty stage. He lets them croon into their microphones while trying to mime unfelt passions. He lets them strike poster poses.

A great sage--I think it was W. C. Fields--once said: “If first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No sense being a damn fool about it.”

It looks as if Sellars knew his chances of success.

* “I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky” continues through Sunday, presented by Cal Performances, at the Zellerbach Playhouse, U.C. Berkeley. Tickets $16 to $42. (510) 642-9988.