SMALL
Written and Performed by Robert Montano
Directed by Jesse D. Hill
At the Pershing Square Signature Theatre Center
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
Even with its very decent word of mouth and extended run, Small is something of a surprise. It falls into the familiar category of one-performer autobiography-cum-confessional, guy-with-a-dream subgenre. In this case, the guy is Robert Montano, and its primary focus is on his mid-to-late teen years (mid-to-late 1970s). He tells of being small of stature and regularly bullied in school, but finding the key to self-validation through the unlikely conduit of accompanying his mother to Belmont Racetrack (she liked to bet on the horses) and realizing that the thing he wanted most to be in the world was a jockey.
To particularize too much of the rest is to indulge in spoilers, but suffice it to say that what’s added to the mix is the influence of his Dad, of the jockey who becomes his mentor, of training, racing and confronting his unexpected growth as a natural enemy.s
For me, I never quite stopped being aware of an actor at work: Montano’s narrative clarity and differentiation of the various characters are vocally and physically precise to a fault, such that the mechanics are exposed. He’s never without confidence and brio, but he rarely relaxes into an easy lob. But then, as a fellow who became a prominent and ubiquitous Broadway dancer and character actor, a talented and moderately charismatic one at that, he is naturally that active; and it’s not a story that relaxes much.
But as with most such idiosyncrasies in a worthwhile enterprise, if the storytelling is clean and everything else is cooking, you can make a pact with it after a while, and accept it as part of the performance vocabulary. Which I did, and you will too. It’s a perfect-imperfect Summer show.