Just as in the theater, it’s the production and not the play that matters more; with a story, it’s the presentation, not the tale, that counts most when you’re performing it.
Robert Montano found success as a Broadway dancer. The minute he appeared on the George Street Playhouse stage to begin his solo play, “Small,” I pictured him in a nightclub framing Chita Rivera.
Montano’s dance career is, justifiably, a footnote at the end of “Small.”
Montano is telling a different story, one about his ambition to be a professional race horse jockey in his teens.
The story is good. It’s worth hearing.
What makes it compelling and worth relating and acting to a theater audience are not the events, frustrations, pitfalls, and personal risks Montano lived while pursuing his dream, but the charm, humor, and pathos with which Montano tells it.
Deftly using the skills of a veteran theater performer, Montano knows to how interest his audience, when to make them laugh, sometimes at him, and when to tug at their heart.
He tells his story with economy and well-timed forays into sentiment and drama. He makes you care about his experience while making you care more about him, about the boy who wants something so badly, he is willing to go to extremes to achieve it.
Montano makes you root, worry, laugh, and feel concern in turn. The best thing about his well-honed script and performance is he never lingers over any point or event. When something momentous happens, or he wants to engage our emotions, Montano quickly changes the mood or tone of his narration and accomplishes his mission to move us with efficiency that is also effective.
He does wonders with a look, or slight change of voice, lets the moment settle, then goes back to his story. Thus, we get lumps in our throats when he relates a death, unexpected support from a parent or someone at the race courses, or an instance of breakthrough.
Montano’s personal approach, direct and winning, elicits genuine angst when Bobby, he as a boy, indulges in behavior that might be more harmful than productive, even if it aids him in obtaining what he wants.
As Montano and “Small” director Jessi D. Hill design, we become absorbed by a child’s discovery of horse racing, his attraction to the environment, his instinctive way with horses, and his ambitions. Wanting Bobby to fulfill an evident passion gets us past tougher sequences involving weight loss, negotiating his way as a jockey, and having to cope with some losses.
“Small” acquaints its audience with much that goes on behind the scenes in racing. As Montano focuses on his main story, he provides insight into the work that goes into training, riding, and gaining the confidence of a horse. We learn the mechanics of racing, how it feels to be on a speeding horse, in or out of control, as well as the anxieties of a jockey, especially when it comes to facing disqualification to ride if one doesn’t maintain a specific weight, usually in the area of 107 pounds.
Montano’s story takes slightly more than 90 minutes to present, but he is versatile enough as performer and crafty enough as a playwright to build in highs and lows and introduce to us to a series of characters, also played by him, that make “Small” into more of an insider’s tale and more colorful.
Hill shows equal skill as a director, moving Montano easily across Christopher Swader and Justin Swader’s tack room set. Hill also paces Montano, so there’s something new to learn or new beat on the heels of a subject that may have run its course.
In addition to narrating his story, Montano uses his physical skills to make training sessions and races as visually exciting as they are vocally.
“Small” is a specialty piece that hits home when it counts. It is the second consecutive George Street show that involves collaboration with Rockland County, New York’s Penguin Rep Theatre. It looks as if good partnerships were formed all around.
The set by Christopher Swader and Justin Swader provides atmosphere. Everything is minimal but conveys the sense of being in a specific place. Saddles, whips, and other jockey’s tools on walls made you feel as if you were at a stable.
The openness of the set makes it useful to suggest other settings.
Brian Ronan’s sound design, ranging from whinnies and kicks against stalls to crowd noises, also reinforces the mood and locale of “Small.”
Small, George Street Playhouse, New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, 11 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick. Through Sunday, February 2. $25 to $80. www.georgestreetplayhouse.org or 732-246-7717.
