Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice Off-Broadway Reviews

Superficiality is a bane of this uncertain show, for which Creel wrote the book, lyrics and soft-pop music. Commissioned by the Met’s Live Arts Department, and performed at the museum in 2021, it has the dispiriting feel of an advertisement for the Met’s collections — and despite the dozens of artworks projected upstage, not a persuasive one. Try though Creel does to convince us that he eventually succumbed to the museum’s magic, little of “Walk on Through” seems heartfelt. A lot of it seems forced, as if he is trying to deliver what he thinks is expected in response to the art: profundity, epiphany.

Like a lot of recent solo shows (see also Rachel Bloom), Walk on Through runs aground when it tries to accommodate the emotional impact of the pandemic, as Creel and director Linda Goodrich arrive at an overdramatic curtain-pulling depiction of the Met’s shutdown of the museum. But once Creel does head back to the museum, he encounters a new visitor, and the two of them discuss their differing interpretations of an Edward Hopper painting of the view from the Williamsburg Bridge. One sees a hopeful daydreamer looking out that window, another someone crushed by the loneliness of the city. “We’re both looking at the same thing, but we’re each seeing it totally differently,” Creel muses. That’s one of those little observations that might seem trite, but it does carry a lot with it. You go to an exhibition, or a musical, to encounter someone else’s view of the world, but you yourself can only see it through your own little window. And your view, in turn, can become its own layer of interpretation, passed off to someone else.

“Walk on Through” is at its best when Creel chucks his life story to delve into his very idiosyncratic yet universal feelings and ideas about art. Like, how looking at lots of perfect marble buttocks and pecs can be a great aphrodisiac. Or, what happens when you fall in love with the guy in Vesvolod Mikhailovich Garshin’s “Illia Repin” who turned out to kill himself? Or, how two people (Creel and Ryan Vasquez) can harbor such different reactions to Edward Hopper’s “From Williamsburg Bridge”?

While Walk on Through is occasionally self-indulgent, it's more often endearing, funny and relatable, and makes you yearn for a cast recording. And it's not all about Creel: Ryan Vasquez and his powerhouse vocals are shown off in a series of small roles, including a wry Pollock and the brooding Russian author Vsevolod Garshin; in a stirring if incongruous number, Sasha Allen blows the roof off the joint as the triumphant subject of Lucas Cranach the Elder's Judith with the Head of Holofernes. Dramatic lighting by Jiyoun Chang and fabulous orchestrations by the band help elevate the show beyond cabaret.

It’s borderline corny, yes, but Creel’s gusto is endearing. The painting also illuminates how pain is captured by art. There’s plenty more ache to go around when Vasquez appears as Creel’s ex (identified simply as H, in the script), who alludes to their failed relationship. Some moments, however, don’t gel. In one inspired by a painting of a biblical heroine who killed a besieging general, Hair alum Sasha Allen belts overtime, and the head-scratching number stops the show for the wrong reason.