Conductor crafts portrait of fiery Monteux maestro

Conductors seeking fame and fortune do not attend the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians in Hancock. Rather than endure the rocky Maine coast, frigid Atlantic and unpredictable summer weather, those future maestros settle themselves in the more comfortable rolling hills of the Berkshires at a cushy little place called Tanglewood.

Those who seek to become one with the music and bring it to life for an audience venture to the small Maine coastal town. The ones who attended the Hancock school between 1969 and 1995 had to survive more than black flies to earn their batons. They endured the lashing tongue and exacting standards of Charles Bruck, who ran the school for 25 years.

David Katz, a frequent guest conductor for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, not only survived Bruck’s legendary rages, but also credits the Hungarian-born teacher with molding him into a maestro. Now Katz, in his own way, is honoring Bruck in the one-man show “Muse of Fire.”

The play was performed Monday at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Somesville after premiering in Maine last week in Prospect Harbor.

Typically, these kinds of plays allow one actor to bring to life a famous person long deceased, the way Julie Harris portrayed Emily Dickinson in “The Belle of Amherst.” Other actors have portrayed a gaggle of characters to re-create an event, as Anna Deavere Smith did in her one-woman show “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” which is about the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and subsequent trial.

Katz took neither of those routes. Instead, he used the more literary memoir format to craft “Muse of Fire.” As a theatrical piece, that form doesn’t translate to the stage easily. Although the second act is finely honed, expertly paced and well acted, the first act needs some major surgery.

The play begins not with the man it is about, but with the student Katz. The device means the playwright lingers far too long on the mentored rather than the mentor. In introducing Bruck, the actor-playwright describes him ad nauseum rather than simply transforming himself into the lisping tyrant, as he does so beautifully in Act II.

“Muse of Fire” also would benefit from more portrayals of other students besides Katz who were forged into conductors by Bruck’s demanding and demeaning passion. The play ends with six of the maestro’s students at his deathbed, but Katz is the only one the audience knows. Connecting one or two of them to the lanky student conductor or the squinty-eyed girl portrayed in the first act would show how Bruck’s grasp somehow always exceeded his reach.

Tightening the first act and eliminating the intermission, which seems designed more for the performer than the audience, would infuse Katz’s memoir with the emotional gut punch Bruck inflicted on his students. By working with director Charles Nelson Reilly before the show premieres off-Broadway next year, Katz could create a searing and unforgettable portrait of the man who shaped a generation of conductors who hear the music with their hearts instead of their ears and their wallets.

Judy Harrison can be reached at 990-8207 and jharrison@bangordailynews.net.