"Turn Up the Volume" a drama that rocks off the Richter scale

Frank Lloyd Wright once said to make a great building, you need a great client. He was probably right, or at least that seems to have been the case with his work. To make a great play doesn’t require “great” subject matter or story, but it certainly helps. “Turn up the Volume,” a new one-man show at Theater for the New City written by musician Joe Anastasi and journalist/playwright Claude Solnik, tells a strong, true story of a musician who loses his hearing and struggles to recover it, possibly finding himself along the way.

Xander Furman gives an intense, emotional performance in this one-man show in a world also populated by family and friends, directed by Evan Guerrera. Furman moves smoothly between worlds on this set, including a music studio filled with drums and guitars, a residence created with a table, plants, CDs and a book about “Life after Deaf.” And then there’s the somewhat clinical couch and impersonal metal chair at the center of the stage that doubles for the world of healthcare and hospitals. Furman, directed by Guerera, glides between worlds that, really, represent separate parts of his life and soul.

Not a big fan of one-man shows myself, due to tendencies to settle for story telling rather than showing, speaking rather than true struggle or things happening, I found that “Turn up the Volume” avoids the pitfalls that plague this genre. Presented as a staged read, with set and costumes, likely to test out the show, “Turn up the Volume” is an intense journey into hearing loss where we never lose hope or heart. It may be the best one-man show I’ve seen, certainly in a while. And it works because it remains rooted in the present, as we follow the main character through challenges, struggles and successes all performed with heart and humanity. It is always about the emotion not the information, although we learn a lot about sudden hearing loss, what it is, what is isn’t, and how common it can be. This is a show that, at once, tells an important story (a reference to Frank Lloyd Wright, I suppose), educates and entertains and, most important, takes us on an emotional journey.

What makes all of this more remarkable is the history of so many one-man shows. One man shows often devolve into lectures, stand-up routines, storytelling, or showcases for actors often trapped by a ton of words, but this show happens as we watch Anastasi struggle in the present. Furman doesn’t tell Anastasi’s story; he lives or relives it as if we are seeing this happen for the first time, with an as yet undetermined ending. I saw an entertaining one-man show about Mark Twain, but it was presented as a lecture, which is a somewhat neutral presentation. A show about Eisenhower also came across as somewhat perfunctory and filled with facts more than feelings. “Turn up the Volume” shows us Furman, as Anastasi, in the moment, as he loses hearing, fights to get it back, balances family, work and passion and the parts of his personality. It is a presentation of Joe Anastasi’s discoveries that go far beyond music and hearing. He loses hearing in one ear, then another, but rather than repetition, we see evolution.

Marsh Shugart’s lighting creates three worlds, with warm domestic light for a home furnished with a plant, harsher light in the music studio and a moment when a light pops on like a sun in the healthcare section, as healthcare provides the truest hope and help. Just as Anastasi has different parts to his life, we see parts on stage. It's as if we see him scuttling and shuttling between these zones, never combining them into one life. He is, as Furman tells us, many people, a father, son, musician and, of course "me." Who he is, not what he is, that's what he learns and we learn along with him. Like most good shows, this is a journey. Unlike most voyages, we're not sure where the destination will be and, equally importantly, neither is he.

The show, directed smoothly by Even Guerrara, was inspired by an article Solnik wrote for Newsday about Anastasi, after he had lost his hearing. The two then talked again at greater length as Solnik typed, organized and supplemented what Anastasi said. And it was written over a time period, before operations, after and leading up to the present. So we see it unfurl in real time and hear Anastasi in his own words in a show that not only seems and feels real, but in a way “is” real. After the show, someone said she heard it was “based on a true story.” The response was it isn’t based on it, but rather it “is” the true story since it’s told in Anastasi’s words often as events were taking place.

The script tells Anastasi’s story, as Anastasi loses hearing in one ear, then another, struggling and searching, weighing what matters, and what it’s like to lose something he loves.  We watch Furman tell friends and family, reliving the loss. He tells his wife Penny in a wrenching moment. And then he tells his best friend and band member Allen.

“Dude, man, I lost hearing in one ear,” Furman says.

And then he tells us what it felt like to tell Allen, knowing he’s bringing him into this whole mess.

“Allen understands. If it’s happening to me, it’s like it’s happening to him,”

Furman says. “’Hang in there,’ Allen says. The sound of his voice, it’s soothing.”

There are comic moments when we hear about a disease called Sudden Hearing Loss (call it SHL) that sounds like “SNL” and that Anastasi spews fire as part of a Kiss tribute band. He tries to figure out whether loud music (or that fire) was his “damnation” and “salvation.” Could the thing he loved have caused this? Could his miracle be his monster? The doctor (Furman creates the doctor’s voice in a kind of impersonal, authoritative tone) tells him he doesn’t believe loud noise led to the loss. You can’t do a biopsy of the ear, since that would create damage. So it’s difficult to know what caused this seachange. Not knowing makes curing

tougher. Furman actually races through some medical information, as if to remind us that the information matters much less, to us, than the emotion and the impact.

Despite difficulties and some disappointments,  Anastasi, played by Furman, never gives up hope. So many problems are strewn across his path. Will the insurer pay? A week before surgery, there’s still no decision, although one arrives. Suffice it to say, he does find a path out of this wilderness, although as the show ends, he hasn’t yet been able to perform. He is deaf, although devices let him hear and do so much he couldn’t otherwise. Whether or not you’re a musician, you’ll feel the love he has for his wife and son (Penny and Dillon – not spelled like Bob Dylan), and the pain they all must feel, along with the precious belief in the future and passion they share.

This is, really, a beautiful, painful story about how a family unit holds together amid tragedy, about struggle and salvation amid sudden loss of hearing and something more. Anastasi loses his hearing, but he never loses hope or his heart. We hear Furman say he’s glad his son has his father back. Penny says his son never lost him. And in the end, as Anastasi’s worries focus on bedtime and homework, we are happy to hear that he is more worried about his son than his son is about him. Possibly, his son is right. No, Anastasi isn’t superman, but he is a good man. And in a world where Superman doesn’t exist, that’s about as much as anyone can hope to be.

Although the show is far from formulaic (part buddy story, part healthcare struggle and part family drama), it, apparently, was at least in part inspired by The Actors Gym New York, led by Academy Award winner Bobby Moresco, who wrote Crash and Million Dollar Baby. Various plays have come out of that workshop and it’s possible that this is one of them. Moresco asked participants to write a piece about work, its wonders and worries, how a profession could be both damnation and salvation. Write about work, about what it means. That led to pieces about art and autism , healthcare and humanity, soldiers and sinners and many others, including this piece about a musician finding struggle and salvation. While others were largely one acts, Solnik wrote a full-length show that flies along on the wings of words, emotions and Anastasi’s honest, heartfelt thoughts.

“Turn up the Volume” is alternatively profound, emotional, heart breaking, humerous and full of hope. The show would probably be fuller with sound effects and videos, but there’s also a lot to be said for a stark presentation of an actor, set and lights. We watch a man dealing with dragons and demons. When Anastasi has operations, he achieves a major level of success. At least as of the presentation of this production, Anastasi hasn’t yet performed in public again. The thing about true stories is they continue. This show presents a slice of life, what it’s like to wrestle with the loss of something we love. Just the way Frank Lloyd Wright made great places for people to live, Anastasi’s account gives us a great window into what he must have gone through. “Turn up the Volume” is a powerful presentation that deals with hearing, heart, passion, family and how we handle struggle. By the end of the show, when we hear a song Anastasi wrote, before the hearing loss, titled “This is Me,” we have a sense that the main character has survived a struggle. And so has his family. They did it together. There's a saying that tragedy tears dysfunctional famlies apart and pushes functional ones together.

The bonds uniting Anastasi's family, at least in this show, don't even fray. Toward the end, Penny finally cries, but we sense it's exhaustion. Is Joe Anastasi, andthe character in the play, a better person for all of this? I’m not sure, but he is not broken. He has grown as a human being and we have watched his struggle, possibly leaving the theater, appreciating sound and our ears a little more. I know I was grateful to have heard and seen this show and hope it finds a future and that Joe Anastasi continues his journey, filled with family, joy, love, hope, faith as well as the struggle he and his family has endured. The final irony, for me, is that Dillon truly does come across as a hero. And even more, I think he may be right. His father has just enough of Superman in him to make him strong, and is a good enough man to show courage, as the play says at some point, even if he may feel he has no choice.