Arts Review

Bohemian Cowboy

Hyde Park Theatre, through Dec. 20

Running time: 1 hr, 25 min

Bohemian Cowboy is a one-man show about one of the most common yet still-rich subjects in literature: the conflicted father-son relationship. One day, a wild musician of a cowboy walks out into the Western desert and disappears forever. No amount of search-and-rescue can find any trace of him. It's left to his son, Utah-based writer and performer Raymond King Shurtz, to follow the other trail that his father left – his songs and his memories – to see if he can locate the true character of the mysterious man.

The strength of Bohemian Cowboy is the writing. A few clichés aside, Shurtz embraces the rhythms of country music and builds them into the story he tells. In speaking about his parents' brief and troubled marriage, he says, "My mother, she was a poet – but my father? He was poetic." Shurtz, who says the story is based on his father's actual disappearance, wisely takes a few poetic leaps himself. In following his father's trail into the desert, Shurtz leaves behind the literal truth of his father's disappearance and encounters a sequence of mythical persons, even daring to arm wrestle Jesus himself ... and win. From these experiences he derives some meaning, at least enough for him to move forward in life and create a decent play about it.

Now, some people will interpret this as an insult and others as a compliment, but I promise it's just plain observation. In performance, Shurtz resembles nothing so much as George W. Bush. All of his characters use that slow karate-chop gesture for emphasis – you know, with one foot forward, when politician-guys bring down their hand in the air when they really want you to get their point? At moments of high emotion, Shurtz even squints. It's hard not to think that you might be watching a play performed by the 43rd president (who, according to some, has had his share of father-son battles with Bush 41, so perhaps the choice is deliberate).

Kurt Brungardt's direction, unfortunately, doesn't serve the material as well as it deserves. For example, Shurtz plays and sings several songs with a guitar during the show. We in Austin will not fault anybody for bringing a guitar onstage, of course. But the guitar is positioned in one corner of the playing area, on a stand that threatens to topple. It interrupts the story and action whenever Shurtz crosses to pick up the guitar or set it down. Plus, he keeps tossing the pick onto the table then retrieving it later; why not just slide it through the strings? Also, the production uses digital projections to help set the scene. The images are not all high-res. In other words, some of them are so pixelated as to appear amateurish and sloppy. It's a very easy thing to locate high-res images, and it's a shame no one has done so.

These directorial mistakes are a distraction from an otherwise intriguing story. Austin loves cowboy stories, and if there is a home for a play like Bohemian Cowboy, this ought to be it.