Before The Golden Veil begins, the confident moniker of the National Theater of the United States of America announces that the company considers itself a candidate for Our National Aesthetic. Even during the preshow—full of lacy Austrian-drape curtains, Henry James–ish bustles and a rollicking band—the NTUSA ensemble seems to be promoting a platform of old-timey melodrama grafted onto postmodern Brooklynite weirdness. Of course, being quintessentially American cuts two ways. In art as in life, a majestic landscape can’t counterbalance a void of leadership, and writer-designer Normandy Sherwood’s elaborate world-building falters when no one in the collective can figure out how to convert the piece’s elegant strangeness into an ending. This time, democratic artistic direction can take us only so far.
For the first hour, The Golden Veil is a flurry of positives, including Jesse Hawley’s gorgeous faux-Appalachian songs and the piece’s play-within-a-séance structure. Warned by a medium (Maggie Robinson) that the dead will walk, we see a shepherdess (Hawley) playing out a series of cracked pastoral tales on a charming miniature stage. The terrifying Ean Sheehy, ravens glued to his coat, woos her in a number of guises, luring her first into dances and finally onto his demonic (puppet) horse. The show operates best as a pastiche of beginnings, so stories start over, the “veil” changes its nature to fit each new narrative, the mood turns gothic and then lightens with each song.
Awkwardness sets in only when the team tries to tie things together in the last, laborious half hour. It’s the conventional impulse that betrays them: Charm reverts into effort, and the mise en scène’s gold—so exquisitely hammered out—turns finally to lead.—Helen Shaw