‘Atlanta’ is a tapestry with many loose threads

Maybe music really can soothe a savage beast.

On Wednesday, I attended the opening of the Civil War musical “Atlanta” at the Geffen Playhouse. It’s by Grammy-winning songwriter Marcus Hummon, who’s composed hits for the Dixie Chicks, and Adrian Pasdar, a star of the NBC series “Heroes” who happens to be married to the band’s lead singer. Wow, what a train wreck. You could come up with about 100 jokes about “Atlanta” going down in flames again. And believe me, during some of the clunkier scenes, co-directed, it seemed, for maximum awkwardness by Pasdar and Geffen artistic director Randall Arney, my unconscious kept churning out zingers. (“Lincoln was right -- a musical divided against itself cannot stand.”)

But the kicker is that Hummon’s score -- a mix of country, soul and bluegrass that’s marred only occasionally by Disney-ish anthems -- has so many arresting moments that savagery eventually turned to sympathy. How could this bumbling, sweet-sounding show, the Geffen’s first world premiere musical, rescue itself?

The first thing that occurred to me was that Hummon should package the numbers as a concept album and invite Ken Barnett, Moe Daniels, Leonard Roberts and Merle Dandridge, four of the more vocally captivating cast members, to perform the work as a song cycle. Unfortunately, this sort of quasi-dramatic offering usually translates into a real snoozer.

The music needs a context. Plus, there’s some vibrant dramatic potential in Hummon and Pasdar’s book that would be a shame to lose. Trouble is, no play doctor is going to be able to fix the show. This is a job for a genuine playwright, who’d basically have to start from scratch, the writing equivalent of a gut renovation.

Still, the setup is inspiring. Paul (Barnett), a Yankee fighter, is stuck behind enemy lines in the hills of Allatoona, Ga., after killing a Confederate soldier. Even though the Southerners are beating a bloody retreat, this young Northerner is forced to wear his enemy’s uniform to survive the treacherous battlefield.

Two complications arise -- one romantic, the other histrionic. On the person of the fallen soldier, Paul comes upon a stash of love letters from a woman named Atlanta (JoNell Kennedy). The more he reads, the more his own heart stirs with longing for her -- a tricky problem considering he’s just offed her man and knows her only by her fancy penmanship, which is projected, like a greeting card commercial, onto a screen at the back the stage.

Of a more flamboyantly theatrical nature is the whole subplot involving Col. Medraut (John Fleck), a Confederate commander who loves all things Shakespearean and has a troupe of slaves that performs the Bard’s work at his beck and call. Suspicions about Paul’s identity are temporarily put aside after Hamlet (Roberts), the ensemble’s leading man, suggests the new guy can fill the void left by the death of “Bottoms,” another actor-slave named after a character in what Medraut reverentially calls “the book.”

New casting opportunities open up with Paul, who’s a lousy actor but with one distinct advantage: He’s white, so Medraut will permit him to play love scenes with Cleo (Dandridge), a fair-skinned black woman who everyone, including Puck (Daniels), a mischievous, gender-confused slave, is smitten with. Yet it’s Hamlet to whom Cleo (short for Cleopatra, naturally) has given her heart, even if she must regularly offer her body to the hypocritical, brandy-soaked colonel.

The heightened theatricality of these situations is one of the redeeming aspects of “Atlanta.” Yes, the pacing, story structure and dialogue are a remedial mess. But the imagination is bold. Any musical that takes on Shakespeare to the extent that this one does isn’t easily daunted. The show actually has the audacity to set Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy and the “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” sonnet to music -- and, miraculously (thanks to Hummon’s melodic folksiness and a crack onstage band), pulls off the seemingly impossible.

What sinks the drama, however, is the absence of tension after Paul is accepted in Medraut’s squadron. The treatment is casually episodic, parceled into TV bits that lack a sturdy theatrical build.

This, along with some lovey-dovey lyricism that smacks of high school yearbook schmaltz, incites a good deal of compensatory overacting. Medraut, a walking billboard of Bardolatry, is supposed to be a ham. But Fleck, one of the “NEA Four” embroiled in the controversy over creative freedom and governmental arts funding, turns him into a high-flying performance artist unaccustomed to sharing the stage with other actors.

As for the ragtag Shakespeareans, Barnett, Daniels and Roberts seem more comfortable when singing than acting. The cramped staging, with a sketchy set design by John Arnone that offers slide projections of wintry battlefields, makes it difficult for the players to root themselves in this world. It’s the music alone that stirs their conviction.

Too bad the production’s choreographic obliviousness (no one owns up in the playbill) results in the cast adopting postures more suitable to a pop concert. But the whole relationship of music to drama is out of whack. The numbers tend to emerge with a silly preface. Before one of Atlanta’s letters is harmonized, Hamlet asks Cleo, in the manner of a variety show host, “Why don’t you read it aloud for us, Cleo?” And for Puck’s grand finale, we get, “I’m gonna sing one song, and then I’m leaving.”

This isn’t dramaturgy -- it’s telegraphy. Nonetheless, the show is undeniably ambitious thematically. “Atlanta” is first and foremost about divisions -- between North and South, blacks and whites, and men and women, as well as the cracks and contradictions within individual souls.

Yet the story of a fractured nation needs to be told with more artistic coherence, as well as gracefulness and subtlety.

Hummon brings a welcome fusion of country and soul to musical theater. But he could sorely use experienced collaborators to stitchhis glorious sound into an equally glorious dramatic tapestry.

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

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‘Atlanta’

Where: Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Jan. 6

Price: $35 to $115

Contact: (310) 208-5454

Running Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes