Teenage Angst, New & Improved

Matt Sax’s one-man hip-hop musical made its way to Time Square’s own Duke theatre, bringing with it all the torments of a suburban childhood. “Clay” recounts a teenager’s struggle to cope with his parent’s tumultuous divorce and his mother’s eventual suicide. The Westchester youth eventually finds solace in – where else? – the mean backstreets of Brooklyn. He delineates his life story in quaintly rhymed verse, and the production is set up in a way that the audience witnesses Clay’s great debut just as the curtains are about to close. Although Matt Sax is undeniably talented, “Clay” falls short of living up to its new Broadway home.
One-man performances tend to be slightly awkward, and “Clay” is no different. As the audience looks on incredulously, Sax shifts from one character to another by a mere change in facial contortion and voice pitch. This results in choppy, ungainly transitions and leaves little room for adequate character development. The audience is never given a chance to understand why his mother killed herself, or why his father is so wicked. We are also left without insight as to what Clay found in rap that allowed him to speak about his innermost secrets. Without anything to which the audience can relate, “Clay” becomes a tedious confessional.
The story is also far from original, and even farther from reality. The premise of a Westchester teen meeting Brooklyn’s rough alleyways is a twenty-first century cliché. Furthermore, the eschewal of his own heritage and embodiment of one that is not his own do not invite sympathy, rather obvious labels such as “Wangster” or “White Boy.” Eight-year-old Clay’s role as the prominent decision-maker in his parent’s divorce is also entirely unbelievable. On the other hand, the story might have been better received if his personal lexicon had not been needlessly littered with profanity.