Obsession is what Small, written by Robert Montano, is all about. Fittingly, the autobiographical work is obsessively performed by Montano. It and he are something to see, all right.
The story goes like this: When only entering his teenage years, Montano, known to his family as Bobby, was mightily impressed by West Side Story and, in particular, by the character of Bernardo. He was stopped in his youthful ambition by his size. Just over five feet, he had retreated into timidity as a response to being regularly picked on at school.
He was unhappy about the dismal state of affairs until one eye-opening day. Behind his father’s back, his mother took him to Belmont Park. She was hoping to win enough bets to buy flooring tiles needed at home. Once there on the clandestine visit, Montano was confronted by jockeys, especially by Robert A. Pineda. Impressed at the powerful Pineda presence, Bobby immediately ceased praying to God for height and began fervently praying to remain small.
Despite his parents’ forbidding him to hang around the racetrack – his mother was worried about the danger to riders – he persisted, and over not too much time he began ingratiating himself with the Belmont personnel. He was a kid obviously determined to become one of them. They all recognized his gumption. Eventually he even got himself mentored by the exceptionally kind Pineda.
Now intent on a jockey career, he worried about what was occurring against his repeated prayers. His height and weight were obdurately mounting. Where 5 feet,4 inches and 104 pounds was ideal, he was suddenly growing past that. Landing his first races, he was upping to 5 feet, 8 inches and more than 108 pounds. This was a bummer when the weigh-in included the saddle.
The day before his most important race astride a horse called Sow & Reap, he tipped the scales at 116 pounds. He had to shed 12 pounds overnight. Whereupon the toothy Montano sinks his teeth into recounting how he went about it in a harrowing and suspenseful sequence that weighs in as the high point of his intense 85-minute recollection.
The aftermath coda has Montano facing up to an unlikely continuing jockey career and his returning to his first obsession, dancing. Wandering into a dance hall one night by accident, he realized he got the beat and the moves to go with it. Dance study followed, and in time he even auditioned for the long-sought Bernardo role.
Whether he gets it won’t be spilled here. What will be is an unexpected underlying theme with which Small tinkers. Most scripts founded on someone fighting against odds – racetrack or otherwise – lead up to the protagonist’s inevitable final challenge and, at the last moment, triumphing.
Small is a moving example of the opposite: the notion that sometimes winning after having exhausted oneself in the attempt doesn’t necessarily represent the most victorious outcome possible. There are preferable alternatives, and thanks to Montano for making the realistically worthy point.
Thanks as well to Montano and director Jessi D. Hill for how they represent it. On a set that Christopher and Justin Swader had made to resemble part of a paddock – sound designer Brian Ronan supplies the nearby racehorse whinnying – Montano matches his early obsessive behavior with a tour de force repeat. Here, there, and everywhere – including barreling back and forth within inches of the front row – he barely stops to breathe.
Reliving the fateful Sow and Reap race – just before which he’s frantically made weight – he demonstrates coming that close to losing his life. Not only does he hardly breathe during the sequence, audience members nearly stop their breathing as well. On the way out, one woman exclaimed, “He looked like he lost 10 pounds just doing that.” In the act of recalling how he sacrificed for his sport, Montano unleashes a hyperactive show of sacrificing for his art.
Small opened August 14, 2023, at 59E59 and runs through September 2. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
