Despite its terrific score, this ambitious musical fails to bring its literary source material to full theatrical life

Jonathan Lethem’s bestselling 2003 coming-of-age novel, The Fortress of Solitude, has been adapted into an off-Broadway musical with only fitfully successful results. This co-production by the Dallas Theater Center and NYC’s Public Theater is uncommonly ambitious in its scope and execution and boasts plenty of talent both on and offstage. But despite the strengths of Michael Friedman’s score, which features influences including soul, doo-wop, R&B, hip-hop and rock, the sprawling narrative never comes into clear focus. With a multitude of characters and a story that sprawls across two decades, the material doesn’t quite cohere into a satisfying whole. The first part is set in ’70s era, pre-gentrification Brooklyn and centers on the relationship between two teens named after musical icons: the white, Jewish, nerdy Dylan (Adam Chanler-Berat), son of an artist father (Ken Barnett) and social activist mother (Kristen Sieh) who abandons her family; and the black Mingus (Kyle Betran). The latter’s father is Barrett Rude Junior (Kevin Mambo), a cocaine-addicted former soul singer who years earlier briefly hit second-tier stardom as lead singer of the group the Subtle Distinctions.