The Dark Horse in a Black Box

Hello, hello, and welcome to T.E.A. Time with Tayvin Bayless. If you are joining me for the first time, I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you decide to stick around. And to my returning listeners, it’s wonderful to have you back with me again.

Have you ever expected one thing to be the main event, only to discover that the more interesting story was somewhere else? Maybe you went to watch the star player, but a lesser-known athlete stole the game. Maybe you opened a book for one famous scene and found that the chapters after it were the ones that stayed with you.

Before we get into today’s story, I’d like to share a phrase that will become highly relevant later: David versus Goliath. David versus Goliath.

The expression comes from a story in the Bible, found in the book of First Samuel. Goliath is a giant warrior and the champion of the Philistine army. He is large, experienced, heavily armored, and terrifying enough that no one from the opposing army wants to fight him. David, on the other hand, is a young shepherd. He does not look like a warrior. He refuses the heavy armor offered to him and goes into the fight carrying a sling and a few stones. By every visible measure, Goliath should win, but he doesn’t. David strikes him with a stone and defeats him. David’s victory is a reminder: don’t judge a book by its cover.

In English, we use the expression David versus Goliath to describe a contest between a small or weak opponent and a much larger, more powerful one. A tiny local business taking on an enormous corporation might be called a David-versus-Goliath fight. A low-ranked team playing against the defending champions might be a David-versus-Goliath matchup. A single citizen challenging a powerful institution could be facing a Goliath.

The expression usually encourages us to pay attention to the smaller side. We know how the original story ends, so the name David carries a little hope inside it. The weaker competitor may be outmatched, but that does not mean the result has already been decided. Size is powerful. Experience is powerful. Money is powerful. These things do not make victory automatic, though.

Keep that expression in mind, as the two characters it recalls play a role in my story today.

Emma has a lot of connections from her time doing theater here in Utah. She completed her undergraduate degree here and has worked on many professional productions in the state. Whenever we plan a trip to Utah, she reaches out to a few of her contacts to see whether there are any projects she can work on while we’re in town.

Of all the great people Emma has worked for and worked with, Javen Tanner is one of my personal favorites. I can’t really speak for Emma, but I do get to see part of her design process from behind the scenes. I hear about the Zoom calls where she talks with director and tries to understand their vision for a show. I see the various stages of her designs and the way she changes them to fit that vision. A design also has to fit the limitations of the theater, the set, the equipment, and the budget. Art is full of infinite possibilities, the electrical system less so.

From what I can see, working with Javen is always straightforward and smooth. Emma has worked with him on six shows so far, and we hope she will be able to work with him for many more years to come.

Javen is the artistic director of the Sting & Honey Company. The company performs at the Regent Street Black Box inside the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City. A black box theater is a small performance space with dark walls and a flexible layout. Instead of a huge stage separated from hundreds or thousands of seats, the actors and audience share a much more intimate space. Intimate, in this context, means small, close, and personal.

Javen mostly directs plays. I tend to prefer musicals, but I am a big fan of the style of play he directs. His productions are often around ninety minutes long with no intermission. Sometimes he writes or adapts the plays himself. An adaptation is a new version of an existing story, often changed to fit a different medium, time, or point of view.

Many of the shows are based on famous tales but retold in thought-provoking new ways. The set designs are often minimalist, meaning they use only a few simple pieces, but those pieces can be moved or reimagined to shape each scene. Javen also seems to have a fondness for using masks in his performances. A mask can hide an actor’s face, but in the right hands it can reveal quite a lot about a character. Theater loves that kind of contradiction.

Earlier today, Emma and I went to see a performance of the show she has been working on. We chose the 2:00 matinee because it was easier for Emma’s parents to watch Eliana while we were gone. A matinee, by the way, is an afternoon performance. It is also much friendlier to parents of a one-year-old than a late show. We could enjoy some theater and still be home before bedtime could devolve into a drama of its own.

The show is called The Far Gaze. It was written by J. Scott Reynolds and directed by Javen. The play examines the Biblical story of King David. It opens with the famous scene of David fighting Goliath, presented through movement, masks, and music. But that is not the story the play is really there to tell. It only stays with that famous showdown for a moment.

The focus is on David’s illicit relationship with Bathsheba. Illicit means forbidden by law or accepted moral rules. Bathsheba is married to a soldier named Uriah. After David sleeps with her and she becomes pregnant, he tries to hide what he has done. When his cover-up attempts fail, he arranges for Uriah to be placed on the front lines of a battle and abandoned there. Uriah is killed, and the consequences of David’s choices spread far beyond him.

That makes the opening scene especially effective. We begin with David at his most famous and heroic. He is the brave young man facing an enemy no one else will challenge. Then the story moves forward, and the former underdog becomes the king. David was once the smaller figure standing against power. Now he has power, and he uses it against a man honor-bound to follow him.

The acting was superb. Each role was well cast, and everyone did a great job, but the play really hinges on Cam Deaver, the actor who played David. To hinge on something means to depend on it, the way a door depends on its hinges to move. Cam had to humanize this larger-than-life character. He had to convey the internal emotional conflict, the weight of the responsibilities David carried as king, and show how circumstances and rationalizations could lead this heroic figure to commit such a despicable act. He killed it.

The script used beautiful, poetic language. I would call it Shakespearean, or at least pseudo-Shakespearean, meaning it sounded somewhat like Shakespeare without being an attempt to copy him exactly. Heightened poetic language can sometimes be difficult to follow, especially for a modern audience. This remained very understandable. The words felt elevated, but the story never disappeared behind them.

The masks, music, and minimalist set all worked together wonderfully. And, yes, I am certainly biased, but I thought the lighting was excellent too. There is a confrontation near the end between David and the prophet Nathan. As Nathan forces David to face what he has done, a red glow slowly fills the stage. It starts subtly and becomes impossible to ignore, much like David’s choices and their consequences. One published review specifically praised that moment, so at least one person who is not married to the lighting designer agrees with me.

Overall, it was a great experience. I only wish more people had been there to experience it with us.

Black box theaters usually cannot seat a very large audience, but I was still a bit sad to see only about fourteen other people in the audience. Of course, the extra room meant Emma and I did not have to sit right next to anyone but each other. I enjoy people. I also enjoy an empty seat between me and people.

Still, the play was so good that I wished more people had taken the opportunity to see it. It was a small production in a small room, telling a familiar story without a massive set or fancy props. If someone had asked me to predict my favorite theatrical experience from this trip before we arrived in Utah, The Far Gaze would probably have been a dark horse.

That brings me to today’s second expression: a dark horse.

A dark horse is a person, team, or competitor that people know little about but that performs much better than expected. It can be someone who surprises everyone by winning, or simply someone with an ability that other people did not know about. You might call a new athlete the dark horse of a tournament, and you will often hear a little-known candidate in an election called a dark horse.

The expression comes from horse racing. When very little was known about a horse, gamblers had a harder time judging its ability or deciding the odds that it would win. One of the earliest well-known examples appears in Benjamin Disraeli’s 1831 novel The Young Duke, where an unexpected horse rushes past the others and wins. From horse racing, the expression eventually spread to politics, sports, and other kinds of competition.s

A dark horse is similar to an underdog, but the two expressions are not exactly the same. An underdog is expected to lose because the other side appears stronger. A dark horse is less familiar. People may underestimate the dark horse simply because they do not know what it can do. David was clearly an underdog when he faced Goliath. He was also something of a dark horse. Goliath saw a young shepherd. He did not see the skill David had developed with a sling.

The Far Gaze was not competing against another play today, so I would not literally call it the winner of a contest. But it had the quality of a dark horse for me. It was a production that many people in the city probably knew very little about, performed in a small room for a small audience, and it was excellent. Limited attention is not the same thing as limited quality.

Here’s another example. Imagine a new employee who rarely speaks during meetings. Then an emergency comes up, and she calmly solves a problem that has confused everyone else for hours. You might say, “She was a real dark horse. I had no idea she knew so much about the system.”

So here’s something to think about. Have you ever discovered a dark horse, perhaps a little-known artist, a small restaurant, or a person with a skill you never expected? The next time you are choosing what to watch, read, or support, consider giving one of the less familiar options a chance. You may find something remarkable.

The story of David and Goliath teaches us that the smaller opponent should not be dismissed. The rest of David’s story adds a more uncomfortable lesson. Winning once does not guarantee that you will always be the hero. Power can change the role you play, sometimes before you notice that the old underdog has become the new Goliath.

Today, though, I am grateful for a small company, a small theater, and a production that deserved a much larger audience.

And with that, my cup is empty. Thanks for joining me for T.E.A. Time. Until the next pot.