STAGE WEST: "Small" at Old Globe Theatre

Robert Montano stars in the one-person show "Small."                                        Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Having had a father who worked at Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana and who was not only a Thoroughbred lover but an owner, I grew up to some extent around horse racing. I even met jockeys, those little but powerful men who sat atop 1,200-pound equine athletes and in so doing put their lives at risk.
            But until I saw and heard former jockey Robert Montano’s one-person show, “Small,” at the Old Globe, I didn’t know the harrowing insider details of what some of these little but powerful men go through to maintain their racing-eligible weight:
            Drugs (ironically called “Black Beauties”). Flipping (aka purging). Ingesting Lasix (long ago banned for even Thoroughbred consumption). Wrapping themselves in plastic wrap. Practically living in a sauna. Eating just enough to stay alive.
            This is only part of 65-year-old Montano’s life story, but it’s certainly the most unnerving. I was reminded, in conversation after the performance, that a jockey’s drastic physical self-sacrifice is not unlike the driven ballerina’s, the desperate fashion model’s, maybe even the struggling prizefighter’s.
            In a tireless performance that could be the equal of an athlete giving his or her 100%, Montano begins his story inside the Sheryl and Harvey White theater-in-the-round sharing his youth growing up in the ‘70s less than half an hour from Belmont Park racetrack in New York. With a religious mother who was a jewelry maker and an artist father, he grew up with love, discipline and, in the case of Mom, some helicopter parenting.
            Yet it was Bobby’s mother who introduced him to the excitement and glamor of the track (glamor that horse racing, sadly, has little of today outside of the Triple Crown). It was there that he discovered his idol: jockey Robert Pineda.
            “Small” is not an extended monologue by any means. Montano plays not only his younger self, but his parents and all the characters at the track with whom he became familiar – some of them less than reputable.
            It is teenage Bobby’s big dream to be like his hero, Pineda, and under the professional jockey’s mentorship he begins a fast-moving but arduous quest to take the reins of a Thoroughbred himself.
            The arduous is where the above-mentioned torturous ritual of making weight – stepping aboard the “Monster” as jockeys refer to the scales – goes down.
            Montano’s shirt is soaked with sweat 15 minutes into the performance, so you can imagine what it and his hair look like an hour in. (The show runs an hour and 45 minutes, which is long by one-person show standards.)
            Even if you’ve never heard or read about Robert Montano, you’ll know where events are headed. The kid who was so small in elementary school that he was mercilessly bullied begins to grow, and the young man who once prayed to be taller soon is now praying not to grow anymore.
            A 5-foot-8 man is not going to maintain a weight of 110 pounds or less – this is young Bobby’s fate.
            It is dancing that saves Montano, who shows us how this transformation happens. “Small” ends before we learn of the stellar career he has enjoyed from his 20s on -- onstage, on television and in films. You’ll want to read all about it after the show’s over.
            This is a lively, breathless production that can captivate even if you don’t know a fig about jockeys or horse racing. It’s directed by Jessi D. Hill. Sound design is by Brian Ronan, who takes us to the track and to the disco with style.
            In spite of its darker elements, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic and touched by Montano’s dramatized simple moments with the horses – like how it feels when that huge head nuzzles your face. That’s no small feeling.
            “Small” runs through Oct. 19 in the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.