Robert Montano shares his compelling story of working as a teenager at Belmont in Small(photo by Valerie Terranova)
SMALL
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 25, $49-$119
smalltheplay.com
In the one-man 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The Last Night of a Jockey,” Mickey Rooney stars as Michael Grady, a failed jockey who, given one final chance, declares, “I wanna be big!”
In classic Rod Serling style, be careful what you wish for.
In the Drama Desk–nominated one-man show Small, Robert Montano expertly relates his real-life teenage desire to become a jockey, but, as a growing adolescent, he prays to remain small.
The fourteen-year-old Montano, known as Bobby, is only four-foot-six, the smallest kid in his class in Hempstead, Long Island. He is tired of being pushed around and dreams of something better. One day he goes to the racetrack with his mother, Gloria, a God-fearing Puerto Rican woman who sells jewelry at Fortunoffs and likes to gamble a bit, much to the consternation of her husband, Salvatore, an Italian American art professor who is prone to the drink. A client of Gloria’s, Roberto A. Pineda, is racing at Belmont Park, and she takes her son with her to place a little bet and to meet the jockey. Bobby is instantly smitten with Pineda and the Sport of Kings and begs his parents and Pineda to let him work there.
They agree, organizing his schedule around school. At the track, he meets a bigoted trainer, a bloated owner, an attractive stable hand, and other characters as he learns the ropes and pays his dues. He wants to get on a horse and race, but by the time that becomes a possibility, he has grown several inches and put on a few pounds, so his struggle to maintain the weight qualifications become a fierce battle, especially as he finds out about dangerous ways to do so.
“I was ready to put a coffee table on my head, bind my feet, whatever I had to do to stay small,” he says.
Robert Montano’s Small is back for a well-deserved encore run (photo by Valerie Terranova)
Written by Montano and directed by Jessi D. Hill (Surely Goodness and Mercy, Vanishing Point) and previously presented by Penguin Rep at 59E59 in 2023, Small unfolds like an exciting horse race all its own. Upon first seeing Christopher and Justin Swader’s set, a wooden stable with real props of the trade (by Buffy Cardoza), I was reminded of visiting the paddock before a race — I’ve been to Belmont numerous times, including several times for the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown. The training scenes mirror the cadence of the horses parading in the paddock before they enter the starting gate. And when Bobby does begin getting on the horses, the pace quickens like a race, as Bobby jockeys for position, speeds up, slows down, and seizes the moment to forge ahead. As much as he wants to win, he also learns there are prices to pay and choices you can’t take back.
Montano gives a tour-de-force performance, seamlessly embodying more than a dozen wide-ranging characters as he gets the opportunity to live out his dream. Montano is an engaging performer, generous and brave, not shying away from his faults as he commands our attention with his charming demeanor. It’s dynamic storytelling even for those audience members who know the outcome. Jamie Roderick’s lighting and Brian Ronan’s sound enhance the action, whether Bobby is at the track, home with his parents, trying to make the weight — he refers to the scale, depicted as a bright white light on the floor, as “the monster” — or partying at a disco, where he discovers there may be something very different in his future.
Right outside the theater is a large board with information about Montano’s career, including archival photographs and his actual jockey uniform; if you want to be surprised by his life story, don’t check it out until after the play, when you can enjoy it with a newfound perspective.
With most tickets only $49–$69, Small is one of the best bets around. Or, as Serling said in the closing narration for “The Last Night of a Jockey”: “You can make a parimutuel bet on this, win, place, or show, in or out — of the Twilight Zone.”
I can assure you that this one is a big winner.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]