Review tick, tick ... BOOM!

tick, tick ... BOOM!
Book, Music And Lyrics by Jonathan Larson

The Next Big (Fat-Free But Tasty) Musical
https://www.parktheatre.co.uk/

What, reviewing the late Jonathan Larson's early musical when one hasn't even seen Rent, his celebrated riff on La Bohème? TLT and the engine beneath her wings feel they should come clean but, on the other hand, they come to Tick, Tick ... Boom! with a clean slate and ready to be entertained.

Tick, Tick ... Boom! appears to be an apprentice musical in more ways than one. Larson, who was also an actor, performed it as a solo rock show from 1990.  It slides, deliberately we think, from beginner's promise but structural clunkiness into something more sophisticated as the song styles and book grow in complexity.

It's highly autobiographical - the central character is a struggling aspiring songwriter called Jon who, like Larson, waits on tables while he awaits his big break. He is turning from 29 to the big 3-Oh (that's oh-oh!). His dance teacher girlfriend Susan aches to break away from tutoring weathy little 'uns for her own big break. But she also longs for the stability of marriage and suburban life.

That's not to be confused with Jon's (and Larson's) first attempt at a musical, the unfinished scifi Superbia, one song of which, Come To Your Senses, David Auburn, who revised Tick, Tick ... Boom!, incorporated into the later show.

Auburn turned Tick, Tick... Boom!, after Larson's premature death, from a solo musical monologue to a revamped chamber musical three-hander, its present form.

Jon (Chris Jenkins from The Burnt Part Boys) spends his time working in a diner, smoking joints on the rooftop of his Soho apartment in between working on his musical.

However spiritually he agonizes as his birthday approaches and his dreams of a produced musical remain unfulfilled.

He is still close to Michael (Jordan Shaw) with whom he grew up and went to summer camp. Michael though has long abandoned his own dream to become an actor to chase the mighty dollar in a Madison Avenue advertising firm, gain a coveted swish car (hey, what's wrong with that?, demands TLT's automotive sidekick indignantly!) and a luxury pad.

Director Bronagh Lagan's production takes a little while to setttle down with a few technical  hiccups - Jordan Shaw gives the most consistent performance from start to finish but all the cast come good with eventually outstanding performances from Jenkins and Saker.

The song most often picked out from this youthful work is the diner parody Sunday of Jon and Larson's real-life mentor Stevie's Sunday from Sunday In The Park With George where the order of Art (with a capital A)  becomes an order of an omelette with no yolks, "That why you're a wait-er!".

That's Stevie as in Stephen Sondheim, not Stevie as in Stevia the sugar-free substitute. A sugar-free substitute being the product at the centre of a doomed advertising industry opportunity which Michael sets up for his friend

But the song we loved was the fast-paced psychobabble of the phone call song with a Country & Western twang, Therapy, yet is there also a touch of old style classic musicals and Sesame Street?

Nik Cottall's excellent versatile set goes a long way to giving the production an atmospheric shape, changing seamlessly from apartment to rooftop to diner to office space and even workshop area.. Ben M Rogers' matches him with (pardon the pun!) spot on lighting which also clearly defines the locations of the various scenes but also adds emotional depth when needed. 

Musical director Gareth Bretherton on keyboards is seen through a gauze screen while the three other members of the band on guitar, bass and drums are up above on the balcony. At one point they also  become participants in the Madison Avenue brainstorming parliament - even those musicians perched above away with the birds! 

This is one of those fascinating evenings where non-cognoscenti like TLT and her motorised chariot (and nearing the end of this review, we still haven't seen Rent!) can appreciate some of the technical processes of a developing musical theatre writer without their eyes glazing over.

Because we also pride ourselves that in terms of musical theatre, we're the ordinary punters with unlearned opinions who nevertheless can google and gather knowledge, we know now that Jonathan Larson sadly died as a result of  undiagnosed Marfan Syndrome.

Despite a few technical glitches and Philip Michael Thomas's choreography feeling a little squeezed into the space, the whole experience, whether with or without the woeful background, was a green light from us - oh, and we look forward to catching Rent if not on the current tour then in a future incarnation!

Review The Burnt Part Boys

The Burnt Part Boys
Book by Mariana Elder
Music by Chris Miller
Lyrics by Nathan Tysen

 To The Mountaintop
http://parktheatre.co.uk  

It's 1962 in a mining town of West Virginia where, until a fatal underground disaster 12 years previously, the whole of the community depended on the company owning the mine.

The Burnt Part Boys is a coming-of-age musical centring on fatherless 14 year old Pete (a tender performance by Joseph Peacock), obsessed with John Wayne movie The Alamo, who views the closed mine as a shrine and grave to his Dad and the others who died in the accident.  

Hearing on the transistor radio of his older brother Jake (Chris Jenkins) that the company will be re-opening the mine, Pete, inspired by a mixture of grief and his favourite movie, determines to take action. 

He persuades his friend Dusty (Ryan Heenan, sweetly combining bumptiousness and vulnerability), who also lost his father, to accompany him up the mountain to Burnt Part, the mine scorched by a fire following the fatal accident. However Pete doesn't tell his companion the second part of his plan to keep the mine closed for ever. 

This should have the makings of a stonking, much-at-stake story, with a book by Marianna Elder and music by Chris Miller and lyrics by Nathan Tysen. But this tale doesn't deliver the courage of its beginnings.  

The historical, political, native American and cinema references promise greatly at the start with a tinge of sophisticated Sondheim amid the hillbilly country and bluegrass style. Yet the possibilities are not followed through by the creators of this musical who seem content to rest on the laurels of a good idea.

Even so, there's good work here in this theatre-in-the-round production fluidly directed by Matthew Iliffe with Charlie Morgan Jones's lighting design in the Park90 studio space. It also benefits from  a minimal set of ropes, drapes and lamps hanging from the ceiling designed by Rachel Wingate, just enough to let the audience's imagination do the rest.

The band led by Nick Barstow on keyboard with violin, guitar, bass and percussion give lively and nuanced accompaniment.

The characters are all well-defined although there was some struggling with accents causing lines and lyrics to be lost. Nevertheless this musical gives an opportunity for some splendid choral harmonies as well as individual turns and duets by Pete, brother Jake, the latter's friend Chet (Chris Jenkins and David Leopold grasping the mettle and giving depth to teens given responsibilities too soon). 

David Haydn brings singing ability and humour as Pete's movie and American folklore fantasy figures fusing eventually into his lost father. Jonathan Bourne as Dusty's ghostly father also gives a glimpse of a fine voice in an eleventh-hour solo moment. 

Meanwhile Grace Osborn as wildcat Frances also sings characterfully in a pleasingly Katherine Hepburn-tinged performance.

At the same time, it's a curious mixture of  a musical with heart with touching moments and a musical by numbers letting the grit of mining life slip away.  

The story notably drops at what should have been the most dramatic moment just before the delivrance of the boys and Frances from underground. Titles such as "I Made It" and some of the references in the lyrics nevertheless give a clue to what could have been a more complex musical paralleling mining, family trees, filmmaking and the creation of a musical.

So. the potential of the story is never mined (pardon the pun!) by the writers. And yet ... the choral singing gives an indication that a bigger cast might add an epic dimension. 

And while it might be heresy with such spirited performances, we did wonder whether the story would have had more trajectory if it had been the "Burnt Part Girls" and brought in other implications. Ouch, there, we've said it! In the meantime, it's a canary-coloured amber light from TLT and her little wagon at the coalface.