![]() ![]() You can hear the budding brilliance of Rent in this early music, which Stephen Oremus orchestrated and is performed here by a compact band under Rodney Bush’s musical direction.ĭevotees of the television cult classic Smash will remember Mientus as the Larson-like Kyle Bishop. The composer even parodies his idol, Sondheim, in “Sunday,” where the petty indignities of a typical brunch shift build to an operatic crescendo. “See Her Smile” is an achingly simple portrait of a partnership in transition. “Johnny Can’t Decide” encapsulates the tug-of-war between remaining true to your ideals and recognizing the powerful lure of creature comforts. Larson distilled these experiences into a handful of hummable but profound songs, which the musical puts to solid dramaturgical use. Ricketts), who leaves behind a stalled acting career for the financial security of a Madison Avenue advertising firm. What that entails is reflected in two separate paths: staying true to his art or going corporate like his childhood friend Michael (Noah J. He lives with his partner, Susan (Krystina Alabado), a dancer who’s ready to take her life and their relationship to the next level. That’s how we meet Jon (Andy Mientus), who tinkers, workshops, and kvetches between brunch shifts serving trendy food to entitled patrons. The sharp libretto and tuneful music capture a snapshot in time when a bohemian, artistic life was still within reach for the young and ambitious, when an aspiring composer could place himself at the heart of everything while supporting his dreams with a job as a diner waiter. ![]() After his death, playwright David Auburn ( Summer, 1976) reimagined it as a three-character distillation of Larson’s lean years as a struggling New York City composer. Larson initially devised the musical as a solo performance piece in which he wrestled with his 30th birthday at the dawn of the ’90s. But we Rentheads must content ourselves with the trunk of marginalia he left behind, much of which found its way into Tick, Tick…BOOM!, now onstage at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Surely anyone who could retrofit Puccini’s La Bohème to the Lower East Side of the 1990s while adapting the musical language to a grunge-rock idiom would have achieved many great successes if given a Sondheim life expectancy. No one doubts the cultural impact or artistic value of his magnum opus, Rent, but in some ways, it only hints at the genius he possessed. Twenty-seven years after his sudden death, Jonathan Larson remains musical theater’s greatest case of what could have been. Ricketts, Andy Mientus, and Krystina Alabado in Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick…BOOM!, directed by Eric Rosen, at Bucks County Playhouse. ![]()
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