LENNON thoughts--the spark and the wish

Having been asked by my favorite spook to post my thoughts on the new musical LENNON, I offer this musing after seeing this Wednesday matinee...

Any show with Will Chase and Terrence Mann in it is worth seeing. These are dedicated performers who have always given 110% when I have seen them respectively in Miss Saigon and in Scarlet Pimpernel & Les Miserables. (I don't know Will Chase; I met Terrence Mann once at a cafe and discussed a rock Romeo & Juliet he had written which has had success out of town but I don't think has been seen in NYC yet--I'm dying to hear iambic pentameter in rock song, by the by).

All the performers in this show are talented, can sing and have plenty of energy. The musicians are great, the sound system is fine. The old guy next to me put his hands over his ears once during Will Chase's belting but I am very sensitive to sound and Chase was so beautifully on his notes that I just loved it as did the young male tenor friend with whom I attended the show.

The set is nothing remarkable, but the media projections of photos at the back work very well with some touching pics of the early Beatles. I would prefer the show shed the drop down screen at the end and see if there is another way to project that so the stage and performers aren't suddenly covered up at the end of the show for a momentary film clip of John and Yoko.

(cont.)

Updated On: 9/9/05 at 12:25 AM

In fact, what I wanted most was for the show to get the rest of the cast offstage for a good part of the time to let me focus on Lennon and hear his voice through the show. To have the others around so much of the time was distracting. I particularly felt this way through the song "Imagine," a very moving song, but I wanted to hear just Chase sing it, plaintively.

I think the two numbers with the women of the cast portraying the Beatles as a band did not work at all and they should be cut. Suddenly it pushed the play into farce. They were no "Beatles" to me. Plus the problem of the sound of the female voices on those songs, high and screechy. It just doesn't work at times to have women sing songs that may sound fine in male tenor voices. Yes, you say the women can sing these notes, it'll work, but it doesn't. It's something about the key the songs are in, something, but it doesn't work.

The farce needs to be chopped out of the piece. It veers the play listlessly away from its focus on Lennon for cheap yet costly laughs along the way. No female with a beard suddenly as the swami. No red high heels on J. Edgar Hoover. I think the India scene doesn't need a swami. Just have the male beatles sitting around and let the blond dancer take the stage with her impressive Hindu style dancing and the hindu backdrop. We'll get the message. Less is more. Let Terrence Mann do Hoover without the other unnecessary "spies" onstage. Give us more on the deportation and political issues. Leave out the dirty laundry cheating of Lennon on Yoko and for heaven's sake trash the sanitary pad bit.

For the Lennon death scene, cut the unfocused cop who really has nothing to say. Give me a gunshot and Chad Kimball physically portraying the shot Lennon while Chase sings "Imagine" as Lennon's lonely, solitary ghost. How spooky, how eerie. Don't gloss over the brutality of his murder. Let us experience it, feel it, mourn for that troubled soul that we loved, ripped away from us young.

I don't think Yoko Ono should speak in the piece at all. It somehow detracted from her worth. I felt her much more strongly through anything John had to say about her, and that keeps the focus on him, and his love for her.

There you have it. Just one person's thoughts. But I do remember Lennon.

I thought the monologue done by the cop was one of the most effective moments of the show. Please dont cut that!

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Thanks, kooky.

I know you have expressed a lot of interest in this show.

If that's all you folks are disagreeing about, I feel so good.

As to the cop's speech, it is brilliantly delivered, true he is a great actor as well as singer.

And as to the red high heels, all I have to say to both is sometimes you have to kill off your darlings for the benefit of the overall piece.

This is like being a critic and having the benefit of a repartee with your readers!

Thanks!

Another couple thoughts for the show which didn't seem to fit within my first piece:

For "Give Peace a Chance" leave the actors out in the audience aisles at the end. Take them out of that straight lineup making peace hand signs. Straight lines are lethal in directing, tableaus are much more artistic. Don't push the reference to the Iraq war, let the audience pick up on that if they want to. Vietnam was a different ball game with the draft looming ferociously.

For the second half of the show especially, please find Terrence Mann a more appealing costume. I suggest a charcoal linen shirt with a Nehru, mandarin or band collar.

Break a leg, LENNON. May you find your audience and grow...

Updated On: 9/8/05 at 11:25 PM

i think its simplicity is something that the real john lennon would love if he should still be alive today. he'd probably want it to be in a gym or something so everyone could sit together on the same level. this show is more than just "trying to be a broadway show" and failing. yeah there's no typical chorus and leads, but that's what is so great about it. and the script is skippy but that's how life is. and john's life sure didn't flow like a novel.
i think that lennon is a brilliant piece of theatre. everyone should give it a chance.

overthemoon, I think Lennon's death can be portrayed very artistically and even nonrealistically and still be effective. Slow motion. Use of lighting. Think of Javert's death in Les Miserables. There's still a lot of opportunity for creativity.

I could see it well-done either realistically or surrealistically. When it actually happened, Lennon's death came as a horrible shock which still reverberates in the consciousness of those who cared.

Thanks for your encouraging discussion and your thoughts!

Actually, My Name In Lights, I did not write a critical review of LENNON, though it may appear to be criticism to you by impression.

I called it "thoughts" because I wrote what I thought it would take to bring the show to greatness, which is where I would like to see it go.

I am a Beatles lover from way back.

Pussycats, overthemoon, only give me love bites.