12/12/2015Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom on Broadway in Holler | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=eb270e5b-c45b-4769-8d66-20d3e3df786d&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/5Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); TupacDoesn't Bloom on Broadway in HollerTheater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom onBroadway in Holler THE LION *** out of **** HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME * 1/2 out of ****THE LION *** out of **** MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB AT NEW YORK CITY CENTERThis one-man musical written by and starring Benjamin Scheuer is sweet, unassuming, very tuneful and verygood.</p><p> But you don't want to overpraise it.</p><p> It's a charmer people will enjoy the most if they let it sneak up on them.It's worth seeing, I've casually told some friends, definitely the best new musical I've seen so far this year.</p><p> Thenthey'll go, start to smile when they realize it's going to be good and then relax into the rare pleasure of seeing ashow that is unexpectedly very good indeed.The staging is simplicity itself.</p><p> Scheuer comes out looking casually snazzy in a blue suit, walking onto theintimate stage of The Studio at Stage II, which is filled with various guitars, mostly acoustic.</p><p> He starts to play thesong you can hear a portion of in the video below and music fans will immediately relax: Scheuer is a confidentguitarist and a canny songwriter who makes songs as casual as conversation but as well-crafted as can be.Looming over the tale of his life is a father that Scheuer looked up to and feared a little.</p><p> His father was anacademic but loved to play the guitar.</p><p> Scheuer took to playing immediately and wanted nothing more than toplay guitar like his dad. "Don't be stupid!" snaps his dad, getting angry at the little boy and storming off.</p><p> Not toworry: this is not a tale where Scheuer works his way through each guitar on stage, with each instrument intro-ing a new chapter.</p><p> Nor is it a tale of parental abuse or some monstrous secret.</p><p> His father suffered fromdepression and died suddenly when Scheuer was young and while the boy doesn't quite escape the shadow ofthe man that formed him, he slowly realizes he doesn't need to, not really.12/12/2015Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom on Broadway in Holler | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=eb270e5b-c45b-4769-8d66-20d3e3df786d&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/5There's much more.</p><p> Scheuer falls in and out of love, faces a medical crisis, and strives to maintain a relationshipwith his mother and siblings.</p><p> Our sense of who he is and how he relates to everyone else takes subtle shiftsthroughout the show.</p><p> He's modest, funny, unsparing on himself and ultimately generous of spirit to all involved.But above all, there are the songs, whether they're rockish love songs written for a girlfriend he plays on electricguitar or tunes his father taught him or his own defiant celebrations of life.They flow out of this confident, engaging performer with ease.</p><p> The lighting design by Ben Stanton is empatheticthroughout, never calling attention to itself but a signal part of the show that makes use of the warm settingprovided by Neil Patel.</p><p> Director Sean Daniels keeps the pacing spot-on.</p><p> By the end you grow appreciative of thefloppy head of hair Scheuer is sporting.</p><p> You may notice how he came out in a suit but first off comes his jacketand then the tie and then the suspenders are lowered, the shoes and socks come off and you see a manopening himself up to you, emotionally naked if not quite so in reality.If you're like me, you'll want to check out his music released under the moniker Escapist Papers.</p><p> If you're like myfemale guest, you might wonder if he's still single.</p><p> And you'll want to tell your friends to check out The Lion.</p><p> It'sgood, you'll say casually.</p><p> You should go.HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME * 1/2 out of **** PALACE THEATREIt's taken Broadway many, many years to find a way to celebrate rock n roll and pop.</p><p> Mostly, that's happened asnostalgia, whether it's Grease or Mamma Mia or The Who's Tommy, with rare exceptions like Green Day'sAmerican Idiot the exception.</p><p> If original Broadway shows have rock n roll in their DNA -- I'm thinking of SpringAwakening and to a lesser degree the barely rock-ish Rent -- it's still musical theater that is the dominant gene.So clearly hip-hop in general and rap in particular may take a lot longer to handle the transition to the GreatWhite Way with ease.</p><p> The musical Holler If You Hear Me is clearly well-intentioned to the core.</p><p> But Broadwaywould probably embrace a show about the Sugarhill Gang or Run DMC a lot more easily than someone ascomplex and fresh as the late Tupac Shakur.One problem: it uses the lyrics of Shakur but often gives them new musical settings to tell an anonymous storyof ghetto life.</p><p> Those shows I mentioned before that worked? They may not have been truly "rock and roll," butthey loved that music unabashedly and did their best to recreate it onstage.</p><p> This show with a book by ToddKreidler and orchestration and arrangements by Daryl Waters has a split personality when it comes to thesongs.</p><p> Sometimes they try to turn Shakur's lyrics into the basis for a classic Broadway duet ("UnconditionalLove") and sometimes they sort of don't.</p><p> Either approach could work.</p><p> The two most memorable numbers are themost rap-like "Holler If Ya Hear Me" (presented with ferocious conviction and the volume turned up to 11) and ina way the least, "Thugz Mansion" (which is given a gentle, effective acoustic setting akin to a version Shakur didhimself).</p><p> Either approach could work, but trying both or more often falling somewhere in between mostassuredly does not.The story is painfully familiar, both in the sense of grinding poverty and few choices inevitably pointing peopletowards desperation and violence and in the sense of stereotypical.</p><p> John is out of prison after years of refusingall visitors and cutting himself off from everyone.</p><p> Not surprisingly, he discovers his best friend and his girl havestarted dating.</p><p> Whatever.</p><p> He just wants to get a job, cash a check and pay his rent.</p><p> Before you know it, his bestfriend's kid brother Benny is senselessly shot down and people are calling for revenge so Benny's death canmean something.Will the kid with a gift for art like John go down the path of a thug? Will they gun down a stranger in payback?Will John stay on the straight and narrow? Ultimately, very little happens except for an accidental tragedy at theclimax, adding to the aimless nature of the story.</p><p> Matters aren't helped by a very inexpensive production designthat amounts mostly to a few stoops that are pushed around the stage here and there in an effort to create some12/12/2015Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom on Broadway in Holler | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=eb270e5b-c45b-4769-8d66-20d3e3df786d&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/5sort of change of scene or choreography that feels dreadfully dated.</p><p> Typically, one of the show's biggestnumbers right before the finale is "California Love," a huge production with a purple Cadillac and most of thecast dancing around in this celebration of that state, even though the show isn't set there, no one is headingthere and it is essentially a time-waster.John is resolutely done with gang violence for most of the show..until he isn't (I've no idea why unless it's piqueover being bullheaded with his co-worker/boss at an auto body shop), starts to arrange a showdown and thenabruptly changes his mind again.</p><p> Other plot twists and big numbers don't register.</p><p> Benny's death means littlesince the show has just begun.</p><p> Later, Vertus, the brother of the just-murdered Benny and best friend to John,sings one of Shakur's signature songs "Dear Mama" to his mother at the end of Act One.</p><p> Since the great TonyaPinkins has had about two lines as his mother, this ode to a character we've barely met hardly registers either,especially since the show is halfway over.Director Kenny Leon is enjoying one of the triumphs of his career with the acclaimed, Tony-winning revival of ARaisin In The Sun.</p><p> Here so much is wrong that it's hard to know where to begin, though clearly from inception itwas as muddled a mess as the ugly poster that's both afraid of what the show is about and yet clumsily strivingfor ghetto cool.But some things do indeed go right.</p><p> Christopher Jackson has a natural appeal as Vertus, who is clearly a goodperson struggling to do what's right under impossible conditions, whether it's the violence that surrounds him ora friend that has locked him out.</p><p> Ben Thompson has affable charm as the token white guy (and gets definitepoints for the most head-spinning transition on Broadway -- he came here straight from playing Miss Trunchbullin Matilda!).</p><p> Pinkins brings authority even to a sliver of a role like Vertus's mother.And Saul Williams embodies the spirit of the righteously angry, whip-smart and emotionally complex Shakur inthe role of John.</p><p> He delivers his lines with passion, especially on the straightforward rap of the unapologetic"Holler If Ya Hear Me." The presentation of that song, like most, is no masterpiece, with rudimentary staging andchoreography and lighting often undercutting the actors on stage even when they have something decent to do.But it has an undeniable presence and authority.</p><p> When they're not shying away from hip-hop and performing itthe way fans of the music would love to hear, the show provides a glimpse of how rap could power a greatmusical.</p><p> Let's just hope we don't have to wait for nostalgia's warm glow to tame its spirit before that happens.THEATER OF 2014Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***Rodney King *** Hard Times ** 1/2 Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead ** I Could Say More * The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner ** Machinal *** Outside Mullingar *** A Man's A Man * 1/2 The Tribute Artist ** 1/2 Transport ** Prince Igor at the Met ** The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2 Kung Fu (at Signature) ** Stage Kiss *** Satchmo At The Waldorf ***
