40. THE LION
The setting (designed by Neil
Patel) at City Center II is a semicircular upstage wall, painted a mottled tan
and brown, vaguely suggestive of a recording studio or cabaret stage, with a
single door, three chairs, half a dozen guitars of varying sizes and styles
(mostly acoustic with one electric) standing on their bases, and several mikes.
During the ensuing performance, Ben Stanton’s lighting will play exquisitely
across the space, following its ever-changing emotional arc.
Through the door
enters a handsome young man—his chiseled features convey something of a cross
between Colin Firth and Jeremy Renner—in his 30s, with a mane of wavy, blondish
brown hair, wearing a bluish-gray, well-tailored suit, with a crisp white shirt
and tie. Later, he’ll remove his jacket to reveal a classy set of suspenders. This
is Benjamin Scheuer, songwriter, composer, guitarist extraordinaire, and writer
of THE LION, presented by the Manhattan Theatre Club. Under Sean Daniels’s
flawless direction, he’ll hold you in his thrall for the next 70 minutes as he
sings and talk-sings about his life.
Benjamin Scheuer. Photo: Matthew Murphy.
Speaking the lines of all the
characters, he focuses mainly on his relationship with his polymath of a dad,
Rick, an economist, lawyer, mathematician, and gifted guitarist. Ben, whose mom is English, tells of his two younger
brothers, and how he and they learned music from their beloved dad. A wonderful
tune about his father’s making him a toy banjo out of a cookie tin is heard
early on and late. But as Ben grew into his teens, his father, to whom he was
attached mainly through the music they shared, began to treat him more harshly
than his boyhood misdemeanors warranted; his father, who had began having serious
headaches, died of a brain hemorrhage when Ben was fourteen. The connection
between his father’s ailments—especially the depression of which Ben learns
much later—and his treatment of his son is never made explicitly, but is easy
to imagine. The theme tying Ben’s story together is his constant preoccupation
with trying to come to terms with his love-hate relationship with Rick, a
man so admired and loved by many people in prestigious positions that a
book of encomiums about him was produced. Ben had great difficulty reconciling
the man others knew from the father he remembered.
Ben, his mother, and brothers
moved to England, but Ben eventually returned to New York and became a rock
musician, playing at CBGB, among other venues. He tells of his love affair
with Julie, which ended when she decided to travel the world, and
then of the central and defining development in his life thus far, bone cancer,
the suffering this produced, and his ultimate cure. A song about how one grows
by weathering life’s storms emphasizes a principal dramatic theme. Always
anxious to play music like his dad, he eventually learns to play music like
himself. By this time, the tie is off, the suspenders lowered, his socks
removed, and the man Ben is shines through.
Mr. Scheuer recounts the
emotionally fraught tales of his familial and romantic loves while seated in
one or the other of the room’s chairs, always with a guitar on his lap, through
his original music and lyrics, some rhymed and some not. Apart from the loud,
insistent chords of defiant rock on his electric guitar, played during his
rock musician phase, Mr. Scheuer’s folk/folk-rock music has an appealingly direct,
storytelling quality, the melodies and rhythms usually being subordinate to
or supportive of the words, which he delivers with easy charm and poignantly
affecting richness. He isn’t equipped with a superbly musical voice, but with
one that is perfectly attuned to the kind of personal and directly touching
music he composes. There’s a quality of naturalness, ease, and niceness about
him that makes you feel that, after little more than an hour in his company,
you not only know but trust him.
With his charismatic looks, sweetheart
of a smile, perfect timing, and accessible feelings, Mr. Scheuer could easily
be a movie star. Who knows, perhaps this lion will roar one day from the silver
screen. In his sensitively conceived new solo musical, THE LION, Ben Scheuer is one big cat
that can truly sing, “within my gentle paws I’ve got devastating claws.”
Grrrrr.
