Review: TICK, TICK...BOOM!—Chance Theater, Anaheim
- TheShowReport
- Feb 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 4
Once upon a time in New York, a talented composer who wanted to use music to tell stories had a fair chance of making it happen. It was lovely while it lasted.
Jonathan Larson, born in 1960, arrived just in time to see it all crumble. The golden age of the American musical ended in 1980 with the shocking death of Gower Champion, followed a year later by the collapse of the seemingly invincible partnership of Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince.
And, by the time 1990 rolled around, the aspiring composer's path that would begin with writing specialty material for basement revues, and end with his name in lights on the Great White Way, had been dynamited, bulldozed, and buried under acres of fifty-story luxury condominiums, financed with money snaffled from the Savings and Loan Associations.
Thus it was that in 1990, Larson, on the cusp of thirty, felt himself at a standstill. The small theaters, proving grounds for finding your voice, were disappearing along with affordable housing, and more and more an artist's only choices were Broadway or the highway. Larson, with few prospects after years working in food service, watched his friends giving up on their artistic aspirations and wondered if he was just wasting his time.
In actuality, the late Jonathan Larson was more than a great lyricist and composer; he was also a force of nature in musical performance. Now, Chance Theater proudly presents the mind-blowing production of Larson’s navel-gazing, quasi-autobiographical musical, TICK, TICK…BOOM! which runs through February 23rd at the famed theater. Luc Clopton plays Jon, the singer-songwriter, and, as he energetically gambols, emotes, and is always in motion with complexity as he bounces within the walls of his own mind, you feel he could break any moment.
Larson’s songs are the springboard for the fractured drama, which is shown in an endearingly complex interweave of flashbacks and fantasies. That story is set in early 1990, when Jon is about to turn thirty, with little to show for his many years of musical exertions. He’s working as a waiter at the photogenic Moondance Diner and living in a dilapidated high-floor walkup somewhere on the rumpled edges of SoHo, all while striving to write his magnum opus. He’s nearly broke, living from paycheck to paycheck, and pinning all his hopes on a science-fiction musical that he has spent eight years writing.
The very premise of the story is the pressure of time — the sense that, upon hitting thirty, his youth and his promise will be gone and he’ll be left with himself as a pathetic and over-the-hill failure, not a rising composer but a desperate crank on the way down to oblivion — with neither the artistic glory that he single-mindedly pursued nor the conventional success that he cavalierly spurned in pursuing it.
Jon has long been in a relationship with Susan (Lena Ceja), a dancer, who has been struggling professionally, too — albeit with a bit more success and recognition. She has been thinking of getting a job with another dance company elsewhere, out of New York, and she wants Jon to join her there, but she can’t seem to get his attention long enough for a serious talk.
That’s because Jon’s life is a mess. Jon’s lifelong best friend, Michael (Mario Houle), is a struggling actor who has traded show biz for a lucrative job in marketing and all that goes with it, and exults at the thought of a life of luxury. Michael pressures Jon to consider changing his career path, and finally gets him to accompany him to work the next day and visit a brainstorming session at his firm. Meanwhile, Jon is in a state of constant edginess and distress — nervous about an upcoming workshop of his newest musical “Superbia.” He has only a few days to compose a new song for the musical, but, for the first time in his life, finds that his inspiration has dried up. His agent, Rosa (also played by Lena Ceja), hasn’t returned his calls in a year. Yet, in anticipation of the workshop bringing him a producer, financial backing, and his major breakthrough, he quits his job at the diner.
This tumultuous jumble of complications makes for a very lively tale, a rousing, fervent and self-deprecating batch of songs by Larson, and a lively group of characters and situations expressing intense, straightforward emotions. David Auburn’s (best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning ”Proof”) script brings to it all an enticing, heartwarming, and ferocious sincerity, refashioning the original and portraying a kaleidoscopic whirl of incidents through the gleeful exaggeration of musical-fantasy sequences.
Director H. Adam Harris (“Heritage”) displays a keen eye for the telling detail and endows the three-hander with a casually elaborate structure. His direction is in synch with the inherent documentary element of the musical, matching the passionate and self-surpassing power performers, who cuts loose as if possessed and offers viewers the overwhelming immediacy of theatre. In a show that exudes intimacy, physicality, time in motion, Director Harris and his able crew of collaborators are pulled naturally along by the performers, spotlighting Larson’s genius by letting it unfold onstage, while the audience witnesses it blossom.
The songs are melodic and instantly appealing, blending pop-rock orchestrations with classic musical theater structures (the logistically daunting “Green Green Dress” with “20 buttons and a strap”); you can hear the strong influence of Stephen Sondheim, the idol who is amusingly evoked within the show, but the music also might suggest an angry-edged Billy Joel. The throbbing vibrato in Mr. Clopton’s voice is just right for the ardent songs expressing frustration and dimming hopes, complemented by strong, engaging performer singers, Ms. Ceja and Mr. Houle.
There is a very funny, amusingly structured song (“Sunday”) about a Sunday brunch shift at the Moondance, with Jon dishing out eggs and resentment while waiting for his theatrical hopes to pan out. Another clever tune (“No More”) illustrates the blandishments of the good life that his friend Michael (Mario Houle) has achieved by giving up his dead-end acting career to go into marketing (“Hello to shiny new parquet floors/as waxed as a wealthy girl’s legs…”). Perhaps funniest of all is a country-inflected patter duet for Jon and Susan fighting about whether or not they should stay together (“Therapy”). As tempers flare and subside, Ms. Ceja and Mr. Clopton’s performances become much more animated.
You couldn’t ask for a more appealing interpreter of youthful angst than Luc Clopton, who makes the required neurotic hand-wringing surprisingly winsome. His big eyes have a recurring deer-in-the-headlights glaze, and he narrates the story with a pleasing, funny mixture of sheepishness and urgency, turning whining into a multifaceted art.
Twenty-nine years ago, the theatre world lost one of its greatest writers, Jonathan Larson, whose career was just about to take off — as his groundbreaking musical "Rent" had just finished its dress rehearsal and would finally premiere to the public at New York Theatre Workshop Jan. 25, 1996. It's a bittersweet sequel to the story and I suspect many will be choking back a tear or two over the course of this run, knowing his voice was silenced way too soon...that this “promising young composer,” as he sardonically styles himself in the show, would never live to see his promise spectacularly fulfilled.
CHANCE THEATER PRESENTS, TICK, TICK…BOOM! Book, Music and Lyrics by JONATHAN LARSON; Script Consultation by DAVID AUBURN; Directed by H. ADAM HARRIS; Music Directed by LEX LEIGH; Choreographed by NIKO MONTELIBANO; Scenic Design by MIO OKADA & FRED KINNEY; Costume Design by BRUCE GOODRICH; Lighting Design by JACQUELINE MALENKE; Sound Design by HUNTER MOODY; Intimacy Coordinator SHINSHIN YUDER TSAI; Assistant Directors AARON LIPP & JANE BRODERSON; Dramaturg JANE BRODERSON; Stage Manager JORDAN JONES.
STARRING: LUC CLOPTON as Jon; LENA CEJA as Susan; MARIO HOULE as Michael.
TICK, TICK…BOOM! runs January 24th through February 23rd at Chance Theater on the Cripe Stage @ Bette Aitken Theater Arts Center, 5522 E. La Palma, Anaheim. Performances are Fridays at 8 pm; Saturdays at 3 pm & 8 pm; and Sundays at 3 pm. Discounts are available for groups, educators, veterans, seniors and students. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes with no intermission. Parking is Free. Tickets are available at www.chancetheater.com/boom or by calling (888) 455-4212.
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
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