STAGE WEST: "tick, tick ... BOOM!" at Cygnet Theatre

AJ Rafael as Jon in "tick, tick ... BOOM!"                                                                   Karli Cadel Photography

            If you want to know what “tick, tick … BOOM!” meant to Jonathan Larson, Google the YouTube video of his performing pieces of his solo show of the same name in November 1991 at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village. The sound’s a little muddy, the vocals are sincere but nothing special, the keyboarding does its job. But what’s there over the course of 18 minutes or so is the passion the young Larson had for musical theater and the drive inside him to make a name for himself. Maybe even on Broadway.
            Larson would do so, of course -- after his untimely death in 1996. His revolutionary rock musical “Rent” opened on Broadway three months after he passed. The rest is bittersweet history.
            The tragedy of the dream that would go unrealized while he was alive makes “tick, tick …. BOOM!” even more emotional in retrospect. Playwright David Auburn transformed the musical monologue into a three-actor piece not long after Larson’s death. It’s best known to most audiences from the 2021 film adaptation for Netflix directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield.
              If something was lost in the transformation it was the intensely personal nature of “tick, tick … BOOM!”, the very title of which expressed Larson’s gnawing anxiety about the swiftness of time passing and the urgency because of it to achieve his creative aspirations. As satisfying as Miranda’s film was, it was still a movie, a medium once removed from our hearts.
            Cygnet Theatre has mounted a production of “tick, tick … BOOM!” directed by Katie Banville with musical direction by Dr. Randi Rudolph. Its cast is game – AJ Rafael, Emma Nossal and Leo Ebanks – and so are the musicians onstage with Rudolph: guitarist PJ Bovee, bassist Christian Reeves and drummer Danny Chavarin.
            So what’s missing? The intimacy of the solo show, in which Larson bared all.
            It figures then that the affecting moments in Cygnet’s “tick, tick … BOOM!” are those when Rafael sits alone at his electronic keyboard and sings from the well of determination inside him: on the questioning “30/90” (Larson’s addressing turning 30 years old in 1990); on the introspective “Why” and the closing “Louder Than Words,” when Larson reaffirmed his desire and his purpose in life.
            The musical numbers that incorporate Nossal, playing Larson’s girlfriend Susan among other characters, and Ebanks, principally portraying Larson’s friend Michael, have a stagy quality about them that to me are in opposition to the deeply insular doubts and resolve in the Jon character. They are important figures in his circle, make no mistake. Each represented a potential alternative life for Larson from the one in which he’d immersed himself: Susan wanted the two of them to move to Cape Cod and abandon the chaos of New York City; Michael had become a successful businessman with a grand house and a BMW – his buddy could have the same if he committed.
            I’m assuming Larson conveyed all this anecdotally in the solo “tick, tick … BOOM!” Maybe that was all that was needed.
            This is by no means a show with all perfect songs. “Green Green Dress” and “See Her Smile” are silly and saccharine, respectively. There are, however, enough rhythmic turns and lyrical inventions that suggest what was to come from Larson. Namely, “Rent,” in which rock ‘n’ roll didn’t come off like a novelty, so embedded was it into the foundation of the show, a modern-day “La Boheme.”
            The creative anxieties of its protagonist aside, “tick, tick … BOOM” is concerned with the on-the-cusp-of-30 Larson struggling to get his musical “Superbia” produced, along with those conflicts related to Susan and Michael. (A more serious aspect of his friendship with Michael comes later.) That it all ends with Jon (Rafael) redoubling his commitment is uplifting … until you remember that Larson wouldn’t have the time left that he wanted.
            Rafael is likable and sympathetic, though possibly in need of even more nervous energy as Jon. A proven dance artist (“Singin’ in the Rain” at New Village Arts, “42nd Street” at Moonlight in Vista), Nossal moves deftly onstage as Susan or Kareesa, the lead actor in “Superbia.” She’s also the finest singer in the cast. Ebanks does well with a part that feels under-developed to me.
            There’s a detailed and delightful SoHo apartment set by one of the best scenic designers in town, Yi-Chien Lee. It’s compatible with a show that, all of Larson’s life struggles aside, is a veritable love letter to New York City in all its guts and glory.
            On the evening I attended, the sound at Cygnet seemed over-amplified. Either it or I corrected along the way.
            We’re reminded in the director’s notes from Banville that this show began as “30/90” and then was called “Boho Days” (cringe) before becoming “tick, tick … BOOM!” This turned out to be an inspired evolution. The title not only works superbly for the show but reminds all of us that the days are not promised to us and that dreams are there for the taking if we only keep trying.
            “tick, tick … BOOM!” runs through Aug. 4 at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.