By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
photo by Pamela Raith
For Ben (Max Alexander-Taylor) writing and performing his own songs became his personal road map through the wilderness of life.
In the film “Dr. Zhivago,” the good doctor observes he never thought of himself as a poet. Writing poetry was just something he did.
That's what music is to Benjamin Scheuer, something he has to do. Scheuer performed the book, music and lyrics he wrote that became his one-man autobiographical musical “The Lion.”
Presented in Scheuer's charismatic manner – shaped several years ago by the development and direction of Sean Daniels, who is now Arizona Theatre Company's artistic director – “The Lion” went on to win numerous stage awards in both London and New York.
Now Daniels, established in Tucson, is opening “The Lion” downtown at the Temple of Music and Art, with lanky Max Alexander-Taylor acting as the solo performer and acoustic guitarist Ben, a troubled troubadour accompanying himself alone on stage with an assortment of five guitars.
Without Scheuer's personal connection, the material becomes a completely different biographical creation of a young man for whom music meant everything – his guiding philosophy as well as his personal identity. Just like Dr. Zhivago's poems became Dr. Zhivago, so did Scheuer's plaintive songs define Ben. Without this music he wouldn't exist.
In ATC's fancifully airy stage design by Simon Kenny, Alexander-Taylor appears alone surrounded by those five guitars and myriad bare light bulbs, some hanging down from the rigging, others standing on long slender poles of various shapes and sizes.
With an unassuming, informal guise Ben begins telling his life story by describing how he adored his guitar-playing father, who made the lad a cookie-tin banjo using rubber bands for strings. Total happiness for young Ben was being able to strum right along on that cookie-tin banjo while his father played.
But his father's day job was to be a serious university academic and mathematician. Without the guitar his father was a stern and cold taskmaster.
The 75-minute program lists 15 songs chock full of detailed narration, stirring up raw feelings that can cut deep. The songs, in turn, have lyrics that often sound more like spoken conversation. There are no tuneful melodies, but lots of heart-tugging (and sometimes delightfully clever) moments.
Together these qualities are woven into a textured experience that strips away any pretense of theatrical acting to develop an emotional honesty, bare-faced in its innocence.
It is this unguarded storytelling that bridges Ben's connection to the audience. One adversity after another builds up as Ben tries to find the courage to meet each challenge with another song.
Early in life he imagined himself as a young lion, learning to roar like his father. But the more Ben learned, the less he wanted to be like his father. Against the odds he grew to be his own lion.
The music became his way of coping. The coping becomes a determination felt across the footlights.
As Ben's conflicts get mixed with occasional triumphs, his life begins to feel reminiscent of those challenges that keep erupting in your own life...sparking that need to discover your own way to roar.
“The Lion” continues through Oct. 15 at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave., with performances at various times Wednesdays through Sundays. Running time is approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.
Tickets are $25-$75. For details, 833-ATC-SEAT, or visit atc.org
The theater company's present COVID protocol is to suggest wearing a mask in the theater, though it is not required.
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