Except for a fortunate few, success in the arts is often a hard slog pursuing one’s dreams where success is at best a long shot.  To have the determination and fortitude to face such odds demands a lot from anyone, while the siren songs of a more materially comfortable mundane lives lures you to give up.  This play is an evocative musical testament to the pursuit of a dream, the price incurred pursuing it and the struggle to keep that dream alive.

The story is set in 1990 with an aspiring composer and playwright, John, on the cusp of turning 30 and struggling to finally get his break into the New York theatre scene.  However, while his latest workshop project is showing some promise, Mike, his roommate, has become a high rolling market executive while Susan, his girlfriend, is looking at leaving New York City for a quieter life in New England.  As those examples call to him while his grandest artistic attempt seems to fail, John must find what his calling really is.

However classic the theme of the young hopeful breaking into show business is, this play is the most vivid dramatization of the sheer struggle of it I have ever seen, with the autobiographical credibility Jonathon Larson gave it in his pre-Rent days.  John, a true artist, is fighting to achieve not only career success, but also a defining statement of his generation for a world devoid of one.  However, he has the daily grind his calling demands working a day job to survive while fighting the fear of that subsistence labour drowning his artistic talents and dreams while his friends are abandoning theirs.  The story creates a moving conflict in that while not overstating the theme with needless exaggeration.   For instance, his play goes over well enough with no disasters, but it seems not enough to put him over the top.  Yet even in his darkest hour, there is a wonderful musical epiphany that sums up the soul of Jack as he remembers the heart in his music that has to be there to be the artist he wants.  In that, you will understand his life’s work and that creates a story resolution that will be as satisfying for you as it is for him, even he seems strangely a bit subdued after all he’s gone through.

In that story, I liked how his best friend may be revelling in his material success and hoping to give Jack a better day job, he is never less than totally supportive of his friend’s dream.  The reason for that comes in a moving moment that puts his apparent smugness into a stark perspective.  On the other hand, I was a bit bothered by the Susan character, who is essentially giving up and hoping to coax John to join her.  That strikes me uncomfortably close to the small mindedness I see in the Mary character in It’s A Wonderful Life, where she gives up any dream except for marrying George Bailey, claiming to be homesick for the seemingly stifling Bedford Falls.  However, that does create an interesting profundity in her break up with John, as if she realizes that she must leave before she pulls down his dream and ruin his life.

All that being said, John’s narration undermines it a bit.  There is too much exposition in it that the cast’s actions make redundant.  For instance, when John notes that he and Susan are holding hands just after we see them do it, it almost feels like John is treating his audience as if it’s too blind or dumb to know what is going on.  Surely, it is not much to ask for some judicious editing to let words and visuals truly complement each other.  In addition, the music in the beginning is more mixed than I preferred with the musician being so loud with the initial songs that I could barely understand the actors’ singing.  However, the second act has a better aural balance and that concern is moderated well.

The players are excellent.  Trevor Horman is a superb lead as John as he guides you into his inner being to understand his very human hopes and fears.  His singing is a little weak in projection in the beginning, but that works well with his character’s self doubts about his art.  His climactic, and clearly sung, solo bears that interpretation out, intentional or not.   Chris Timmermans is fun as Mike, the seemingly superficial actor turned corporate drone.  As mentioned before, for all his delights in his material gains, Timmermans character never losing a certain bottom line caring for his friend and his dream that gives him so much more depth than you’d ever anticipate in this kind of story.

However, the real surprise is Erica Laine and her multiple roles that take you by surprise and repeat that virtuosity throughout the play.  First, she hits you with Susan with her conflicted story role described above, then brilliantly follows up with Karessa the flighty actress in John’s play, whose flakiness hides a sincere respect for her playwright even as she takes advantage of the spotlight he gives for her to shine with a wonderfully powerful voice.  However, Laine’s role as John’s agent is a pure scream she creates effortlessly with as the aged show business cynic with an unforgettable raspy voice of the unrepentant chain smoker, even as she seems on the verge of vomiting a lung with her coughing.  Horman and Timmermans may seem to have your attention with their sole characters, but it is Laine who creates a whole supporting cast by herself to trump them.

The stage design of the Spriet Theatre is used to its maximum advantage.  The band is kept in one corner of the balcony while the vacant corner of the upper level is connected by a ramp designed to resemble a keyboard.  Not only does this allow the players to ascend without interfering in the band, but you can see it as the elephant in the room about John’s art that will not completely leave his thoughts even as the real world hammers him.  I also like some of the lesser props like the trunk with the car seats, cleanly creating the illusion of the ideal of Mike’s BMW, a possession that is the stuff of John’s dreams that seem all the more unattainable by this experience.  I cannot comment competently on the music of the piece, except to say that it has a melodic richness that can match the best of more elaborate productions I’ve experienced, even the above complaints about the initial volume level still applies.

Achieving one’s artistic dreams is a challenge for best of us.  This play is a vivid recreation of that struggle, the temptations to let it go and the realization that you need to remember your heart in the matter to reach for the top.