tick, tick...Boom!, Eisenhower Theatre, Kennedy Center, Washington, DC

 

Brandon Uranowitz and the company of tick, tick...Boom! on the Eisenhower Theatre stage at the Kennedy Center. Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.

This is the fifth season of the Kennedy Center-produced series Broadway Center Stage (BCS). Like the New York Encores! series at City Center, the plan was to present a very limited run (currently 10 performances) of stripped-down musicals with exciting Broadway talent, staged with minimal sets and costumes, some actors perhaps operating with script in hand. Working in an extremely limited rehearsal period of two weeks, performers have an opportunity to create roles they might not otherwise be able to create. In some instances, actors even take leave from Broadway roles in order to participate, as Derek Klena did, taking leave from his starring role in Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! to co-star in last season’s BCS production of Sunset Boulevard. While I have not seen all of the productions, I have seen several. Another feature in each of the productions until this one has been the presence of the orchestra on the stage, focusing our attention on the score and the performers.

The series’ most recent production is Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…Boom!, which closed on February 4. Unlike previous productions, rather than “strip down,” director Neil Patrick Harris has “built up” the show in most respects, trying to “fill” the Eisenhower Theatre with what is essentially a very intimate story focusing on three characters. At the same time, the orchestra has been reduced to four Kennedy Center guest musicians who are on the stage, but far from center, almost completely hidden behind lighting instruments.

My point is this: tick, tick would have been better served and an amazing production on the stage of KC’s 475-seat Terrace Theatre, but it was not well-served in the 1100+ seat Eisenhower. The Eisenhower stage was “just right” for the two shows in the series I saw last year. (I skipped Spamalot, which has gone on to a Broadway run, since I was frankly bored by the original Broadway production.) Of course, tick, tick would have taken more than double the number of performances to fill the same number of seats.

tick, tick began its life as a solo cabaret performance somewhat based on the life of creator Jonathan Larson. As many know, Larson had toiled for years as a “starving artist” in New York before hitting it big with the hugely-popular, long-running, award-winning Rent. Tragically, he never saw his success, as he died at age 36 of an aortic aneurysm on the morning of Rent’s first performance in January 1996. The productions of tick, tick staged since have not been of work that he finished, but edited versions or adaptations that he may or may not have approved.

The play’s set, by Paul Tate Depoo III, serves in part as a screen on which images can be projected. Depoo is also credited with projection design; Nathan Scheuer is credited with video and projection design. At first, we see television images from the late 1980s, including newscasters Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, Bryant Gumbel and Gene Shalit on “The Today Show,” and TV series namesake “ALF.” Later, projections of images from the stage serve as a kind of Jumbotron, allowing us to see more clearly the actors’ expressions, and the use of which reinforces my belief that the material is too intimate for the space.

Brandon Uranowitz as Jon in tick, tick...Boom! Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.

When we first meet Jon, he is getting close to turning 30 in the year 1990. Jon’s existence appears to be limited to trying to write a musical (Superbia) at an electronic piano in his tiny East Village apartment or waiting tables at the dingy neighborhood diner where he sometimes works. We meet his roommate, Mike, who has given up the “starving artist” life for a lucrative career in advertising and is now moving out, driving a new BMW to his pricey new apartment uptown. Mike encourages Jon to join him and enjoy the benefits of making “real” money. Jon immediately rejects the idea, but later explores it, at least for a few minutes. We also meet Jon’s girlfriend Susan, a dancer who lives uptown and who envisions life outside New York, namely somewhere on Cape Cod. Susan is planning a birthday party for Jon, but there are definitely cracks in the relationship. He expects her to make the difficult trip from uptown to his place (I believe the trip requires two subways and a bus, unless you can afford a cab) rather than vice versa; she wants to escape New York, while he believes he cannot thrive outside it.

Brandon Uranowitz in tick, tick...Boom! Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.

Jon is preparing for a workshop of his musical, to be performed for an audience of agents and industry execs who might be interested in producing Jon’s work. The workshop goes well, although no one is interested in producing Superbia. While partying after the workshop, Jon misses a call from his idol, composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. (Jon considers himself unworthy of even speaking his role model’s name except as a whisper.)

Jon keeps his total focus on the work, therefore missing the signs he has broken bonds with both Mike and Susan. In the end, it may not be too late to repair things with Mike, who at least is still in New York, but it is too late to repair with Susan. We close as Jon celebrates his birthday, turning 30 in 1990.

Director Harris elicits strong performances from his cast. A Tony-winner (for Leopoldstadt in 2023) and four-time nominee, Brandon Uranowitz gives an intense, very physical performance as Jon, nailing the neuroticism and creative angst of his character. He operates smoothly in the comic moments, extolling the joys of Hostess cupcakes in the song “Sugar,” as well as more serious existential questions as in “Why?”

Denée Benton singing "Come to Your Senses" in tick, tick...Boom! Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.

2017 Tony nominee Denée Benton (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812) as Susan plays well opposite Uranowitz. Their “Therapy” number is a comic highlight, but Benton’s defining moment comes when (as the actress playing a character based on Susan in the workshop) she stops the show with her performance of the song “Come to Your Senses,” in which the line between reality and the workshop are completely blurred. Benton’s delivery took us to a new level in a no-holds-barred, masterful performance. I was reminded of Philippa Soo’s breathtaking performance in the BCS production of Guys and Dolls from a previous season.

[Coincidentally, Audra McDonald, who plays Benton’s mother on Max’s “The Gilded Age,” was appearing “two doors down” at the KC Concert Hall for two nights of the run. Someone should be creating a musical starring the two of them.]

Jon’s roommate Mike seems extraneous in early scenes (an issue of playwrighting, not performance), but Grey Henson (also a Tony nominee, for 2018’s Mean Girls) scores amusing moments as he takes Jon to a meeting at the advertising agency where he works, and director Harris mines additional comedy from the height difference between the 6’3” Henson and Uranowitz, who must be 7 or 8 inches shorter. Henson packs a very powerful punch confiding in Jon that he has contracted HIV. Acknowledging Mike’s status finally breaks through Jon’s narcissism.

Grey Henson and Brandon Uranowitz as Mike and Jon in tick, tick...Boom! Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.

Kennedy Caughell, Kelvin Moon Loh, Yael “Yaya” Reich, and Nikhil Saboo are members of the ensemble who expertly pop up from time to time in different roles. Reich has several comic moments as Jon’s agent.

Costumes designed by Andrea Hood are serviceable and appropriate, with the exception of the one costume for Susan that is the focus of its own song, “Green Green Dress.” I was expecting something more remarkable. Both Cory Pattak’s lighting design and Cory Pattak’s choreography are fluid and executed with precision.  

There are times when Larson’s score for tick, tick previews chord progressions and word patter that we will hear again in Rent, with a little more refinement and commitment. In one of my favorite moments, Larson pays homage to Sondheim with his version of “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park with George, restaging in his imagination his own version of Georges Seurat’s painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” with the regulars at the diner clamoring for Sunday brunch in the positions of primary characters in the painting. Harris ends the number by flashing an image of the painting. I am not sure whether this is effective or not. For those who know the reference, it may appear redundant, and for those who do not, it may appear puzzling.

I love the idea of the BCS series and hope it continues to honor the past, introducing new audiences to historical favorites with casts of stellar performers. I was disappointed that last spring Spamalot was substituted for the previously-announced Kiss of the Spider Woman. I hope Spider Woman makes the schedule in a subsequent season. The remaining shows this season are Bye Bye Birdie (June 7-15) and Nine (August 2-11). Both should be good fits for the Eisenhower. (Coincidentally, the late Chita Rivera was Tony-nominated for the former in 1961 and for a revival of the latter in 2003. She won her second Tony Award for Spider Woman in 1993.) Casting information for future productions has not yet been announced. 

Brandon Uranowitz and the company of tick, tick...Boom! Photo credit: Teresa Castracane.