The Notes from New York concert series - back next month with a one-off seasonal special, Christmas In New York - has done an invaluable job of introducing a set of composers mostly unknown in the UK to English ears and hearts, and slowly their voices are being heard more widely.
Jason Robert Brown’s Parade is currently a Donmar hit, and one-time cabaret partner and collaborator Andrew Lippa is seeing the British premiere of his 1995 off-Broadway chamber musical John and Jen that provides a tender, lyrical and haunting account of the relationship between a pair of siblings, Jen and her younger brother John.
The first act charts a bond forged in childhood as she protects him from their abusive father, with their paths diverging as she leaves first for college, then for Canada to protest against the Vietnam War, and he signs up for the navy and active duty in the same war.
In the second act, a second John - Jen’s young son - is introduced, and there are wrenching echoes back to the first act.
Like Jason Robert Brown’s more popularly produced two-hander The Last Five Years, it is an emotionally complex piece, with searing, resonant songs that are both gorgeously melodic in their own right and full of wit and feeling. Those qualities are expertly brought out in Christopher Lane’s intense and moving production, played with utter commitment by the two young actors. Helen Evans brings a real sense of honesty and vulnerability to Jen, while Jon Hawkins, as the two Johns, has ruffled charm in spades. The two musicians, Petr Limonov on piano and Benjamin Lee on violin, are also finely attuned to the constantly shifting patterns of mood and melody in the piece.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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