Benjamin Scheuer’s mighty autobiographical musical monologue strikes a personal note with JR's arts editor Judi Herman
Sometimes a show comes along that seems to capture the mood of the moment. Perhaps less often, that show makes an uncanny personal connection, as I must reveal is the case with Benjamin Scheuer’s The Lion.
Billed as "a one-man folk musical telling a true story of survival", the show has garnered extraordinary reviews wherever it's played, first with the Jewish playwright and songwriter playing himself and now with Max Alexander-Taylor taking on his persona, both for the excellence of the performances and its searing honesty. But The Lion has come roaring into my life to share not just its story of family strife between father and son, even after death, but the graphic story of Scheuer's battle against potentially fatal bone cancer in his 20s. As a similar battle against a different cancer takes place in my own family, Scheuer seemed almost to be speaking to me personally.
As it happens, other reviewers have reported feeling that personal connection, owing, no doubt, to the excellent writing and the gift both performers have for connecting with their audience. So let me reveal a little more of what you will get to share if you are fortunate enough to see the show during its current London run or on the UK tour that follows.
Five guitars in different wood-tones stand in a semicircle upstage. Actor/musician Alexander-Taylor, who will play them all, perches on the edge of the simple platform welcoming his audience almost individually, before moving gently into the first number. It begins with a vivid description of his first instrument, the "cookie-tin banjo" that his musical Dad, who teaches him guitar, made him when he was just a kid, its former-biscuit-holding body held together with rubber bands. He goes on to confide how a seemingly idyllic American childhood, playing in a family Beatles tribute band with his little brothers, encouraged by his maths professor Dad, who calls his brood the ‘lion cubs’, is cruelly cut short just before his 14th birthday, when his school report card reveals a C-grade in maths.
Ben's relationship with his father breaks down and the pair fail to reconcile before his Dad dies. His mother’s second husband is a Brit and before long young Ben finds himself at an unforgiving British boarding school. So it’s a solitary and embittered young man who returns to New York and eventually finds a degree of solace in the arms of the feisty Julia, who risks his wrath by visiting his father’s grave and suggesting he might do likewise to 'reconcile’ with his late parent.
Now a successful twentysomething singer-songwriter, it comes as a bombshell to Ben that the pain he is starting to suffer is a bone cancer. Though declared operable by his doctors, it's terrifyingly distressing and demeaning, causing hair and weight loss, and more. That Scheuer can describe so much detail in song – including actually giving voice to the disease itself as a sort of crazed, fatally possessive lover (“I’m going to kill you darling / I’ll never leave you darling”) – is an extraordinary testament to his bravery and, above all, his talent. Scheuer’s strength to ‘Weather the Storm’, as a key number has it, is demonstrable and totally inspiring.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Pamela Raith Photography
The Lion runs until Saturday 25 June. 8pm (Mon-Sat), 3.30pm (Tue & Sat only). £22, £18 concs. Southwark Playhouse, SE1 6BD. southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
The show then tours to St Albans (11-12 Jul); Swindon (13-16 Jul); Norwich (22-23 Jul); and Hayes, London (27-30 Jul). See JR listings for further details.