Theatre 2025: After the Rain @ Tarragon Theatre

Musical Stage Company is a charitable organization with a mandate to make Canada a leader in the creation of new musicals from development to production, as well as championing and co-producing versions of existing musicals.  Some recent co-productions include Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (with Crow’s Theatre), Fun Home (with Mirvish Productions), and Wild Party as well as Caroline and Change (with Obsidian Theatre).  In terms of development of new, home-grown Canadian musicals, Musical Stage Company has run programs such as Noteworthy, a masterclass which pairs up composers, lyricists and book-writers, as well as Launchpad, a 10-month program for musical theatre composers, lyricists, and book writers to develop new work.  Noted names coming out of these programs include Britta Johnson, whose musical “Life After” is part of Mirvish Productions’ 2024/25 subscription series, and Barbara Johnston/Anika Johnson whose Edinburgh Fringe Festival musical Blood Ties was featured in an episode of the TV series Orphan Black.  My husband Rich and I love musicals and try to support Musical Stage Company’s endeavours whenever we can.

Two more names emerging from these programs include Suzy Wilde and Rose Napoli, who are the composer/lyricist and book writer of “After the Rain”, a new Canadian musical co-produced by Musical Stage Company and Tarragon Theatre.  First paired together in the Noteworthy program, the two continued to collaborate and searched for ideas to create a new musical.  The spark of inspiration came when Suzy played a song that she had written over a decade earlier based on a meaningful real-life experience.  Using this as the starting point, the musical was developed.

After the Rain is a coming-of-age story revolving around Suzie Evans Stone, the daughter of musicians Jean Stone and Ashley Evans, members of the “Canadian” famous folk-rock band Evans Stone.  All of Suzie’s musical knowledge has been gained through experience growing up with the band, for whom she currently works as a technical assistant and backup singer.  Her main skill is on the guitar although she has dabbled with playing the piano and is a fledgling songwriter trying to find her own way as a musician.

The show starts with the band in rehearsal, trying out both old and new songs in preparation to record a new album and a 20th anniversary concert tour.  With Suzie acting as narrator, we learn a bit about the dynamics between her parents and herself.  There is also a drummer and guitarist in the band but so little is revealed about them that they might as well be just one of the background musicians for the musical.

After the rehearsal, Suzie is asked to fill in for her father to give piano lessons to a new student.  Thinking the student will be a child, Suzie is shocked to find Donna, an eccentric older woman who is not interested in mastering any piano techniques but insists on learning to play just one song, Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1”.   Suzie feels insecure and inadequate due to her lack of formal musical training but Donna brushes that aside and demands that she be the permanent teacher.  Donna also encourages Suzie to apply for music school at University of Toronto.

Over time, Suzie bonds with Donna and her family, including her awkward son Julian (whose actions and speech patterns hint at neurodiversity) and her mild-mannered and extremely quiet partner Frank.  These piano lessons and the goal of attending school give Suzie the sense of purpose that she has been lacking in her life. But it also leads to conflict with her mother, who wants her to join the band to revitalize it and bring in a more youthful audience.   The same actress plays the roles of Jean Stone and Donna while the same actor plays Ashley Stone and Frank.  It was interesting to watch them duck off stage to switch costumes and roles, creating totally different characters through their dress, movements and demeanor.

The small theatre was configured as a “traverse stage” with stadium seating for the audience on both sides and a large set piece on the floor between them.  The set piece consists of a pair of pianos positioned back-to-back topped with a large plank that creates a performance stage for the lead singers during rehearsal/concert scenes, with steps lead up to that platform from either side of the room.  The remaining members of the band and additional background musicians remain on the floor to the left and right of the platform.  While the set piece was interesting, we questioned the effectiveness of the traverse stage setup since the characters had their backs to us at least half of the time.

An audience advisory warned of loud music, strobe lights and haze effects that were used during the concert scenes but we found the effects to be relatively mild, especially after watching Beetlejuice the Musical the week before. Rich and I had the opportunity to briefly attend part of a technical rehearsal for the show and found it fascinating to watch as the cast painstakingly and repeatedly ran through small snippets of the show while technicians tweaked sound levels, lighting queues, staging and blocking of movements.

The show included multiple instances of audience participation starting with a man who was selected from the audience to play Suzie’s hot boyfriend.  He was handed a slip of paper with the line “I want to play you a song” and asked to read it out loud on cue.  In another scene, four other audience members were handed ukeleles and represented kids that Ashley Stone was teaching a lesson to.  Rich and I are not particularly fond of the use of audience participation and were grateful that we were not sitting in the front row.  We have been to shows such as Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, where the audience participation felt organic and enhanced the show.  For this one, many of the instances felt gimmicky and unnecessary.

The one instance of audience participation that did work for me was during a wedding dance scene after Donna and Frank were wed.  Julian asked a woman in the audience to dance with him and when she accepted, they twirled around with such prowess that it was impressive and a sweet moment.  The audience was also asked to repeatedly hum along to the first few bars of a song that Suzie spent most of the show trying to write, eventually nailing it for the final number which became the eponymous song “After the Rain”.  Along with Donna’s story, involving the audience was a way for the show creators to “democratize music” by showing that the creation and appreciation of music is for everyone, not just professional musicians.

For the most part, After The Rain is a “diegetic” musical where the singing is not internal but can be heard by the other characters as part of the plot.  The songs are sung during band rehearsals, recording sessions, during Evans Stone concerts, other smaller performances, or when characters sing to one another.  As such, the lyrics of the songs don’t always advance the plot or express inner feelings or emotions, but are presented like a juke box musical, albeit with original songs that are supposed to be from the catalogue of this fake band.  Suzy Wilde has written many wonderful songs for the musical and I hope that a cast recording will be released one day so that I can hear them again.  I just wish that she had included the song list in the musical’s program to help me remember some of the titles. One particular song that stands out in my mind occurs when Suzie and Jean finally hash out their differences.  This led to a powerful and emotional ballad sung mostly by Jean about being or not being “your mother’s daughter”.  It was performed while the pair each played on one of the dueling pianos.

Even though Evans Stone is a fake band, the paraphernalia in the theatre’s lobby did a fantastic job of portraying them as a real one.  This included posters featuring the band members, photographs, a set list for one of the concerts, T-shirts with their tour stops and even a CD cover.  The other photograph in the lobby was dedicated to “Erica (Donna) Scagliotti and her son Julian on her wedding day.  This confirmed that the story of Donna (aka Erica) and her piano lessons was based real people and experiences from Suzy Wilde’s life that she used as the inspiration for the final song that ultimately led to the development of the musical.  Suzy’s biographical details hint that other aspects of her life influenced the show.  Like her almost namesake Suzie, Suzy Wilde also grew up in a musical family and was part of the band “Dirty Dishes” as well as touring as Posh Spice in a Spice Girl tribute band.

During the post-show talkback, we learned that the real-life Julian had come to see the show and had also been a music student of Suzy Wilde’s.  The actors talked about the collaborative nature of working on new, original musical, how the show would probably continue to evolve as it tours beyond Toronto, and the experience of working closely with Wilde, who has a small but surprising role in the show.  This was a sweet show with some great songs and a triumphant product of the efforts by Musical Stage Company to foster new Canadian musicals.  Hoping for more to come.

Theatre 2025: Beetlejuice Musical @ Ed Mirvish

Recently it seems like more and more musicals are based on other sources such as movies, TV shows, and books, or use the music of famous musicians as the songs, either paired with an original story or using the life stories of those musicians as the plot.  This is not surprising given what a risky business it is mount a new musical with original songs and book.  Basing a show on an adaptation of well-known and well-loved material brings a built-in audience which gives the musical a better chance of being a success.  While totally understandable, it is also too bad since this trend stifles the creativity and originality that comes with new works.

Beetlejuice is the most recent musical arriving in Toronto that is based on another source.  It is adapted from the 1988 gothic-horror/comedy movie starring Michael Keaton as the eponymous ghoul Beetlejuice, who is summoned when his name is chanted three times in succession.  Dorky couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are in midst of renovating their cherished, quaintly designed home when they perish in a car accident and find themselves roaming their house as ghosts.

Real Estate developer Charles Deetz and his second wife Delia (Jeffery Jones and Catherine O’Hara) purchase the house and move in with Charles’ morbid, moody daughter Lydia (Wynonna Ryder), who is dressed in black.  When Delia starts to redesign the house in a “new-wave, post-modern aesthetic”, the Maitlands try to haunt and scare off the family but are too mild-mannered to make any impact.  It does not help that only Lydia can see them so their feeble attempts to frighten the oblivious Charles and Delia come off as humorous instead of horrific.

After discovering the “Handbook for the Recently Deceased”, the ghosts travel to the Netherworld (waiting room for spirits) for advice on how to expel the Deetz family.  Out of desperation, they summon the mischievous and malevolent spirit Beetlejuice to help them.  This leads to the iconic scene where the Deetz family and their dinner guests become possessed and start singing Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (the Banana Boat song)”.   A botched exorcism threatens to permanently destroy the Maitlands who Lydia has bonded with.  Beetlejuice agrees to save them if Lydia will marry him, which would allow him to stay in the world of the living.  Once freed from the exorcism, the Maitlands rescue Lydia and invoke a giant sandworm to devour Beetlejuice, sending him back to the Netherworld.  The Maitlands and Deetz agree to harmoniously live in the house together.

Beetlejuice the Musical maintains the high-level plot of the movie but totally reframes the story, shifting the main focus and driver of the storyline to Lydia as opposed to the Maitlands.  Depictions of other roles are also tweaked for comedic effect and plot-points changed make it easier to portray on stage.  The result of these changes is a more heart-felt storyline, deeper, more nuanced characters and a more humorous show with broader jokes.

Rather than just being a weird, sulky goth girl as portrayed in the movie, Lydia is a lonely daughter missing and grieving the recent death of her mother, while frustrated with her father Charles, who is not able to share his own pain with her.  The show opens with the funeral of Lydia’s mother Emily.  Lydia voices her grief by singing “You’re invisible when you’re sad…nobody sees a thing”. The song ends with Beetlejuice breaking the fourth wall to proclaim, “A ballad already! What a bold departure from the original source material” before declaring in the next song that this is “A show about death!”. 

Beetlejuice continues as a narrator who often addresses the audience and injects pop-cultural and musical references into his rants and songs.  His character is given more depth as a lonely soul, craving for attention and love and putting up with an abusive mother Juno, who is an authoritative figure in the Netherworld.  In the finale, Beetlejuice is even given a bit of a redemptive arc.

The Maitlands are now secondary figures who are strait-laced and even more incompetent in their attempts at haunting.  Their method of death is changed from a car crashing into a lake to something easier to stage.   In an Australian production, the couple crashed through the floorboards falling into the basement.  In the Toronto touring production, they die by accidental electrocution.  Once again, only Lydia is able to see the Maitlands and Beetlejuice because of her gloomy nature. In this adaptation, a living human is required to invoke Beetlejuice to bring him into the living world but Lydia initially refuses since she finds him creepy (“Say My Name”).

While Delia was Lydia’s stepmother in the movie, the musical hypes up the comedy by making Delia a ditzy “life coach” who preaches happiness and positive thinking.  As well as being Charles’ paid employee, she is also his secret lover (does that make her a prostitute, she ponders?).  When the couple become engaged, Lydia feels powerless and isolated, thinking that her mother is being replaced.  Lydia enlists the Maitlands to use their power of “possession” to disrupt her father’s important business dinner, leading to the iconic “Day-O” number.  When that fails, out of desperation, she finally summons Beetlejuice who quickly ousts all the other humans from the house.  This leaves him and Lydia alone to rule the roost and frighten off all screaming visitors including a Girl Guide, Census taker, Pizza delivery man and a well-meaning neighbour (“That Beautiful Sound”).

After Charles and Delia return to the house to try to save their daughter, Beetlejuice tricks Lydia into thinking she can resurrect her mother, but instead she starts an exorcism on a screaming Barbara Maitland.  To save her, Lydia seemingly agrees to marry Beetlejuice, but tricks him by jumping into the passageway to the Netherworld in search of her mother with Charles jumping in after her.  There they meet many residents, including “Miss Argentina” and a shrunken head, who perform a big song and dance number (“What I Know Now”) to encourage the living humans to go back to the living world, lamenting on their regrets of not appreciating life when they could.  Charles and Lydia finally talk about her mother and reconcile but are chased by Beetlejuice’s mother Juno who wants to keep them in the Netherworld.

Returning to the house, Lydia and Charles find Beetlejuice in a rage, prepared to kill everyone.  Once again, Lydia agrees to marry Beetlejuice to appease him.  This time, the marriage takes place, which brings him to life, allowing Lydia to promptly kill him again, using a big ugly sculpture that was initially shown in the neo-modern redecoration of the house, making it the ultimate “Chekov’s gun”.  Now newly deceased, Beetlejuice can be sent to the Netherworld.  But when Juno arrives to reclaim Lydia, Beetlejuice stands up to her and conjures up a sandworm to devour her (thus the redemptive arc).   Beetlejuice leaves peacefully and the Deetz and Maitlands agree to coexist in the house, just like in the movie.  So, while most of the salient points of the movie are represented, the musical is definitely an entity unto itself.

Some of the current references made by Beetlejuice include “If I hear your cell phone ringing, I’ll kill you myself!”, “I’m invisible, powerless ... like a gay Republican” and “It’s a Green Card thing” when explaining his desire to marry a human.  When Adam and Barbara first encounter Beetlejuice and ask who he is, the demon jokes to Adam “I am your father” in a Darth Vader reference. There are several musical references as well. When describing how boring Adam and Barbara are, Beetlejuice claims they are more boring than the musical Brigadoon and during the song “Good Old-Fashioned Wedding”, Beetlejuice references Fiddler on the Roof with the lyrics “OMG”, L’Chaim, To Life”.

Extremely bright, flashing and strobing lights were used in the staging of this show including a green light that repeatedly shone right at our eyes from our seats at the front of the Mezzanine of the Ed Mirvish Theatre. It was surprising that there were no trigger warnings about this since there had been warnings at other shows for much less intense effects.  We also found the sound quality in Ed Mirvish Theatre to be lacking as it was difficult to hear the lyrics of many songs, particularly when Lydia was singing since she sang at a higher octave range than the other actors.  This is not the first time that we had trouble hearing at this theatre.  It might be just poor acoustics since in this case we did not feel like the background music drowned out the singing as we have felt at other shows.

Despite these staging issues, Beetlejuice the Musical was a fun night out with some of the audience really getting into the spirit of things by dressing up like Beetlejuice or Lydia.