The Jonathan Larson Project Off-Broadway Reviews

The aim, in focusing on Larson’s offcuts, may be to deepen your understanding of the composer, though Tepper and Simpkins don’t veer far out of the realm of fandom. You’ll find an insert in your program with the names and short histories of the 18 songs that Tepper and Simpkins have assembled into The Jonathan Larson Project. But the show itself goes by without much of a lesson plan from the stage, flowing between songs without introduction or editorializing. I kept peering down in the dark trying to work out the origin of each song as it was performed. That structure maintains some momentum, though it puts the show’s aims in opposition. Are we here to learn more about Larson or simply to laud him? (The latter, mostly.)

The Jonathan Larson Project brings him back to life for ninety minutes and then sends us out into the East Village night feeling his loss all over again.

Beyond nostalgia, The Jonathan Larson Project leaves Larson admirers in want — and not just for the potential of his unrealized ideas. The program explains for what or whom Larson originally wrote each song. Some numbers can speak for themselves, but others would benefit from more onstage context. For example, Larson composed ‘Love Heals,’ rapturously performed by Jones, to honor the late AIDS activist Alison Gertz. But only the program will tell you that, and the show leaves this person’s life untouched.

The joy of the piece lies in discovering Larson’s most bizarre and ambitious works-in-progress. Project packs its middle section with surreal, unapologetically political tunes about sexism, wealth-hoarding and white male privilege. This portion of the show is demanding, no doubt. And certainly some of Larson’s lyrics are heavy-handed—you can probably guess the takeaway of ‘White Male World’ and ‘The Truth Is A Lie’ before hearing them. But when the tunes are such absolute bangers, so what?

But The Jonathan Larson Project, conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper, directed by John Simpkins and staged, aptly enough, at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village, concentrates on adding to that catalog. The 90-minute revue features songs that were cut from both Rent and Tick, Tick … Boom, but is dominated by songs penned either as standalone compositions or for shows unproduced and rediscovered after Larson’s death on various cassette tapes, sheets of paper, music files, journals, yada, yada.