Backbeat Los Angeles

[jackhammer91406]

Not sure if I have seen another thread on this material so will start this one.

 

Now playing in Los Angeles in a pre-Broadway run, this show purports to be the back story of how the Beatles got started. I am glad I read the page long description of the Beatles origins in the program, because the frenetic first act was a bit too hyper in the beginning for this Beatles fan to follow. I love rock and roll so it was fun listening to some of the oldies that the early band played.

 

The Beatles started out as a cover band with a different drummer and a different bass player. This "play with music" is performed with that different drummer and bass player, and it's the bass player's relationship to John Lennon that is the main focus. The play is based on the recent movie of the same name..

 

Their first real experience came playing all night (8 hours) during a 14 week gig in a low rent bar in Hamburg, Germany. That is where they learned their style of play and how to be a performance band. During the day they slept behind a movie screen across the street from the bar

 

As for the performances of the cast: Most are reprising their roles from the premiere production in Toronto after the play moved there from Glasgow.

 

The role of the brooding artist turned base player Stuart Sutcliffe is portrayed by Nick Blood. He exudes a James Dean kind of sexuality and does a good job playing the moody painter who falls under John Lennon's persuasive spell. He never really played the bass very well but was in the band because John wanted him there. The play hints at some sexual tension between the two, maybe more than hints, but we only see Nicks naked body when he is with a woman and his naked body is a thing to behold. The actor does play the bass in real life as do all of the actors portraying the musicians.

 

John Lennon is portrayed by Andrew Knott. He does a fine job in developing a character that is fairly unlikeable. Mr. Knott weaves the threads of a person who is coming on strong and forceful to hide his feelings for his best friend and his fear of coping with creating a group that can hold together. Mr Knott handles John's breakdown at his friends funeral with real emotion and breaks down the wall he has built in the icy exterior of this prickly enigma of a man.

 

I thought all of the characters performed well. The music is loud, but that's the way it was in the clubs.

 

The set is very inventive and evokes the smokey, dingy clubs and flats.

 

I spent the first few minutes of the first act wondering whether I would stay after intermission, but by the closing rousing curtain call mini concert of some Beatles greatest hits, I was very glad I did.

 

At the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles until Friday March 1.