The Real Kyle McCarren
The Real Kyle McCarren is a brand new musical about the death of a twenty-one-year-old, told by his best friend and bandmate. The story is fragmented through time, with dead (Kyle) and narrator working together from the present to piece back and process the loss.
There is something of the American teen musical about it — Dear Evan Hansen comes to mind — but this is much more charming than bleak. The show knows that its subject is dark without allowing the darkness to swallow everything else. Suicide is the premise, but the tone is not simply black and miserable. There is a surprising amount of warmth and comedy in it, and that balance is important to the show's success.
The central device is essentially a musical meets live-concert eulogy/seance, with Kyle still present enough to challenge Andy's often exaggerated version of events. That gives the show a useful complication: this is not simply a piece about remembering a dead friend, but about the process of remembering itself, and what the stories we tell say about us.
The music is superb. The seven-piece band is exceptional, with the songs doing the work that a set might normally have to do. There is essentially nothing on stage in terms of scenery, and it does not matter because the music tells the story. The music becomes the set.
The singing is excellent too. Sean McVerry gives Kyle enough presence that he does not simply feel like a memory being reconstructed by somebody else, while Vincent Jamal Hooper brings a strong vocal presence to Liam.
There are still places where the show feels like a preview of something better to come, still finding its final shape. It no doubt is. The fragmented structure suits the idea of trying to reconstruct somebody after their death, but it can also leave the narrative feeling slightly loose.
But, the real success of The Real Kyle McCarren is how it takes a devastating subject and finds a way to make it warm, funny and musically alive without pretending that the devastation is not there. It is genuinely enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing where it goes goes next.
Runs daily at 1:50pm.
