By Sandi Masori
LA JOLLA, California— The Ballad of Johnny and June is now premiering at the La Jolla Playhouse. The show tells of Johnny and June Cash’s love story through their music. Their son John Carter Cash (Van Hughes) narrates the story, with love and humor and frequent breaking of the fourth wall.
Basically, the show takes us through both Johnny and June’s beginnings, the way they met, how they started touring together and eventually fell in love, though both were married to others at the time. The soundtrack is recognizable and ear-wormy. You will definitely have the song “Ring of Fire” going through your head for a while.
Christopher Ryan Grant really captures Johnny’s deep commanding voice, and Patti Murin’s June hits those country notes. The songs, singing and harmonies are all first rate.
The show is cute and will leave you with your toes tapping in time to the familiar tunes. The narration feels a little flat though. Perhaps because they’re trying to take us through so much of their lives (childhood to death) and so many of the songs, the drama gets a little lost. We are told that theirs is the greatest love story ever told, but I didn’t really feel any chemistry between Grant and Murin. Similarly, when they talk about both Johnny and June’s addiction issues, I didn’t feel the urgency of the problem and the seriousness of the addiction.
The actors do a good job in their respective characters, but it felt like something was missing in their interactions with each other. Besides Grant, Murin and Hughes, the rest of the cast play multiple characters as the narrative unfolds.
I did learn a lot though. For example I never knew that “Boy Named Sue” was from a Shel Silverstein poem, or that June wrote “Ring of Fire.” I also didn’t know that each of them had been married before and collectively had six children from their previous marriages.
In the printed program, director/ co-writer Des McAnuff tells how he was approached by the Cash estate to do the show and met with the real-life John Carter to develop the story. John insisted that the story shouldn’t be a fairytale but should show the real struggles and flaws.
The set was interesting, it looks like you’re backstage and the actors sometimes face forward to the audience and sometimes they face the other way, with their back to the audience, so that you have a feeling of both being in the audience and being backstage. It’s a neat effect.
The Ballad of Johnny and June plays through July 7.
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Sandi Masori is a theater and restaurant reviewer for San Diego Jewish World