It has some high points, but 'Lennon' doesn't come together
NEW YORK -- The answer is: I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
The question is: What were they thinking?
As you may have heard by now, the Broadway musical ''Lennon" features nine different people of both genders and at least three races playing the greatest of all Beatles and the most fascinating of all fab four alumni. The idea, presumably, is that John Lennon argued that we are all one so, goo goo goo joob, we all have the spirit of John Lennon within us.
The result is only half as bad as it could have been. The musical -- conceived by theater, film, and television director Don Scardino -- played to such disastrous reviews in San Francisco that the Boston pre-Broadway run was canceled in order to retool the piece. It opened in New York last night following another week of postponements.
Having all nine actors playing Lennon, the three other Beatles, and a variety of other characters, is a double-edged sword. The dull part of the blade flattens him into a kind of politically correct messiah of nonviolence and feminism. There was always, though, a bad boy on the verge of breaking out, even when he was preaching peace and love. That's what made him always intriguing. ''Lennon," which has had the blessing (if not more active involvement) of his widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, only lets the bad boy out to give him a scolding, as in his drunken behavior at a Smothers Brothers performance.
Not all Lennons are created equal here. Will Chase narrates most of this biographical retrospective against a backdrop of photos and drawings of and by Lennon. He and Chad Kimball get the most stage time as Lennon. They're the two who look and try to sound the most like Lennon, though as in other biographical treatments of charismatic contemporary figures, imitation is the surest form of foolishness. Chase comes off more like the smirky Peter Krause in ''Six Feet Under" than the mischievous commentator on life in the '60s and '70s. Kimball is more reminiscent of Robin Williams's crazed photographer in ''One Hour Photo" than the inspired songwriter of ''A Day in the Life."
That being the case, perhaps it's not so loopy to have people who look nothing like Lennon play him. Lennon the person might have preached that we all have genius within us. Lennon the artist made clear that really only a chosen few are blessed with the mixture of massive talent and galvanic appeal that he had. As the finale -- a film of the real Lennon singing ''Imagine" to Ono -- makes clear, complete with all those glorious winks and smiles, there could only be one Lennon, and as Chase's and Kimball's attempts to copy him make clear, there can be many lemons.
Fortunately, the other cast members do a solid job of casting Lennon's songs in other guises. The three black members of the cast -- Chuck Cooper, Michael Potts, and Marcy Harriell -- are particularly deft at giving gospel, R&B, and pop standard inflections, to ''Instant Karma," ''God," and ''Woman." The four females perform ''Money" in Hamburg and then don gray collarless jackets for ''Twist and Shout" on ''The Ed Sullivan Show." They may not be fab, but it's a cute enough touch.
The above titles are a tip-off to another controversial element of the musical. Only ''The Ballad of John and Yoko" was written by Lennon for the Beatles. The producers have said that this is a biographical piece and Lennon's songs were more autobiographical after he left the group.
All of which may refuel those rumors about Ono's pernicious effect on Lennon and the breakup of the Beatles, but the concentration on Lennon's later songs is not a bad thing. Not only are they more autobiographical, but they also hold up surprisingly well, in some cases beautifully. I wouldn't have thought that anyone but Lennon could have made sense out of the confessional, ultra-personal ''Mother," or that I really wanted to hear ''(Just Like) Starting Over" again, but ''Lennon" makes a convincing case for the whole body of post-Beatles work, not just the few songs we get to hear on those repulsive oldies stations.
The orchestrations and arrangements by Harold Wheeler and Lon Hoyt, as well as Bobby Aitken's sound mix, the best I've heard for an amplified musical, have a lot to do with how well the songs come off onstage. Scardino's script captures the upheaval of the antiwar movement without making it silly and subtly suggests that Lennon would have been just as outraged at the Bush-Blair war in Iraq as he was by Vietnam.
Ono has released a couple of ''new" songs for ''Lennon" -- ''India, India," which he wrote for a similar musical he had been working on before his death, and ''I Don't Want to Lose You," which had been intended to be used on ''The Beatles Anthology" and here is used to illustrate Lennon's return to Ono after a separation.
Some five years later he was dead and Ono has been protecting his legacy and their love story ever since. Whether it's her oversight or Scardino's that's to blame in this musical, the show would have been better served without such protection. Ultimately, ''Lennon" seems less like his story than an extended remix of ''The Ballad of John and Yoko."
Ed Siegel can be reached at siegel@globe.com. 