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music and lyrics by Neil Bartram, book by Brian Hill, directed by Michael Bush

CanStage, Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs, Toronto

November 2-December 9, 2006

There are two overriding reasons to see The Story of My Life, now receiving its world premiere at CanStage.  The performances of Brent Carver and Jeffrey Kuhn are so committed and so engaging they easily compensate for any weaknesses Neil Bartram’s 90-minute musical about friendship.

The story’s frame is that Thomas (Carver), now a famous author, has returned to his home town to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of Alvin (Kuhn), who never left town and has now for unknown reasons committed suicide.  Thomas relives key moments of their friendship from Grade 1 to high school to his various visits that ended ten years before.  The story with its continual references to Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life keeps slipping from real emotion into sentimentality and by the end we feel we haven’t come to know either character well enough.  Only a couple songs emerge as distinctive from Bartram’s score that otherwise sounds like variations on the same tune.

Despite this, Carver and Kuhn move and enthral us.  By emphasizing his character’s distress, Carver helps make it believable that Thomas could be so obtuse not to notice that Alvin’s friendship had turned to love.  Kuhn is a constant delight as a fantasy-filled boy with no intention of growing up until Thomas’s aloofness forces it upon him.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-11-09.

Photo: Brent Carver and Jeffrey Kuhn. ©Lukas Oleniuk.