On September 10, 1964, The Beatles had finished a Key West, Florida performance and were due to fly to Jacksonville, but hurricane Dora was battening them down. They were forced to take refuge in a less than first-class hotel, in, actually, a motel. George Harrison and Ringo Starr were billeted in one room, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney in another—about which the latter two spoke more than once after the arduous fact.
Since their candid reminiscences don’t, as far as is known, include a complete recording (though burgeoning archives hold so much detail of all Beatles activities), playwright Bob Stevens has taken it upon himself to fill in the blanks. Only Yesterday is a presumptuous assignment he’s given himself, but the 70 minutes or so he takes to carry it out has its own highly commendable rewards, especially for Beatles fans.
(The number of young people is increasing who nowadays look blankly when talk of the Beatles arise. But that’s a tale for another time, though perhaps hinted at in the recent film Yesterday.)
It’s likely that Stevens set about recognizing these several hours, because they contain a potent emotional exchange between John and Paul that, as a playwright, he thought well worth memorializing.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★ review here.]
But before he gets to those, he has John (Christopher Sears) and Paul (Tommy Crawford)—occasionally interrupted by a patient road manager (Christopher Flockton)—adamantly refuse to appear before a segregated Jacksonville audience. During several telephone calls they won’t permit that affrontery.
They also indulge in a pillow fight, drink, bicker, play an abruptly unfinished game of Monopoly and banter with 13-year-old fan Shirley Knapp (Olivia Swayze), who’s crawled along the room’s air-vent. They not only chat amiably with Shirley but sing to her and even write a note declaring that the meeting absolutely took place.
Much of what John, the impatient one, and Paul, the more acquiescent, do to pass the boring time is what almost anyone would do when consigned to a basic motel room in sound-and-fury weather. (Michael Ganio is the set designer; Dan Kotlowitz, lighting designer; Jane Shaw, the sound designer). So a spectator might think the situation would be ideal for the lads to engage in some songwriting.
After a while it crosses their minds, too, but they don’t actually get around to it. Instead, they wonder whether it isn’t a good idea to do some jamming and consider laying down some cover recordings—the Felice and Boudreaux Bryant “All I Have to Do is Dream,” Gene Vincent’s “Be Bop A Lula,” Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music,” among them.) Why no new songs dreamed up? A good guess is that the rights for Lennon-McCartney songs weren’t available to them.
It’s only when all the above has occurred that Stevens arrives at the true impetus for his not only charming but indisputably touching work. (Did either John or Paul ever think about charm?) They begin to discuss their most prominent bonding element. Both men—John was 24 at the time, Paul was 22—had lost a mother when young. Since the actual Lennon and McCartney have discussed this situation openly at times, perhaps it’s not a spoiler to say they cried together over their share experience. Only hearts of stone wouldn’t respond to a sequence where the two Liverpool natives give into what Liverpool men are not expected to do.
Sears, taking on John, and Crawford, taking on Lennon do more than a creditable job. This, despite Sears not looking very much like Lennon, and Crawford looking only marginally more like McCartney. Given the date and the motel-bound circumstance, it’s certainly acceptable that for the day off neither wears the tidy suit, round-collared shirt with narrow tie the boys sported when performing under manager Brian Epstein’s eye. (Allison Crutchfield is the costume designer.) Likewise, it’s believable that neither features the moptop for which the Beatles were known then and that John doesn’t affect granny glasses. The glasses here have thick ear-pieced frames.
The sincere acting, under Carol Dunne’s direction, and the acceptable accents override any lapses, particularly during the discussions of deceased mothers. Moreover, Sears and Crawford know what to do when they pick up their guitars. The music they make, though nothing from the Lennon-McCartney songbook included, is hot stuff—and it should be remembered they were brought together as boys for their shared love of Berry, Vincent, Buddy Holly and other American 1950s idols.
During the crucial scene, John says, “We can’t both cry at the same time.” With the line, Stevens is undoubtedly offering his Only Yesterday version of “Here Today,” McCartney’s Lennon tribute, written in 1982. Recalling the 1964 episode in a lyric, he writes—and still often sings, “What about the night we cried/Because there wasn’t any reason to keep it all inside?” Somehow “Here Today” lends credence to Only Yesterday, a track that might have been singing in Stevens’ ears throughout his writing.
Only Yesterday opened September 12, 2019, ar 59E59 Theatres and runs through September 29. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
