“Stairway to Heaven” reads a sign currently posted over a staircase leading to the Theatre at St. Clements, where a musical called Only Human is now in production. Don’t be fooled: God’s domain is only one setting in this show, and the overall results are hardly divine.
Though Only Human has been promoted as a vehicle for veteran screen star Gary Busey, who plays God—or “the Boss,” as he’s referred to here—it’s more accurately the vanity project of a pop aspirant named Mike Squillante, lead singer/guitarist of the band Running Lights. Squillante’s playbill bio nods to several record labels, “The Voice” (he produced material for Owen Danoff, an alumnus of that televised karaoke contest) and YouTube, where Squillante first built a following.
Squillante not only co-conceived and wrote music and lyrics for Only Human, but gave himself the juiciest role, that of Lou, or Lucifer, the fallen angel—presented here as a hyper-ambitious office worker who, after being fired, trades his suit for leather and spikes his heavily gelled hair, transforming (with an assist from costume designer Avery Reed) from an unctuous Wall Street/marketing exec type to a preening arena rock idol, flaunting his jewelry and tattoos as he surveys his red-hot new kingdom.
There’s actually more similarity between these two creatures of commerce than some would assume; I don’t know if that was part of Squillante’s premise, but he plays both rather too convincingly, so much so that I wanted to throw something at him—and not an article of clothing—from the moment Lou first strutted across the stage, carrying a tray of no doubt overpriced, exotically named coffees. By the time Squillante’s character had undergone his metamorphosis, and was belting out his generic, rock-based songs—in a robust voice, admittedly—I was merely bored.
But enough about Satan, for now. Only Human‘s other central, if less exhaustively showcased, characters include Jay, short for Jesus, and Maggie, or Mary Magdalene, a devoted worker and kind soul who must suffer the male foolishness surrounding her. Jay is introduced as Lou’s foil, an über-slacker who oversleeps regularly and turns up for work in a T-shirt and flannel, presumably smelling of weed (he’s an enthusiastic toker, we’ll learn) and microwave pizza. Maggie, played by an elegant and dulcet-voiced Kim Steele, paces about, fretting over the rivalry between the Boss’s underachieving son and his scheming protégé, who dreams of perfecting humanity.
After the barely tolerable first act ends with Lou’s hubris and the Boss’s own need for control leading to the former’s ouster, the second begins rather more promisingly, with the Boss pleading for help after plagues and other disasters threaten his greatest creation. Squillante and librettist Jess Carson, working from a story by Squillante and Jesse Murphy, cook up a genuinely funny exchange between father and son, with Evan Maltby’s gamely goofy, endearing Jay resisting his dad’s pleas to visit Earth, then giving in, only to be—well, we all know how it turned out for Jesus, don’t we?
Then the musical takes an earnest turn, though, emphasizing Lucifer’s inner struggle, relayed in a string of histrionic numbers that find Squillante chewing the minimal scenery in Andrew Moerdyk’s two-level set—a small, cluttered office, the Boss’s, over a larger working space in Act One, and the offices of both Heaven and Hell following the intermission.
As for Busey, it’s impossible not to note that the accomplished actor and sometime musician, who has struggled with various health issues since being felled by a motorcycle accident more than 30 years ago, has looked and sounded better. But while it can be tough to listen to his strained diction and observe his sometimes labored movement, there are also glimmers of wit in the Oscar nominee’s performance, and a sense of indomitable drive that, at the preview I attended, carried through to his exuberant bow at the curtain call.
I’m sure that God, if watching, would have cheered Busey on. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the other guy—and the mortal player representing him in Only Human, for that matter—were a little jealous.
Only Human opened October 21, 2019, at Theatre at St. Clements and runs through October 28. Tickets and information: onlyhumanmusical.com
