Your Lie In April @ Harold Pinter Theatre, London
I came to this musical knowing very little about, but MickeyJoTheatre’s review and listening to some of the powerhouse music from the show convinced me to go.
It’s a manga/anime based musical (based on Naoshi Arakawa’s story), but imagine this mashed up with High School Musical, Rebecca and Love Story. With classic music interludes. Set in a high school, we meet Kōsei Arima (Zheng Xi Yong ) and his friends, and the new girl in the school, talented violinist and free spirit, Kaori Miyazono (Mia Kobayashi).
Kōsei is grieving the loss of his talented pianist mother, with whom he has a tortured relationship. She seemed to take tiger mothering to extremes, with his accomplishments never being good enough — or enough. Kaori is completely the opposite, she plays to touch people’s hearts, for the joy of performing, for beauty and for music itself and doesn’t care about the competition results or the judge’s scores. She’s happy enough with rewards from a child’s bouquet of flowers and praise to being selected as the ‘people’s choice’.
Kaori has loving parents who own a sweet shop — it turns out (and are sweetly played by Eu Jin Hwang and Grace Lai). She bursts into Kōsei’s life encouraging him to come to her concert, to play again in a cafe, to see the good things in life. Kōsei begins to fall in love with Kaori, but she seems to be interested in Ryota Watari (Dean John-Wilson), sporty comic character and clueless about books or classical music. Tsubaki Sawabe (Rachel Clare Chan), fierce and sporty best friend of Kōsei has a secret too.
The spring setting is very important — cherry blossom trees frame the stage, and are in the background. There’s a traditional bridge, as well as lockers which pop on to suggest the school setting. Pastel-coloured light insets add to the manga-esque setting. The school term progresses, the students stress about upcoming musical competitions and being good enough, and Kōsei is persuaded by Kaori to accompany her.
Only she starts to get sick — fainting, then in hospital, then taking on risky surgery. Kaori also behaves strangely to Kōsei, telling him not visit her in hospital, to focus on practicing for a competition with potential scholarship opportunities — and hearts are broken. Although, Ryota makes everything ok in the end and brings the two back together again.
Simply told with impressive classical music interludes (Rachmaninov, Beethoven and Debussy amongst them) — Zheng Xi Yong actually plays piano. Mia’s violin playing is actually played by a real on-stage violinist. The piano doubles up as a stage as people sit and stand on it. Lucy Park as Kōsei’s mother has a tough role, starting off as the Mrs Danvers of the piece, although this turns out to not be entirely true. A very unwell woman she was, it turns out, trying to do the best for her son — as well as being very talented herself. Kōsei recognises that while he may be talented technically, he doesn’t have the same heart for music as Kaori does. But it doesn’t matter!
We have to wait until the very end to work out what the lie in April was about. Romantic with big emotions, this is also about coming to terms with loss, with trauma, with difficult relationships and making the most of life. Whilst some of Kaori’s grief counselling advice is questionable (she’s very stoical and life embracing, and tells him that it ‘doesn’t matter’ — whereas it very much does), the story is also about seeing the whole person, not just bad or good memories.
The singing, especially from the leads, is ‘wonderful’, matching the energy of their performances— and special credit needs to go to the child actor playing younger Kōsei, who sings, plays and duets with his older self on stage. The story is absorbing, the world created thoroughly engaging and the characters charming. Though I wish Tsubaki Sawabe had a more substantial role, moving from independent women to pining longingly after Kōsei, and eventually having a courageous conversation with him. She isn’t really developed beyond her relationship with Kōsei, which is a shame. Ryota has been a bit of a stool pigeon for Kaori, though he seems to realise that she doesn’t love him and that this is all a bit of a game. His treatment though seems unfair — and somewhat dismissed in the ending’s reveal. However, like Romeo and Juliet, this is all big romance — so it doesn’t matter?
The score itself repeats the songs from Act 1 in Act 2 — but in a different context. (But never the classical music — there’s a beautiful moment where Kōsei is finally able to play his mother’s favourite piece, and there’s reconciliation and joy). I guess the repetition made the musical feel a bit padded out at points, although they do, at the same time, all drive the story along with zest and pace. I wonder if this musical would have thrived better in somewhere like Sohoplace — on the Harold Pinter stage it all looks a bit cluttered, and there is an issue of heads being cut off for viewers at the back, when the cast stand at the very back. (The cast seem aware of this, as they were ducking down at points). Which unfortunately happens some of the time, in some big moments, as the bridge and platforms are pushed right to the back of the stage. However, this is a minor quibble, as you can just enjoy the music, the cast energy and the romance in this tenderly told story.
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