Home Delivery

Review: Denver's 'Almost Heaven' at Theatre Three

BY STEVE PARKS | steve.parks@newsday.com

February 29, 2008

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

I once met John Denver. And although I was not especially a fan - his songs were a bit sweet for my taste, all peace, love and flower child - he struck me as an authentic ambassador for a gentle outlook on life. I was covering the 1983 World Series for The Baltimore Sun when the Orioles invited Denver to sing the National Anthem before Game 1. Denver was an Oriole folk hero because his 1975 hit, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," was played during the seventh-inning stretch of every Orioles home game (as it is to this day).

Of course, we don't get to meet the singer in "Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver"; he died at age 53 in a solo plane accident over Monterey Bay in 1997. But his music offers something of an autobiography. In fact, the sketchy dialogue between songs, accompanied by period and panoramic slides, is derived from "Take Me Home," Denver's 1994 autobiography for this 2005 Off-Broadway revue.

Making its Long Island premiere at Theatre Three, "Almost Heaven" benefits from a direct musical connection to its source. Director Randall Parsons cast Anthony Raffa, who directed Denver's Windstar Aspen Music Festival from 1990 to the time of the singer's death, as one of six who give voice to Denver's generous repertoire.

Accompanying himself on guitar, Raffa strikes a poignant note in the first song, "All of My Memories," with the coming-home line, "somewhere to lay down and die." And he closes Act I with "Calypso," Denver's ode to Jacques Cousteau's ship featured in his long-running TV specials. The song and photos on the large screen, rustically framed by Parsons' mountain-cabin set, illustrate Denver's early commitment to environmental causes, of which Windstar was a part.

Denver was also fascinated with flying, which he got to do often during decades of touring. His first hit, written while he was part of the Chad Mitchell Trio, "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane" (the only No. 1 song ever recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary), is sung here in a dramatic acoustic solo by Carolyn Droscoski. We're not as accustomed to hearing female voices on other John Denver hits. But TracyLynn Connor all but makes "Annie's Song," written for Denver's first wife, her own. And Corryn Manwiller's rising country twang gives "I'm Sorry" a forgive-me-please urgency.

With his tousled blond hair and the lead on the signature "Rocky Mountain High," Morgan Howell Rumble most brings to mind Denver himself, while David Malloy rocks out with "Country Boy" convincingly enough that I almost stood up to stretch.

The ensemble, rousingly accompanied by Ellen Michelmore's versatile band, closes the show with Denver's last song, "Yellowstone," and a lyric from "All of My Memories" that captures his life and art: "Somewhere in the sun, where the mountains make love to the sky."

ALMOST HEAVEN: The Songs of John Denver. Conceived by Harold Thau. At Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson, through March 22. Tickets $21- $28, 631-928-9100, theatrethree .com. Seen last Friday.

Get breaking news alerts!

Would you recommend this?

Rate it: