‘From Here’ Review: Making Tragedy Sing
Donald Rupe’s intensely local musical examines the beauty to found in an open hometown wound.
Like any good Orlando theatre fairy tale, From Here started at Fringe.
After attending the original production in May of 2019, I distinctly remember crossing the lawn, passing the food trucks, and standing in line at the beer tent with tears still fresh in my eyes. I’d just been devastated by Donald Rupe’s new musical and was desperate to chat about it with anyone who would listen. Luckily, fellow audience members were easy to find: just look for people with bloodshot eyes and sniffles. The next year, an expanded version of the show debuted with Central Florida Community Arts. I was disappointed to find that the additional material (mostly in the book) didn’t add much to the musical, but rather, seemed to detract from it. Now, four years later, the show has undergone significant revisions once more, and it is in fantastic shape on stage at the Renaissance Theatre.
In the same way that Come From Away is often reductively referred to as “the 9/11 musical”, From Here is often referenced as “the Pulse show”. These characterizations are not entirely inaccurate, though they are diminishing in their simplicity. Though From Here does include the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting as a plot point, it is not solely about the tragedy. Instead, it is about the human effect of the event on the community. The show follows Daniel, a gay man in Orlando, as he navigates relationships within his chosen family of friends and lovers while attempting to reconcile estrangement from his single mother. We pick up the events of the show in January of 2016, aware that it’s all hurtling towards June 12. The specter of what we know is coming is almost a character in itself; it lingers in the background like a prescient angel of death that dwarfs the bickering and family drama that lead up to it. Like a Stephen King novel, you spend the first three quarters of the plot falling in love with the characters — and then the monster shows up.
Just as he has since the show’s inception, Blake Aburn returns to lead the company as Daniel with a lived-in comfort that comes out of genuine time spent in the role. I cannot overstate the level to which this show successfully hangs on Aburn’s shoulders; he rarely leaves the stage, and nearly every other scene features him and him alone. Thankfully, Aburn is an incredibly steady pillar upon which the show can rest easily. Insecure, self-effacing, and quietly angry, Daniel leads the audience into the intimately familiar world of his colorful chosen family with a mixture of monologues and music. In a brilliantly queer and modern reflection of Fiddler on the Roof’s soliloquies, Aburn moves the exposition along by nimbly talking and singing through a series of unanswered voicemails to his mother discussing his life and tribulations; in the best possible way, if Orlando is From Here’s Anatevka, then Daniel is gay Tevye. (And that makes Aburn our Topol.)
This strength in casting continues through the rest of the company: Becca Southworth, as Daniel’s mother, is a wounded wife and agonized parent who slowly unwraps a rich, matronly warmth with a powerhouse belt. Omar Cardona, as Ricky, is a charmingly awkward new addition to the chosen family who could make just about anyone swoon with his soaring vocals, while Michelle Coben, as Jordan, is a small, scrappy chanteuse who brings to mind a line of Shakespeare: “Though she be but little, she is fierce”. The show’s thematic messaging is clear: there is beauty and strength in finding and leaning on your community. Taking its own advice, From Here is also strongest when its characters gather for collective scene work.
Rupe’s score (orchestrated by Jason M. Bailey) is catchy contemporary musical theatre fare with a pop-ballad flavor throughout. Featuring stirring and playful (if occasionally platitudinous) lyrics, Rupe has woven recurring musical motifs throughout the show in a particularly compelling way, evoking an early Schönberg and Bublil score. (The simple and devastatingly effective “I love you/I miss you/I’m sorry” theme is especially impactful.) The four-piece band (bass, guitar, keyboard, and drums) accompanying the performers in this production is incredible, but entirely too loud for the space. While the driving score is exciting at high volume, due to some troublesome sound mixing, lyrics can often be difficult to hear, sometimes audibly obscuring entire songs; I unfortunately lost the majority of the otherwise fun ensemble number “Gayme Night”.
The staging and design are reserved and efficient, eschewing any non-essential movement, choreography, and set pieces, much to the show’s benefit. Rupe knows that the story is the draw here, not the spectacle, and the production reflects that. Unfortunately, this does sometimes lead to stagnation, particularly in the overlong scene in the aftermath of the Pulse shooting. When a living room set is revealed out of a bare stage, it’s apparent that we’re going to be spending some time there. The cast drapes themselves on couches, tables, and the floor, and stay there for roughly 20 minutes as almost every character gets a saccharine monologue addressing their personal experience with the tragedy and memories of the Pulse nightclub. It’s uncomfortable — as it should be, to a certain point — and out of this discomfort come some deeply biting moments. Adam (Justin Jimenez) muses that it’s hard to find an accurate heterosexual comparison to what a gay bar is to a gay man and that June 12, 2016 stirred a sense of violation within those queer spaces. The scene is an interesting and deeply emotional examination of this tragedy’s effect on the community through a lens of individual and collective experience; however, at two hours without an intermission, cuts to the dialogue would be a merciful addition to this scene and, broadly, to the show. A brisk trimming job would help to avoid the lurking sense of indulgence that ocassionally seeks to rear its head here and elsewhere in the script.
Like the Japanese art form of kintsugi, Rupe has taken a community-shattering event and forged a beautiful thing out of the pieces. From Here is a uniquely Orlandoan musical that takes cues from giants of the form, but remains remarkably itself — something only an artist “from here” could have created. It’s yet to be seen how an out-of-town audience will receive a show as localized as this, but as the production prepares to fly north for the summer for its Off-Broadway run, I can say with certainty — and much relief — that we finally have something to be incredibly proud of coming out of the Sunshine State.
What: From Here
Where: The Renaissance Theatre Company, FL // Pershing Square Signature Center, NY
When: Orlando: Now — May 5 // New York: June 28 — August 11
Tickets: FromHere.com
