If you settle in Riverside Theatre’s “Ring of Fire” expecting a dark portrayal of the complex Johnny Cash: Man in Black, you’re likely to be disappointed. But at least it isn’t a tale of red versus blue, like every other narrative these days.
Never mind his addictions, the drinking, speed and downers that kept him going through grueling touring. Never mind his Dust Bowl childhood that had him picking cotton from the age of 5. Or the adolescence that began with the torment of losing his big brother in a hideous sawmill accident, that not only he but his mother presaged.
Forget about the woman he left behind along with their 10,000 pages of love letters and four daughters, when he pursued June Carter.
These aspects are danced around – sometimes literally, but never dwelled upon. Cash’s second-act cover of Kris Kristofferson’s broodingly beautiful hangover lament, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” drew titters from the opening night audience. Even Cash’s own fascination with prison life – never experienced firsthand, though he spent a few one-nighters in jail – is handled in an almost comical chorus line of singing inmates, hanging their heads and dragging balls and chains like something out of a Mel Brooks movie.
That wholesome lightheartedness was just what the doctor ordered on opening night last week in what turned out to be a brilliant concert-in-costume of country music so classic I would reclassify it as Americana. Blues, gospel, rock and rockabilly all are represented, along with the vintage TV variety-show style that popularized him with a wider audience.
The gimmickry in “I’ve Been Everywhere” that has the entire cast lined up with guitars singing a handoff of faster and faster place names may have dazzled on the mid-century small screen. On the Riverside Main Stage, though, it was the simpler, less-efforted scenes that left plenty of space for the straight-ahead delivery of one soulful song after another: “While I’ve Got it On My Mind,” “I Still Miss Someone,” “Tear-Stained Letter,” “All Over Again,” and another Kristofferson classic, “Why Me Lord.”
Consider the on-stage musicians, often doubling as cast members. There’s a fiddler, a standup bass player, an accordion player, a percussionist with a range of old-timey noisemakers, and some classic acoustic guitarists all with country bona-fides as long as the Appalachian Trail.
The older of the two Betty Carters, played by Allison Briner-Dardenne, had more than a hint of Bonnie Raitt about her silky voice and won my heart in an instant with her understated delivery. This spring, Briner-Dardenne played in comedian Steve Martin’s “Bright Star” on Broadway, a similarly Southern-themed musical and a New York Times “critics’ pick.”
In the Vero show, guest director Jason Edwards, who plays the senior of the Cash-ish characters (they are not impersonators), had such a warm bass-baritone you could pull it around you like a heavy quilt. Edwards was a male lead in the original 2006 Broadway “Ring of Fire.”
Right before Johnny Cash’s death in 2003 (just four months after June Carter died), Cash gave Bill Meade the rights to create a show with his music. Meade was a classical musician turned Broadway musical coordinator who worked on “Hello, Dolly!” and “Saturday Night Fever.” He brought in Richard Maltby Jr. and, using 38 Cash songs, told six separate stories involving different people. Staged in 2006, it flopped on Broadway. Then, seven years later, Maltby tried again, streamlining the original show and having musician-actors telling bits and pieces of Johnny Cash’s own story. That show, in 2013, had Jason Edwards singing for Cash. Edwards has gone on to direct the show numerous times in regional theaters.
Benjamin D. Hale plays a younger version of Cash. His prior experience includes singing Cash’s role in a recording-studio reenactment called “Million Dollar Quartet” at Harrah’s in Las Vegas. Having backed up Kristen Chenoweth at the 2012 American Country Music awards, Hale has an album of his own ready for release.
Trenna Barnes, who sang and portrayed Carter in her younger years, is in her 11th production of this show. A native of Tulsa now living in Memphis, she spent eight years with all-girl band called Cowboy Crush. She played the role in a more Broadway style than Briner-Dardenne, swishing her petticoats and tossing her curls like a character out of “Oklahoma!” Her voice, though, was just as authentic and powerful.
The play takes place on a single set designed by John Iavocelli: the exterior of a log cabin, the porch of which serves as bandstand for the various musicians. They include Jeff Lisenby, the music director and keyboardist who comes downstage at one point to deliver a terrific accordion accompaniment; Lisenby was also part of “Ring of Fire” on Broadway.
Also on the porch is guitarist Brent Moyer, who pulls out a trumpet for some dashing mariachi-inspired phrases on the title song.
To one side is guitarist and mandolinist Sam Sherwood, who briefly doubles as Johnny’s brother Jack, slipping off to work on that fateful day at the sawmill. On the other side of the porch, Walter Hartmann has crammed his array drums and a few regional instruments besides. Hartmann, a Tennessee native, studied at Berklee College of Music before moving back to Nashville. He has recorded with Dr. Hook, Brenda Lee, Johnny Paycheck and many others.
Fiddler Brantley Kearns, a North Carolina native who has been playing violin since the age of 4, toured with Bobbie Gentry and Jim Stafford, and he toured and recorded with Dwight Yoakam’s band.
He becomes an audience favorite playing a sullen old timer who pipes up with a great line or two out of the blue. Another crowd favorite is stand-up bassist John Marshall, who rips out a solo that makes you wonder who’s doing the sound effects. (He is.)
Opposite that porch is a highway billboard topped by vintage curved lamps. It serves as a screen for various photo images evocative of the Cash era.
At a time when media forms have evolved far beyond billboards and are reminding us not of a common past but a painfully disparate future, “Ring of Fire” is a tonic to take in with gratitude. Just don’t strike up a conversation in the lobby.