‘Ballad of Johnny and June’ musical puts spotlight on addiction
Toward the end of the new stage show “The Ballad of Johnny and June,” John Carter Cash cautiously approaches his mother, June Carter Cash, to discuss a treatment center for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. But not for the sake of his father, Johnny Cash, whose substance-abuse issues were widely known and well documented.
“You know it’s a family disease,” he explains to her. “I think you need to look at your own relationship with pills.”
“During our first performance, I thought, ‘Oh my God, what if they don’t believe it’s true because they’ve never heard of it before?’ ” Patti Murin, who plays June, said of the scene. “They might even think we’re trying to exaggerate something for the sake of the story, or to give June more part of the narrative or whatnot.”
But the show’s depiction is based in fact: John Carter Cash, who first revealed his mother’s substance abuse in his 2007 biography, “Anchored in Love: The Life and Legacy of June Carter Cash,” discussed the subject in detail with the musical’s creators during its six-plus years of development. And while “The Ballad of Johnny and June,” whose world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse runs through July 7, charts the country music couple’s legendary love affair and re-creates duets such as “Jackson” and “If I Were a Carpenter,” it centers addiction in a way few major musicals do.
“The moment [John Carter Cash] said to us, ‘My mom didn’t save my dad, that is a myth, the problems continued,’ we realized that he didn’t want the fairy tale, he wanted the truth,” said director Des McAnuff. “That really became the reason to make this show, because what we’ve also found is that the truth is so much more interesting than the fairy tale.”
Historically, characters who are under the influence in stage musicals are either fleetingly in focus, there for comedic or dramatic effect, or framed as fallen, even villainous figures gone astray. (A recent exception: “Days of Wine and Roses,” the somber, booze-fueled romance that briefly played on Broadway earlier this year.)
“Addiction is a disease, but it has not been accurately portrayed,” said playwright Sean Daniels, who leads Florida Studio Theatre’s Recovery Project and Live Tampa Bay’s Anti-Stigma Initiative. “Somehow, we’re taught that people only have a problem after they’ve been stumbling around, or they hit rock bottom and crash their car. That’s a really old way of talking about it; that’s the version of portraying cancer as somebody coughing blood into a handkerchief, so we know they’re going to die.
“The arts have proven to be effective in changing national narratives, as we’ve seen with conversations around topics like gay marriage,” he continued. “If watching your favorite musicians struggle
with [addiction] and find a way through inspires you to get help or even just ask more questions, not only is it a fantastic piece of theater but it actually does a great justice. Shows like this can save lives.”
McAnuff and Robert Cary, who previously collaborated on La Jolla Playhouse’s “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” and “Palm Beach,” sharpened the show’s focus after numerous candid interviews with John Carter Cash, who wanted to honor his parents’ legacies while also being honest about their dependencies.
“Sensationalism in the media and exploitation of addiction, it’s just something that turns my stomach,” said Cash, also a recovering addict. “But everything in the play that
is touchy or whatever is something that my father and my mother were willing to talk about. They weren’t afraid to let their struggles be known, especially if it could help other people.”
“We’re celebrating the lives of these two brilliant artists,” said Van Hughes, who plays John Carter Cash, both a character and a narrator, in the production. “But we’re also trying to show how a relationship involving addiction has three parts: the two people and the addiction.”
“The Ballad of Johnny and June” balances entertaining re-creations of memorable performances such as “Ring of Fire,” “Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” with scenes that add up to a more precise and authentic representation of the
disease. For example, Johnny Cash is rarely seen in a stereotypically inebriated state. Instead, actor Christopher Ryan Grant, who stars as the musician, plays it more subtly — an effect that keeps the audience in the dark as to how intoxicated Cash might be at any given moment.
“[McAnuff] gave me that note because he said, ‘The most convincing thing an alcoholic does is try to maintain his sobriety in public,’ ” said Grant. “It made me rethink the whole show, and the pressure he must have felt to continue to function without falling apart.”
Likewise, the musical challenges the common perception that addiction is a moral failing that calls for judgment or punish