The Lion: Theater review

Personal losses pile up in the musical memoir The Lion, but creator and star Benjamin Scheuer makes the one-man show an irresistible winner. A cherished childhood memory gets things started: “My father has an old guitar and he plays me folk songs,” sings Scheuer, who boasts a warm clear voice and dreamboat looks. “He goes to the basement and builds me a cookie-tin banjo.” That homemade toy leads to a big-boy’s guitar and a deep passion for making music, which, he says, is “my greatest source of joy.” Scheuer’s co-stars are a half-dozen guitars and he plucks and strums the heck out of them. Jubilation subsides when his dad dies suddenly in 1996, leaving 13-year-old Ben and his two brothers and mother reeling. It’s first of a number of rough realities, including a sweet love story that sours and a nearly fatal cancer battle that steals this lion’s great mane of hair, virility and ability to make music.