WASHINGTON — It’s famous for “Falling Slowly,” but it’s leaving D.C. quickly.
So mark your calendar and get your tickets now if you don’t want to miss the Oscar- and Tony-winning musical “Once,” which swings through National Theatre for just five shows Friday-Sunday.
“Mark it at least ‘once’ … or twice, that’s the sequel,” star Sam Cieri joked.
The production is based on the 2006 indie flick by Irish filmmaker John Carney, which was adapted into a stage musical with a book by Enda Walsh and music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. It debuted off-Broadway in 2011 and took Broadway by storm in 2012, earning 11 Tony nominations and winning eight, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Director and Best Actor.
It follows a busker named Guy and an immigrant named Girl who spend a week together in Dublin.
“[He’s] given up on music because his mom has passed away, his girl has left him, he lives over a vacuum shop that he works at with his dad and he’s content with going nowhere,” Cieri told WTOP. “He meets a Czech girl [who] convinces him that he has too much heart, love and passion in his music to let it go. So over the course of five days, they’re able to make a demo tape and they also fall in love.”
When Cieri first saw the movie, he was already familiar with Hansard’s Irish rock band The Frames.
“I was privy to The Frames and I loved The Frames, so when somebody told me, ‘There’s this movie with Glen and all the music from The Frames,’ I sat and watched the movie,” Cieri said. “The movie kind of inspired me to play music in the streets and be a busker, which I did for years and years.”
Ironically, this busking kept him too busy and penniless to see the Broadway show.
“I never got to see the show,” Cieri said. “At the time, I couldn’t afford doing anything, because I was playing music in the subways in New York, so there was no way for me to go see the show.”
In other words, he was the guy playing outside the theater when folks headed home.
“They’d be like, ‘Hey, you’re like [Guy!] … Ahh, sorry, we’ve gotta get our train. Here’s a dollar.'”
Eventually, he joined the national tour, now in its second season after rehearsals last December.
“I was lucky enough where, five days after the first leg closed, there was a three-month hiatus and I got to go to Dublin and do the show three months there over the summer,” Cieri said fondly.
It was during this stint in Ireland that he actually got to meet his hero — Hansard, who played the original Guy in the movie — at Maureen’s Bar in the back of the historic Olympia Theatre in Dublin.
“I was like I can’t just go up and say hi to this guy,” Cieri said. “When I walked into the bar to meet him, I walked straight past him and went straight to the bar and ordered shots. … The first thing he said to me, he leaned in and goes, ‘Fair play, man.’ He said, ‘It was like hearing Jeff Buckley sing my songs.'”
Cieri said he’ll never forget that meeting, chatting with his idol over a pint of Guinness.
“You know those moments where you meet a hero and you want him to put his arm around you and say, ‘Hey man, let’s go in the corner and have a talk?’ That’s exactly what happened,” Cieri said. “In my head, I was really articulate and laid back and cool, but most likely I was just like, ‘I love you so much!'”
Now, imbued with the spirit of Hansard, Cieri brings a new authenticity to National Theatre.
“When I was there, I’d sit and talk with the cast, who are all real Dubliners, and they would explain certain lines and moments I never understood,” Cieri said. “I was able to speak with Enda Walsh, who wrote the play, and he cleared some things up for me. I think the show’s in this really cool place now because the same director who directed this leg also directed us in Dublin — Shaun Peknic.”
This time, the Girl to his Guy is Mackenzie Lesser-Roy, a 20-year-old from the Boston Conservatory.
“When we auditioned, I flew in from Bermuda where I was working on a cruise line,” Cieri said. “I got to this audition, I messed up the song, but when I got to the scene, I read with her. I remember walking out and going, ‘Listen, I don’t care if I get this, but that girl is amazing. She’s amazing! Playing piano and a voice like an angel. … She is hard up there, she is direct, but there is an intense vulnerability. The easiest person to fall in love with every night. It’s definitely a privilege to do the show with her.”
These two lead actors chart two powerful character arcs.
“For Guy, the biggest thing for him is self-worth,” Cieri said. “He has deep fears of trying because when you try, there is a [chance] that you’ll fail. He’s had so many terrible things happen to him in his life … I think he feels that if all these things have happened to him, he’s not worth it. … What he finds is bravery and courage. … His arc is going from someone who’s scared to someone who’s brave.”
He said Girl’s character arc is slightly more complicated.
“She’s a mother, her husband left … She meets this guy and knows she can help him,” Cieri said. “She struggles with what she wants — to run off with this guy and make music together — and what her obligations are. … Her arc is someone who starts off very sure of herself and ends a little less sure.”
Of course, the real star of “Once” is its Irish-infused music, including “When Your Mind’s Made Up,” “Say It To Me Now” and “Falling Slowly,” which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
“They’re songs of intense pain with injections of healing,” Cieri said. “The way he structures his songs, especially ‘Falling Slowly,’ is that it’s accessible, it’s very pretty, but every time you listen to it, you find something a little sad and a little happy. Only the great songwriters can do that. … He writes these songs that start off very soft and invite you in, then they just punch you in the gut, then disappear.”
All of the songs are performed by a cast of musicians that doubles as the live orchestra on stage.
“All of the music is played by the actors,” Cieri said. “The show opens with us coming out and just jamming. The cast is made up of some of the most amazing musicians. … They start stomping and twisting around with their instruments. … It’s one of the most incredible things watching someone with a cello strapped to her chest, dance around and play beautifully. That’s class musicianship.”
It’s an immersive theatergoing experience, like you’re actually watching a bunch of Irish session players jamming out in a Dublin pub. In fact, audiences can buy drinks on stage during intermission.
What better way to spend your Thanksgiving weekend?
“I’m thankful that every night this show is therapeutic,” Cieri said. “There are some shows where I need to go through that. … When the show is over, there is a cathartic moment. … If you want to laugh, cry, have your entire heart and soul taken apart and put back together in a stronger way, it’s the show to see. It’s the type of show where you go in as one person and you walk out somebody else.”
Who knows? Maybe years from now, Cieri will walk into a bar somewhere and put his arm around some young actor who just landed the role of Guy and talk over drinks like Hansard did for him.
“I would just look at him and say, ‘Dude, am I right?’ … Then we’d just takes shots all night.”
Listen to the full conversation with “Once” star Sam Cieri and hear him perform live in studio below:
