Soulpepper stalwarts would be familiar with Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson. They’re the duo behind musicals like “Rose” and “De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail.” And for years, they’ve also been developing docu-concert productions that reinterpret classic songs with a mix of music and documentary-style storytelling.
These shows have been such audience favourites that other artists have created their own Soulpepper revues using the same blueprint, many of which have been preserved on record. (I recommend checking out the albums for “A Moveable Feast: Paris in the ’20s” and “The Secret Chord: A Leonard Cohen Experience.”)
Yet these docu-concerts have long remained one of Canadian music’s best-kept secrets, with criminally short runs slotted in between Soulpepper’s larger, mainstage programming.
That, however, finally changed last week when Ross and Wilson’s latest creation, “Inside American Pie,” opened Friday at Mirvish’s CAA Theatre.
It’s a show that’s a perfect fit for the Mirvish stage. After all, the commercial theatre producer loves its jukebox fare and this docu-concert confidently checks that box. But for all the nostalgia that the show offers, it also contains one thing that so many jukebox musicals lack: intellect.
“Inside American Pie” didn’t originate at Soulpepper. It was initially staged at the Harmony House in Prince Edward Island, where Ross and his wife, Nicole Bellamy, moved during the pandemic. But the show still feels like a classic Ross-Wilson docu-concert that Soulpepper audiences have come to love.
Its subject is Don McLean’s enigmatic hit “American Pie,” which Ross and four other musicians (the Maritime quartet of Alicia Toner, Brielle Ansems, Greg Gale and Kirk White) deconstruct in real time, parsing each of the pop culture references in the eight-minute song.
The multi-talented Ross, who sits behind a piano during the show, is a captivating storyteller. Most importantly, he makes you care about the music, even if you have little prior knowledge of it.
As he walks us through his interpretation of the mysterious 1971 song, like why that infamous Chevy is being driven to the levee (and why that levee was dry), you feel like you’re in the presence of a musical genius. So thoughtful is his commentary and so convincing are his arguments that no matter how familiar you are with “American Pie” coming in, you feel smarter coming out of this 90-minute concert.
But never does the show comes across as a rote music lesson. Interspersed throughout are performances of the songs referenced in “American Pie,” including tunes by Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly, all seamlessly integrated into the narrative. (Jukebox musical writers, please take note.) Ross’s arrangements of these classics, like John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” successfully walk the tightrope balancing familiarity with novelty.
They’re all sung with intense conviction. Ross, who fronts the five-person band, possesses a bluesy-rock voice that feels as comfortable singing Bob Dylan as the Stones. Beside him, playing the guitar and occasionally the fiddle, Toner is a powerhouse vocalist, complemented by Ansems’ more buoyant sound.
The group injects such vocal intensity into these covers that it’s impossible not to want to bop along. Indeed, at the opening night performance, many audience members were doing just that.
It’s a pity, though, that onstage everything looks unnaturally static. The performers are mostly planted on stools or chairs. Even during the songs, there’s little interaction among them.
Perhaps this setup works in a smaller venue, like Harmony House, where the audience is so close to the stage that it feels more akin to a salon concert. But in the 700-seat CAA Theatre, where that intimacy is lost, the production could benefit from more dynamic staging.
“American Pie” diehards who know the song inside out might also quibble with some of Ross and Wilson’s analysis. The co-creators claim that “the girl who sang the blues” is Janis Joplin and that the jester, referenced multiple times in the song, is Dylan — two popular interpretations that McLean dismissed in a 2022 documentary.
I don’t think it really matters, though, what McLean’s true intentions were. (You also have to cut Ross and Wilson some slack; “Inside American Pie” premiered a year before that tell-all documentary first aired.) I’m of the opinion that once a piece of art is in the world, how it’s analyzed is out of the hands of its creator. Any cogent interpretation, whether it’s actually right or wrong, only enriches how we experience the art.
As Ross puts it so perfectly toward the end of the concert: “That’s what great art does. It invites you to interpret it.”
