Already Perfect: Levi Kreis confronts his past in semi-autobiographical musical

Already Perfect is a semi-autobiographical musical in which Broadway star Levi Kreis plays a version of himself on a small stage, confronting his demons and ultimately concluding that, however flawed he often feels, he is in fact "already perfect." The show opens with Kreis stumbling off stage, inked and emotional, having been dumped by text during a matinee.

After 11 sober months he reaches for crystal meth, but his soft-eyed sponsor Ben (Yiftach "Iffy" Mizrahi) urges him to confront his inner child, ideally in song; Kreis is unconvinced but sits at the keyboard. Matthew, Kreis's given name, slides through a crack in the wall as a cocky younger self, excellently played by Killian Thomas Lefevre, who takes the hero through conversion therapy and rejection into self-destructive adulthood.

The review says Kreis's untrammelled, often lachrymose dialogue leaves little room for nuance, spelling out exactly what he is deflecting or denying, and that his lyrics tend to be on the nose. His music, however, is described as having a "compulsive secret life," prowling from a Pentecostal rumble to a bereft Nashville sob and a broken-hearted ballad that young Matthew diagnoses as "Aretha meets Tori Amos." In Dave Solomon's production, with design by Jason Ardizzone-West, a workaday dressing room transforms into a theatrical playground: piano chords summon coloured lights, the wardrobe spills costumes, a snap of the fingers prompts a spotlight and a prop drops from the ceiling.

Key Topics

Culture, Levi Kreis, Musical Theatre, Killian Thomas Lefevre, Yiftach Mizrahi, Dave Solomon