Told with warmth, humor, and virtuoso piano playing, the show is both an intimate memoir and a celebration of the people, music, and cartoons that shaped him. Rafal’s command of the piano is undeniable — his playing is technically superb yet deeply expressive. But what makes this production stand out is his storytelling. With a pair of glasses or a flower tucked into his hair, he transforms seamlessly into childhood teachers and mentors, each impersonation delivered with affection and clarity. The simple staging choices work beautifully, allowing personality and memory to take center stage. A slide projector, an old Trinitron TV, and snippets of cartoon footage form part of the set’s nostalgic charm. One especially delightful sequence sees Rafal accompanying Tom & Jerry in perfect sync, merging classical mastery with animated slapstick. These touches evoke a strong sense of time and place — a reminder of how popular culture and personal ambition intertwine. While the story doesn’t explicitly dwell on why Rafal didn’t become a full-time concert pianist, it does gently reveal the setbacks, turns, and choices that led him elsewhere. The result is a narrative that feels honest rather than overly polished, as though you’re being welcomed into a private conversation rather than watching a strictly scripted monologue. If there’s a quibble, it’s a purely technical one — some of the projected family photographs were a little hard to see on the dark background. But that’s a minor distraction in an otherwise polished piece. The Stevenson Theatre’s staff also deserve a nod for their kindness during the performance’s sweltering conditions, discreetly providing bottled water to audience members and performer alike. Running at just over an hour, The Boy from Bantay is a heartfelt, engaging, and at times very funny account of a life in music and memory. It’s nostalgia, virtuosity, and storytelling in harmonious balance. 

Verdict: ★★★★★ – A beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant gem of the Fringe.

In this richly woven solo performance, Jeremy Rafal charts a journey not merely across geography—from the sun-drenched provinces of the Philippines to the electrifying sprawl of New York City—but across identity, ambition, and the resilience of the human spirit.

It was some years ago when a dear friend, one of those rare individuals whose theatrical recommendations one heeds without hesitation, urged Jeremy to attend a solo show. Not just any solo show, but one penned and performed by her own acquaintance, an intrepid young Asian actress navigating the artistic and existential labyrinth that is New York City. Jeremy arrived with curiosity; he left utterly transformed. The performance unfolded with such lyrical precision and emotional candor that it lodged itself firmly in his memory, to speak in Jeremy’s musical verbiage, like a melody that haunts long after the final chord.

That singular experience sparked something in him—an enduring fascination with the art of the solo performance. There is, after all, something profoundly courageous in standing alone on a stage and declaring one’s truth. These artists, these solitary conjurors of story and self, bare their souls before a roomful of strangers with astonishing vulnerability. It is theatre at its most distilled and most daring. And so, inspired and emboldened, he began to toy with the idea that perhaps he, too, had stories worth telling.

Time passed. Thoughts became drafts. Drafts became workshops. And eventually, what began as a quiet notion matured into a living, breathing theatrical work: his very own solo show. It found its first public incarnation in 2015 at the New York International Fringe Festival where it was met with warmth, laughter, and the kind of audience engagement that reminds one why we do this at all. Jeremy played at Venue #4 that summer, Spectrum, up a long flight of stairs into someone’s actual apartment at 121 Ludlow Street, retrofitted with theatrical lighting one would find in the average blackbox set-up and at the heart of the performance space, a baby grand. Yet even then, even in those early days, there remained a dream smoldering quietly in the wings: Edinburgh. The grand mecca of fringe theatre. The Festival of Festivals.

Life, as it so often does, had its own plans—diversions, obligations, unexpected chapters. But here we are, ten years later, and this deeply personal offering, after three July performances at 59 East 59th Street Theatres as part of its East to Edinburgh programming, is now at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It must feel not like a return, but a fulfillment.

Jeremy was born in the Philippines and came of age in the lush cultural mosaic of Hawaii. Ear training at age 7 prompted first music lessons in his native Bantay from Sister Hildegard, “a short stout Filipino woman with a perfectly round head and a resting bitch face.” She is his first meeting with tough love – she will have him use both hands and the correct fingering or she will have him leave their sessions in tears. He began his musical training there, eventually making his way to the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, one of the world’s most venerated institutions for classical piano. Over the years, he has performed, competed, and collaborated across continents.

This solo show is, at its heart, a chronicle of his artistic evolution. From the cartoon-fueled dreams of his childhood (his family was the first in Bantay to get a remote control color TV giving Jeremy and all the neighborhood kids a steady diet of Thundercats, He-Man, and Looney Tunes) to the rigors of conservatory life (on his first day at DePauw University, the RA assumes he’s delivering the Chinese food that was ordered only moments before), from awkward adolescence (worshiping his older brother Carlo – the sun rose and set with him) to creative awakening (learning about classical music from cartoons and prime time dramas), it is a journey rendered through monologue, character work, images, video—and, of course, live piano performance. You’ll encounter an array of characters—family, mentors, oddball acquaintances—each drawn with affection and detail, each shaping the artist he has become. Jeremy gives us exquisite subtleties in the characters: his mom, Juanita, who is the pillar of strength, a woman who supports his musical talents and suffers the loss of two of her beautiful children, the socially awkward Dindo who must tell Jeremy and his mom that Carlo has drowned and then Dindo later as an adult, the charming director of Bantay’s Chamber of Commerce who gives us a Bantay slideshow, photos mostly of Jeremy and his family; his instructors Sister Hildegard, then the pragmatic Mrs. Hirono in Hawaii who explains the difference between practicing Mozart and Chopin, then Dr. Kresh at Jacobs who has to tell Jeremy he failed in his soloist performance of the Brahms First Piano Concerto.

The production’s deployment of vintage technology—most notably a functioning CRT television flickering with animated relics of a bygone era, alongside the warm hum and click of a classic slide projector—imbues the stage with a distinct visual texture and a potent aura of nostalgia. These analog artifacts, far from mere props, serve as evocative portals to the past, anchoring the audience in the tactile, grainy world of the performer’s childhood. There is something profoundly affecting in witnessing these once-ubiquitous machines return to life before us; they summon not only a specific historical moment but also the emotional architecture of memory itself. In Jeremy’s hands, these tools transcend their obsolescence, becoming vessels for recollection, imagination, and the quietly throbbing ache of time gone by.

One of the show’s most resonant and recurring stage metaphors is the unrelenting tick of the metronome—a device traditionally associated with discipline and musical precision, here elevated into something far more profound. Initially, it serves as a sonic emblem of the relentless, often isolating hours spent in practice—the mechanical heartbeat underpinning the rigor of Jeremy’s artistic formation. But more than that, it becomes a poignant symbol of time itself: impartial, indifferent, and utterly unyielding. As Jeremy himself muses, “Time moves on with or without you”—a line that recurs throughout the piece, teetering at moments on the edge of overstatement, yet ultimately justified by the emotional terrain it helps unearth. What begins as an external imposition—this ceaseless ticking, this demand to keep pace—gradually evolves into something more intimate and interior. We witness Jeremy’s character arc not only in his shifting relationship to the metronome, but in his broader reckoning with time, memory, and mortality. Rather than resisting its insistence, he learns to confront it, and in doing so, begins to engage more honestly with the grief he had long kept at bay. In the end, the metronome is not simply a theatrical device, but a metaphorical pulse—measuring not just tempo, but transformation.

Though the narrative is distinctly personal, its themes are universal. If you were ever a child; if you ever wrestled with identity, aspiration, or belonging; if music has ever moved you, or memory surprised you, or laughter rescued you—you will find something here. It is a show of humor, of harmony, and of course, heartbreak. Jeremy gives us as the penultimate scene of the play a dream sequence: a conversation with Carlo, catching him up with everything he has missed. “I’m still mad at you for not coming home that day, you know. You promised you’d come back.” It is an expression of love, a haunting one at that…which makes one consider those in our own lives we find ourselves talking to though we know they’re not there. It is a subconscious pushing away of the heartache where there has been no closure.

Jeremy’s is a story told with verve, vulnerability, and artistic clarity—a story that refuses to be silenced, just as its teller refused to forsake his dreams. That Jeremy has chosen to share this journey onstage is a gift to audiences; that he has done so with such eloquence and heart is a testament to the transformative power of theatre.

The Boy from Bantay played its last NYC/ East to Edinburgh performance on July 24.

Presented as part of East to Edinburgh at 59 E 59 Theatres

Performances continue in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, now through August 16.

Venue: Stephenson Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, Nicolson Street EH8 9DW

To book Edinburgh Fringe tickets, https://www.edfringe.com/

Review by Tony Marinelli.

Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on August 5, 2025. All rights reserved.

Read the full article at: https://www.theatrebeyondbroadway.com

That said, for those in a hurry, he essentially answers the question in the first 10 minutes – because he first heard – and fell in love with – some of the most beautiful works of western culture thanks to their somewhat unexpected inclusion in, of all things, 1950s Warner Brothers cartoons.

However, it’s definitely worth staying for the rest of the show. In some respects, Rafal’s subsequent musical biography isn’t particularly surprising. Through a mixture of sharply defined characterisations – of family members, friends and music teachers – plus extracts of the music he’s come to love, he succinctly summarises his school days, his continuing piano lessons in Hawaii, and his growing determination to become a classical pianist.

Under the direction of Josh Boerman, Rafal successfully carries us along, but the fact remains that the potentially big emotional hit – that this plan didn’t ultimately work out – hardly comes as a surprise. After all, Rafal is not some globally famous soloist performing with an internationally acclaimed orchestra at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival; instead, he’s performing a self-penned one-man show in a relatively small, very hot room on the Fringe. Though it’s almost overlooked that he eventually did earn his doctorate in piano performance.

A central on-stage metaphor throughout the show is the continuing tick of a metronome, used most frequently during the unending practice sessions that form the foundations of his art; a constant reminder, as he puts it, that time moves on with or without you. This line is potentially pushed a little too far on occasions, but equally we see Rafal’s character arc as he learns to not just live with this imposition, but to face it full on – along with the grief he had previously preferred to push away.

Rafal is an engaging, full-hearted performer, and his story is one of incident and colour, told with passion, humour and skill. As a theatrical package, he and the show are pretty irresistible.

Read the full article at: https://broadwaybaby.com

Rafal is an engaging performer, successfully carrying the audience through his story, bringing each character onstage to life with his physical acting, eliciting laughs during the comic moments and heavy silence during the dark ones. His show is heartfelt and authentic with some real moments of weight, particularly as it draws to a close. The choice to use Ilocano as the primary language spoken by a few Filipino characters, despite most of the audience being unable to understand it, is an effective one that pays off during an especially tense scene involving his brother around halfway through the show, as the audience anxiously waits for Rafal to step in and translate what has transpired.

His skill with the piano is remarkable, not surprising, given that he aspired to become a concert pianist and in fact earned a doctorate for his ability! The show is at its best when he is playing, and a particular highlight is when he accompanies the cartoons shown on the television on set, showing how he was first introduced to – and fell in love with – classical music.

The production is good, the sound design especially so – as indeed it needs to be for a show so focused on music! The backing tracks come in perfectly and the lighting design is effective at indicating both location and atmosphere. In addition, Rafal makes use of both a small television screen and a projector, both of which contribute meaningfully to the narrative and add colourful context to the story he tells.

This show is both entertaining and poignant all at once. Rafal may never have become a concert pianist as he had planned, but he is still an excellent performer and his show is a testament to his ability. With a few days still left of the run, I recommend seeing The Boy From Bantay while he is still around!

Read the full article at: https://theatreweekly.com

With frequent illustration on the keyboard, he recounts his early life up to the present. He is an engaging performer, conjuring up family and teachers with wit. The production boasts several vintage devices. The tech is very slick. We get a glimpse of his playing skill throughout, but only his last piece shows the depth of his talent. Always diverting, I would love to hear more of him playing seriously.

Read the full review at www.uktw.co.uk