A new musical shows Johnny and June Carter Cash as you’ve never seen them before

Toward the end of the new stage show “The Ballad of Johnny and June,” John Carter Cash cautiously approaches his mother, June Carter Cash, to discuss a treatment center for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. “They might even think we’re trying to exaggerate something for the sake of the story, or to give June more part of the narrative or whatnot.” But the show’s depiction is based in fact: John Carter Cash, who first revealed his mother’s substance abuse in his 2007 biography, “Anchored in Love: The Life and Legacy of June Carter Cash,” discussed the subject in detail with the musical’s creators during its six-plus years of development. “That really became the reason to make this show, because what we’ve also found is that the truth is so much more interesting than the fairy tale.” June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash and John Carter Cash in “The Ballad of Johnny and June.” Historically, characters who are under the influence in stage musicals are either fleetingly in focus, there for comedic or dramatic effect, or framed as fallen, even villainous figures gone astray. “But we’re also trying to show how a relationship involving addiction has three parts: the two people and the addiction.” Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash perform at Radio City Music Hall in 1985. We want to dignify her humanity — she is a human being, as opposed to a saint who swoops in and saves Johnny.” Patti Murin as June Carter Cash and Christopher Ryan Grant as Johnny Cash in La Jolla Playhouse’s world-premiere production of “The Ballad of Johnny and June.” That “The Ballad of Johnny and June” doesn’t attempt to tidy up the process of recovery in time for the final curtain is just as purposeful as any other aspect of its portrayal.