'Night Side Songs' Off-Broadway review — fighting the isolation of illness with music, together
Read our review of Night Side Songs off Broadway, a new musical by The Lazours (Daniel and Patrick Lazour), premiering with Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3 program.
Summary
- Night Side Songs is a musical exploration of one woman's battle with cancer and the community surrounding her through the process
- The show is a communal experience where audiences are invited to sing along
- Writing duo The Lazours display vivid scenes and melodies though lyrics occasionally fall short
Nearly everyone knows someone who’s fought against cancer, winners and losers alike: family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, long-lost high school sweethearts. The strange thing about cancer is that it manages to touch nearly everyone’s lives while also drowning the diagnosed in a feeling of isolation and darkness. But in the musical Night Side Songs, brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour, the writing team behind last season’s excellent We Live in Cairo, try to bring the king of diagnoses to its knees, render it human, and make the sick feel less alone.
In crafting the story of Yasmine (Brooke Ishibashi), who is diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 30s, The Lazours extract — from research and interviews with scientists, doctors, caregivers, the sick, the bereaved, and survivors — a wealth of specific images and moments in a life that is at once interrupted and yet able to fold cancer into its timeline. In book scenes especially, we taste the lethargy and the nausea, the sense of rage and the strange time-stopping feeling of being wrenched from what was normal life.
Robin de Jesus, Jonathan Raviv, and Kris Saint tag-team as narrator, nurse, and doctor, as well as other members of Yasmine’s life; Raviv and Mary Testa also play Yasmine’s devoted boyfriend and adoring mother. Under Taibi Magar's direction, this cast orbits Yasmine, creating a vivid constellation of people, individual moments, and stray feelings in a way that makes Yasmine’s situation feel cosmic: part of the fabric of not only her sickness, but millions of other people's.
It is dreamily supported by The Lazours' dexterous melodies, which ride the wave of folksy and shoegaze-pop, like softer Jonathan Larson crossed with Sufjan Stevens. These are mostly delicate numbers that verge on personal and existential lullabies, codas not only to a long night but to a life lived as well as it could be given the circumstances. A song called “Santa Cruz” (sung with a glistening tone by Saint-Louis) in particular nails the sparkling sadness and resolute dignity of someone dying with grace, whose memories sprawl out into the world.
Night Side Songs’s showpiece is that much of the music’s oomph is supplied by the audience, acting as a chorus, Greek and musical. Conducted by various members of the cast (primarily de Jesus), attendees are directed to sing from a book of lyrics. It’s a compelling conceit, making spectators not merely witness to someone’s weakening health but an active participant in telling the story of their pains and joys. It makes viewer investment that much more tangible and and dramatic.
But strangely, The Lazours’ lyrics come up short against their melodies and book scenes. Lines are frequently repetitive and drained of the idiosyncrasies that their accompanying guitar licks, piano strokes, and vivid dialogue conjure. The line “Fighting for you my life” is poignant, if a tad clunky, the first couple of times. It is drowned in bathos around the sixteenth.
Although Night Side Songs’s lyrics intermittently disappoint in their ungainliness, the show’s overall effect is impressive nonetheless. There’s a sense of communion the show reaches for and nearly achieves, as if sickness and suffering, as despairing as they can be to experience, are part of an infinite cycle of being taken care of and caring for others. Like time is composed of people by each other’s bedsides for eternity.
Night Side Songs summary
When Yasmine discovers a lump under her breast, she begins a journey through sickness and resilience, supported by her mother, boyfriend, and a rotating cast of characters who give voice to her anxieties and hopes.
The show's title is inspired by a Susan Sontag quote that begins, "Illness is the night side of life."
What to expect at Night Side Songs
Staged in Lincoln Center Theater’s Claire Tow Theater, the three-quarter thrust staging offers a kind of maximum intimacy, making to connection between the audience and Yasmine all the closer. A sculpture made of ocean blue glass bottles (by scenic designer Matt Saunders) hangs slightly tilted overhead, completing the air of cosmic destiny about the show.
What audiences are saying about Night Side Songs
Theatregoers have shared positive responses to Night Side Songs, particularly the audience-participation element, on the theatre review and tracking app Mezzanine.
- “The Lazours did it again! An incredible slow building wave of emotional catharsis.” - Mezzanine user Derek Kahle
- “Everyone in this show was great. It was a bit too experimental, bare bones for my liking, but the audience singalong stuff was really fun, and the songs were beautiful, especially the last one.” - Mezzanine user Bellamy Richardson
- “I loved the audience participation. To me it symbolized how nobody is alone through the various stages of grief.” - Mezzanine user Noah Zeitlin
Who should see Night Side Songs
- Theatre legend Mary Testa is delightful as Yasmine’s overexcited and panicky mother, and she's especially worth seeing in such an intimate setting.
- The cast is grand all around, but Kris Saint-Louis and Jonathan Raviv are both given songs that allow their glistening voices to shine to moving effect.
- Fans of The Lazours’ other work, like We Live in Cairo or their clever diss track “Fran,” will find gorgeous musical strains here.
Learn more about Night Side Songs off Broadway
Making its audience an active participant on a journey through stages of diagnosis, sickness, recovery, and death, Night Side Songs, occasional lyrical hiccups aside, assembles a pensive and at times sparkling experience of community in the face of darkness.
Photo credit: Night Side Songs off Broadway. (Photos by Marc J. Franklin)
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