Theatre Review: A New Brain

[da]

We went to Toronto last night to see A New Brain, a musical put on by Acting Up Stage- which closes tonight. (Hey, there are still tickets! Go see it! I'm thinking of a few Toronto friends who would enjoy this- particularly metalana & amaryllis...)

Music and lyrics are by William Finn, who also wrote Falsettos and 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It's mostly autobiographical; he wrote it after he had a brain aneurysm. Gordon Schwinn (not Finn) is a songwriter for a kids' TV show with a tyrannical frog for a boss (Mr. Bungee is the TV personality; he shows up in a number of scenes, via hallucinations and in Gordon's imagination. He's always in a frog suit.)

There are songs about calimari, sailboats, craniotomy, genetics, and horse-racing. There is an unsympathetic doctor who is very excited about his patients' diseases. Roger and his Jewish mother have a messy relationship; Roger and his seemingly upper-crust boyfriend have a complicated relationship that seems a bit sketched-out instead of properly developed.

The songs have made me chuckle ever since dan got the audio recording of the show a few years ago. But seeing them acted was a real treat- there is overall flow to the story when you see the players interact; and they do an excellent job constructing story-scenes from Gordon's memory.

My favourite example, I think, is all the medical professionals put on patient clothes, come out with walkers and saline drip poles, sing the beginning of the song about Roger's father- which segues into a horse-race, where the three walkers turn into the wall of a racetrack and the players are all super-slow-motion bettors at the track waving on the horses, as Roger sings about how his father lost their family fortunes but claimed it was worth it; sometimes joy is expensive. It really worked for me.

There were also great dance numbers on Gordon's Laws of Genetics ("why is the smart son always gay?") and a dream scene when he's convinced he's brain-dead and he'll never get to finish his best songs.

The overall tone is "madcap," which does fit the off-kilter medical emergency side of it. But there are places it doesn't quite flow properly (some parts with the boyfriend seem sketched, and the parts with a homeless woman who never seems to exactly have a place).

I'd give it 3 of 4 stars, where 2 stars is "go if you like musicals." (And I suppose 4 stars is "even go if you don't like musicals...")

Comments

[metalana.livejournal.com]

unfortunately after years of trying, I have concluded that I hate musicals. The style of music in them modifies this to only a minor degree. So although the plot of this show sounds fun, I expect that having it sung would probably ruin my fun... But thanks for thinking of me.

[jeanne-d-arc.livejournal.com]

Lexi and I saw that play at Northwestern. It was fun.