Songs for a New World

Two-times a Tony Award winner for Best Score (Parade and The Bridges of Madison County), composer / lyricist Jason Robert Brown is something of a musical theatre enigma; despite amassing a remarkable body of splendid theatre songs over a 20+ year career, immensely popular with contemporary musical theatre and cabaret performers, he is yet to be attached to a genuine Broadway hit.

Songs for a New World is a 1995 compilation of marvelous songs written by Brown by the time he was 25; more a song cycle than a musical, with songs thematically linked as personal crossroads or moments of decision, it shows what a remarkably mature talent he had displayed, even at that young age.

One problem with songbook shows like this is how to elevate it above a series of loosely connected songs.  This Blue Saint production has previously played an acclaimed Melbourne season, where my Stage Whispers colleague Coral Drouyn has perfectly summed up how Director Luke Joslin transcends those issues.

“Brown describes the show thus –‘It's about one moment. It's about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back’ - and that’s certainly true, but Joslin’s vision makes it about more than that. He finds a way to make the over-arching theme resonate through all time and all circumstances, so that each song, each vignette, becomes, with startling clarity, part of the story of us all. There was never any sense of “What’s going on?” which some other productions are stymied by, and the result is something that is now more musical than revue, with a strong sense of how any country (though in this case it’s America) is elevated by the lowliest of its citizens.

“Part of the praise for realising Joslin’s vision must go to Jacob Battista, whose design is as close to perfect as one could ever hope for in terms of atmosphere, illusion, and fitting the space. The multi-levelled deck of a Spanish sailing ship in 1492, with old trunks and boxes containing everything that is needed for the storytelling to come, is simply brilliant; and when a trunk is upended to become a cross; a grave marker above the American flag we have seen being sewn, past, present and future conjoin to make us all part of that journey. The little bits of graffiti painted on the boat, seemingly inconsequential, turn out to be signposts to the people we meet who share their stories. It’s all beautifully realised and very classy.”

Previous productions I’ve seen of this piece, by expanding the cast, have diluted the show into a concert giving lots of people a song or two; going back to it’s original cast of four, restores a far more interesting shape and form, making this a revelatory must-see for musical theatre fans.

The Sydney season included a thoughtfully balanced cast, well-matched to the material. Two strong male performers, baritone Cameron MacDonald, delivering the more down-to-earth men’s songs and tenor Christopher Scalzo launching into Brown’s ideal-charged anthemic songs, combine splendidly with the talented female hald of the cast, Teagan Wouters pulsing out intense ballads, and Sophie Carter, splendidly interpretting comic and character numbers, making the evening a treat. All are, of course, versatile performers who stretch performance boundaries far beyond those limits, ranging across the broad dynamic range of Brown’s songs.

All of the songs have self-contained character or narrative arcs, and with fabulous interpretations, all engage the audience for that brief spell of a few minutes. The presence of the other cast members, interacting with the singer of the moment, creates a sense of community within which each story, giving the production its dramatic cohesion.

Do get along to a performance during this short season at The Hayes.

Neil Litchfield

Photographer: Grant Leslie.