SU Drama’s smart production of ‘A New Brain’ in dire need of music and lyrics transplant

Good ensemble work in this fast-paced production cannot overcome uninspired music and stale lyrics

By David Feldman
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Feldman.html 

As plots go, the one that tugs along the action in the S.U. Department of Drama musical, A New Brain, isn’t what you’d call full of promise.  Songwriter Gordon Michael Schwinn (Marcelo Pereira) is stuck in a job he hates writing ditties for one of those by now cliché children’s TV show stars: a frog who is cute onstage and mean offstage named Mr. Bungee (Elliot O’Rourke Peterson, energetic and fun, in a really terrific froggie costume).  

Gordon would rather create his own music, but he’s blocked and he’s being worked too hard by Mr. Bungee.  Soon after bemoaning his fate at a restaurant, Gordon collapses face first into his spaghetti and ends out in the hospital with a brain aneurism.  What little promise the story line has goes into the pasta with him.  From there on in, whether in his hospital bed, while in an MRI machine, about to be operated on, etc., Gordon composes the songs he really wants to write, while his cliché Jewish mother (Alliy Drago), his boyfriend (Matthew Hazen), a gay nurse (Sammy Lopez), his friend (the strong voiced Marie Eife) and a distracted and uncaring neurosurgeon (Ross Baum, with some terrific physically comic moments) attend to him.  

Having almost nothing to do with the plot are LilyAnn Carlson, who does nice work as a homeless lady, Mary Claire King as a second nurse (fun and raunchy early on, but directed into the background too soon) and Brian Michael Hart as a minister who almost seems about to perform a wedding for Gordon and his boyfriend at the end, but that segment is so hazy I wondered if there was a statement being made about gay marriage or if he’d simply found himself center stage, unsure of why he was sent out there with a Bible in-hand. 

Music and lyrics for A New Brain are by William Finn with the book by Finn and James Lapine.  This is the same duo that created Little Miss Sunshine and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but their inventiveness seems to have failed them here.  The songs feel like material they had hanging around waiting for a story to hang them from.  The lyrics are determinedly uninspired, with not an unexpected or clever rhyme in all 35 numbers (sample lyric: Tomorrow they’ll strap me down on a bed/And cut off the top of my head).

The choreography is pleasant and energetic, but mostly routine.  Danielle Hodgins's attractive wide open set with convenient ramps for multiple levels and a turntable at center stage could be filled more effectively.  

Simply outstanding and enormously creative, though, is a kind of backdrop between the stage and a seven-piece orchestra (effectively directed by Brian Cimmet) that consists of different size circles onto which a great variety of images are projected to establish different scenes or situations –– such as a hospital, a group of brain scans, the sea where the boyfriend loves to sail, and so on.  Much credit here to Projections Designer David Tennent for this imaginative work.  But beware, those of you affected by flashing lights: There’s a series of projections of eye-like illustrations early on that seem designed to test your ability to withstand headaches.

There’s a lot of solid ensemble work by the cast of A New Brain, and the show is fast-paced, the performances always winning.   Look for the Storch stage to be used both by the Department of Drama and by Syracuse Stage featuring a revised configuration for some performances and for some student productions to be done in the Archbold Theatre next year. 

DETAILS BOX:
What: A New Brain, music and lyrics by William Finn; book by Finn and James Lapine
Where: Storch Theatre at Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Through May 14
Length of performance: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $8, rush one hour before curtain;  $16, students and seniors; $18, general admission. May 11: "pay what you can night" with student ID.  Call 315-443-3275, or http://vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: Some gay themes and action