"Before the performance begins at Night Side Songs, Testa and her fellow performers appear with chapbooks of lyrics in hand, encouraging you to join in when cued, if you so chose. In a dynamic that reminded me of my one semester of middle-school choir, you get the sense that declining might disappoint everyone. It'd also alienate you from the full experience of the Lazours' lovely, sentimental chamber musical, which gains strength by forcing you to get past your hangups, clear your throat, and sing out."
"The participation here is a useful dramatic structure, because Night Side Songs is concerned with a subject people tend to prefer not to speak about, much less sing about: the life-altering course of serious illness. In the brothers Patrick and Daniel Lazour's slender central narrative, a healthy and independent young woman named Yasmine discovers that she has cancer and crosses over to the night-side of life, where she must rely on the care of her pestering mother, an imperfect ex-boyfriend, and a series of overworked medical professionals."
"The musical's title is inspired by a quote from Susan Sontag's Illness As Metaphor, best known for her observation that everyone holds passports in the kingdoms of the well and the sick. I imagine that part of it influenced Taibi Magir's direction, which ferries us, as we sing along, between dread and hope. The thing has a primordial, pulsing quality, intensified by Amith Chandrashaker's inky lighting design."
Night Side Songs is a chamber musical by brothers Patrick and Daniel Lazour that addresses serious illness through a narrative centered on Yasmine, a young woman diagnosed with cancer. The production employs audience participation as a dramatic structure, with performers encouraging spectators to sing along using provided chapbooks. This participatory element serves the musical's thematic exploration of how illness fundamentally alters life and relationships. The cast includes Mary Testa as Yasmine's mother, Jonathan Raviv as an ex-boyfriend, and Robin de Jesús and Kris Saint-Louis as medical professionals. The title references Susan Sontag's Illness As Metaphor, exploring the concept of crossing into the "night-side of life" where patients must depend on others. The production employs atmospheric lighting design and navigates between emotional registers of dread and hope.
#chamber-musical #audience-participation #illness-and-disease #theatrical-performance #emotional-storytelling
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