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THE HEART deserves a Broadway transplant | Thoughts on the world premiere new musical in La Jolla
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Mickey Jo - Theater Critic and Content Creator
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Mickey Jo - Theater Critic and Content Creator
Think Grey's Anatomy meets K Pop Demon Hunters. Er, but with edm, it's essentially from the studio that brought you come from away if that studio was to now bring you something completely different. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theater themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theater. I'm a professional theater critic and content creator here on social media and I recently had the extraordinary privilege of being flown to San Diego, California to head to La Jolla Playhouse to see the world premiere production of a brand new musical called the Heart. It recently concluded its limited run, but today we are going to ponder whether this show has what it takes to transfer to Broadway, or should I say transplant itself? I will explain why I'm saying that if you're looking at strangely on your devices, it is because the heart in the title is a literal heart, one which the musical follows for 24 hours. It is one part medical drama with an electronic score brought to the stage by many of the brilliant minds behind the popular musical come from away. All of which necessitates, I think, an awful lot of conversation. There is plenty for us to say about this show and the ways in which it might be moving the medium of musical theater boldly forwards. We're also going to talk about the narrative, how well a medical drama translates to the stage, how this score works, what qualities it evokes in the piece, how you engage engages an audience with an EDM score, as well as the creative choices, the performances and the all important question Do I think that this show is going to head to Broadway? Now I'm going to be sharing all of my thoughts with you, but as always, I would love to hear yours. If you have been lucky enough to see the Heart during its limited run at La Jolla Playhouse, let us all know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. And if you would like to hear what I have to say about other shows, including one other San Diego based world premiere new musical which I'll be talking about very soon, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel or follow me on podcastpla. And if you want to know what happened when I went to go and see the Heart, there is a two hour vlog of my San Diego trip that you can go and check out right now. Well, not right now. Right now you're going to listen to me talk about the Heart after this. You can. You can watch it after this. Anyway, let's get into it now. It would be easy to assume that this is an entirely original story, but it isn't. It's actually based quite closely on a 2014 French novel called Reparais les Vivants, written by Meli de Carangal. And as I already described, it follows a heart for 24 hours, which belongs to begin with to a 19 year old surfer named Simon Lamar living in San Diego. It's quite fun that the show is also set in San Diego. The 24 hour period begins with him heading out to go surfing, only he is quite quickly met with a catastrophic traffic accident, one which we learn once he has been treated in the emergency room has rendered him brain dead, a challenging reality which his divorced parents who receive the news and arrive at the hospital separately find difficult to process, as it appears to them that he is simply sleeping and that he has a functional heart heartbeat still, when in reality he is being kept alive only by the machinery that is sustaining him, with the doctors who have been treating him hoping that his family might consent to organ donation. And we meet, as we do in most medical dramas, a handful of different medical staff. We meet the head of the ER who is a brilliant medical mind, perhaps lacking in a certain intimacy in her bedside manner. We meet the nurse struggling to reconcile her home life and her professional life, who is chastised by this doctor for being a little too familiar with with patients and confusing the parents of this young boy about his prognosis. We also meet the laid back cardiac surgeon whose shambolic personal life takes a backseat to his professional obligations, as well as two individuals whose responsibility it is to help coordinate transplants. One of them works at the hospital in San Diego and engages with family members having difficult conversations about the realities of organ donation and the potential benefits thereof, conveying the urgency of the timeline while also respecting the immediacy of their grief. While another remotely coordinates the allocation of these life saving organs to recipients on the transplant list. As such, the audience has offered a very thorough overview of the transplant process. We meet not only the relatives of the deceased young man, but also the recipient and her family. And there's something about that uncomfortable and yet intimate dynamic, the one between her and the late young man whose heart she is receiving, but also between her and his family who have allowed this to happen and it was essentially saved her life. That speaks to why this deserves to be a stage musical in the first place. It's the same reason why we find medical dramas so fascinating and engaging on tv and why they've been so prolific and why ER and Grey's Anatomy and House and Scrubs etc, have all been so successful. It's not only the drama of these life or death situations, but it's also the personal element. And we have that not only from the individuals that I mentioned, but also from the doctors themselves, whose lives we get a glimpse into. There is something in the medical drama on stage of it all that does feel the littlest bit episodic. And I think the way that a show like Come From Away gets around that as we meet all of these characters on another day in their already ongoing lives, is to just offer us a little bit more of an arc with each of them. This similarly is a one act musical, and yet it doesn't fulfill each of those characters trajectories quite as much because we're more focused on the patients and their families and those more proximal to the heart transplant that's taking place now. That's the plot. Let me tell you a little bit more about the production I mentioned to Come From Away Connection. And that's not just because that musical was also produced pre Broadway at La Jolla Playhouse. It's because they share a director, the artistic director of the venue, Christopher Ashley. And there is something of a come from away quality that exists within the material and also within this production. We are flashing through a 24 hour period with time stamps. The story is democratized among the several different characters. This company of performers play each of them multiple roles and on a sort of molecular level. As we talk about transplants and life saving medicine and this small community of medical helping to bring about this life saving procedure, there is a similarity in the sort of uplifting, heartwarming quality. Even if this show does feel a little bit more pragmatic for reasons that I will talk about a little bit more later on. And aesthetically it's entirely distinct beyond a little similarity in the way that it's staged by Christopher Ashley. But the set design, the video design and the lighting are all entirely different, much more technological in keeping with the EDM score, which we'll talk about in just a moment. That is scenic design by Robert Brill, lighting design by Amanda Zieve and terrific video Design by Lucy McKin. The whole thing is blue and purple neon and projections and waveforms and technological elements. It's all a little bit Tron, conveying the sense of, I will say, an incredibly well funded hospital. But it's in accordance with the soul of the piece and its score. Let me tell you a little bit more about this material. So Kate Kerrigan has written the book as well as some additional lyrics and the score has been written by Ian and Anne Eisendrath. He was the music supervisor on Come From Away, hence the Christopher Ashleigh La Hoya Playhouse Connection, and recently was also the executive music producer for the global mega hit K pop Demon Hunters. And it's that part of his career that speaks a lot more specifically to the score that he has co written here. This sounds nothing like Come From Away. It is an EDM score, which is to say an electronic score, perhaps controversially not played by live musicians. And I say controversially, it only really is. So within the context of a potential Broadway transfer and the regulations of the musicians union, something that shows like here lies love have encountered previously. But it is also the reality of a musical genre like this. How this actually takes place on stage is there is a conductor who I think is there mostly for the benefit of the performers, to conduct for them and ensure that they are synchronized with the produced tracks. And it's interesting, it really is, to experience an EDM score in a theatrical context. And since Hamilton, but also for years before that, going back to rock operas, there has been considerable room for new types of musical theater score and new sub genres thereof, as well as the arrival of other musical styles into that world, ones that don't necessarily overlap entirely with the traditional structure of a Broadway band or orchestra. And that's what we have here. And the big reason why it works is because all of this music has a pulse and it's a little on the nose, but that's what we're talking about here. The show is called the Heart. And especially in the moments of surgery and the medical procedures that we encounter during the show and the initial treatment of this young man and those really pivotal scenes, that's when the music really works. It has a scientific, forensic quality, but there's also something of a life to it. And it echoes the kind of machines that you might hear. And there is a pulse and a beat that echoes throughout the entire piece. And when you consider that this is not the story of one individual, but the story of an organ, and that that is the thing that we're following, it becomes difficult to imagine any other style of music that would be as effective in telling that particular story. Where I think we encounter a little bit limitation is in the inherently inorganic quality of this type of music. And it's fascinating and it's exciting and it has dramatic capabilities and it has emotional capabilities. And these songs are moving when they need to be, and small and still and cathartic and uplifting. It's not like everything feels like a club dance floor, even though we have our moments. And so, on balance, I do think that a score like this can really work in a musical theatre context. But there is something about it which I dare say is feasible to hone just a little bit, that feels slightly inorganic. And the way that this manifested for me more often than not was in the inability of the performers to pause for as long as they might have liked to. There were two or three moments where this was really discernible, where it seemed as though we would have benefited from just slightly more of a breath. And when you have a conductor and a band following an actor, you can do that. And it can be organic. And from one night to the next, this could change as they are engaging with the song in a different emotional way. And that's very much the beauty of live theater, that it sort of shifts and changes and it responds to what's happening on stage. And it's this thing that is alive. And when the music is rigid and pre recorded and they have to adhere to the music as it is already going to be, and the beat that is going to come back in, whether or not they do, then I think we lose a little bit of that. I also think, and not that I'm suggesting we do away entirely with musicians in musical theater, but a score like this does kind of represent a move towards the next stage of the sound of contemporary musical theater. One which was really defined by Jonathan Larson and Jason Robert Brown in the early 2000s, before we had like the pasek and Paulification of what contemporary musical theatre sounded like. I think we're at a point where a lot of scores that sound similar to that are beginning to get a little bit fatiguing. And modern audiences, young audiences, are more connected to scores that sound like six and stuff that Marlo and Moss are writing and stuff that Jack Godfrey is writing. And this, the success of K Pop Demon Hunters, and more specifically the extraordinary success of its music, absolutely speaks for itself. And there are some absolute bops within the heart. There is also one genuinely brilliant moment of musical theatre writing in which the character of Claire, played by Heidi Blickenstaff, who is to be the recipient of the heart transplant, sits and writes a letter that she may one day have the ability to send to the family of the young man whose heart she is receiving a letter which is impossibly difficult for her to write, which manifests initially in the comedy of her. Her not quite knowing what to say and fumbling her various introductions to it like it's vanilla ice cream from she Loves Me. But eventually a hugely moving expression of simultaneous gratitude and guilt, one delivered, ironically, from the heart. It's sort of like a moment out of Waitress meets Dear Bill from Operation Mincemeat. You can almost feel the audience all lean forwards a couple of inches to meet this moment in its stillness and its beauty. I'm also a fan of the lyrics. There is one refrain that the character of Simon sings about surfing and being on the ocean. We hear that at the beginning of the show and it then comes back again, which is giving a little bit like redwood, if it wasn't about trees, if it was about water. Instead, I do really enjoy Kate Kerrigan's book. I think she's done terrific work with character, especially given what brief and limited snapshots of each of these characters we are afforded, the way that we understand who it is that we are looking at. I'm thinking particularly about Heidi Blickenstaff's doctor character. This is separate to the one that she plays later on as well as Paul Alexander Nolan's character. We very clearly get to know who these people are with the briefest of interactions at the start. And it's a difficult thing to balance as well. I think this story, which to us feels urgent and life or death, and to them is simply another day at work and marrying alongside that the impossible grief experienced by these parents who have just lost their 19 year old son. Carrying on. Let me deliver a little bit more of my diagnosis with some of my favorite moments from this production and a couple of areas where it could improve. Now, to begin with, I think the real success of this is in its framing device from a staging perspective, from a material perspective. I love that the heart is the thing that we are following. I would enjoy even more reflections on the heart and what it is. There are a couple of moments where they talk about the heart in a more abstract sense and they explain the way that it works and sort of ideas about hearts and about transplants generally and various facts and statistics and realities. I think that brings an awful lot of color and could be peppered even more throughout the show. I also really applaud the relationship that the production has to Zachary, Noah Paez's character, who is Simon Lamar, the young surfer who sadly loses his life because at the moment that he is pronounced brain dead, he sort of moves out of the space and transitions from playing a version of himself lying still on a table and instead becomes a spectator on the outside. So as his parents are grappling with the idea that the son who looks simply asleep in front of them is no longer alive. We understand that well as an audience we are empowered to understand that because we can see that he has stepped away. This is an empty bed that they are looking at, willing the doctors to try and save the life of their already dead son. It's heartbreaking, but it's important. I also think the whole thing is so incredibly well paced and it's really impressive to be able to jump between all of these different characters, to be following through a 24 hour period and be able to put in as many flashbacks as they do. We see a younger Simon through the eyes of his parents. We See Simon through the eyes of the girlfriend who. Who survives him. By the time we're already halfway through the show, we are introduced to a handful of different characters. The fact that we are able at all times to figure out what it is that we're looking at speaks to really clear direction, the defining highlight moment of which is one that I had been willing to happen the entire time. And it's during the moment. You can skip through this if you don't want to know, a little bit of a spoiler for something they do at the end, but it's during the moment of the actual heart transplant itself. And there is a communion, a sort of ethereal one, between the character of Simon and the character of Claire, the organ donor and the recipient, and they share this impossible, otherworldly interaction. But the exchange which they have is entirely more down to earth. And it's a beautifully honest one. And the words used here are really tremendous. It's a really well written moment. And the final emotional catharsis that I think we've all been waiting for, which speaks to perhaps my biggest criticism of the piece, but one which I think is very easily addressed because, ironically, this is an incredibly smart show, one that absolutely understands its identity and what it is, and brings together all of these different non traditional musical theater ideas, like the medical plot, like the EDM score, pretty damn skillfully. The one thing, ironically, which it needs is a little more Heart Come From Away has this in abundance in the most charming and sweet and heartwarming moments. There are the obvious tearjerk points, but there are so many other places in Come From Away where you can cry because of simply beautiful humanity. And in the heart, what we tend to encounter is one of two things. Either we have this extraordinary devastated outpouring of grief, or we have an entirely pragmatic response to it. Like I said, for all of the doctors, this is just another day at work. So their response to this situation is very clinical. Even enthusiastic about the possibility of getting the parents to sign off on organ donation in order that they might save other lives, they know that this is a priority and this is the important work, the challenging work that they need to do. Even as Claire is dealing with the unexpected revelation that she is going to receive a heart transplant, having come to terms with the fact that she thought that she was going to die and was was celebrating her last ever birthday party with her family, full of gallows humor and a reflection from her that nobody gets out alive and everyone should live life to the fullest once she gets into the hospital. Even though she is sort of overwhelmed by the fact that this is about to happen, she is sort of brought down to earth and reassured and calmed by medical professionals, creating an atmosphere of absolute normalcy, as though this is something that she might experience every single day. And so between that and the inability perhaps of the score to be able to pause and linger and sigh quite as much as I would like for it to, there is something very clinical about the show at a fundamental level. But like in a come from a way, I think those moments of humanity and honesty are fairly easy to find. I just think that's something that we need more of in this show. But it's a smart piece of theatre with a tangible soul and one that is ultimately moving enough, thanks in part to the fantastic performances of its world premiere cast. Let's talk Talk about.
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Mickey Jo - Theater Critic and Content Creator
Those next now. Zachary Noah Paiser is the first character that we really encounter. He is playing the young man, Simon Lamar, who is an enthusiastic surfer who is very committed to this new blossoming relationship with his girlfriend, who has become a little more emotionally estranged from his mother because he's a teenager. All of this something we only really glimpse in snapshots and in flashbacks because very early in the show he has this accident which renders him brain dead for the most part. The way that he moves around the space is as a sort of lingering ghost. It's a bit Gabe from next to normal, but without any kind of a malicious quality. And the scene that he gets to share at the end with Heidi Blickenstaff offers such resolution. It's really fantastic. She is brilliant in the dual roles of the ER Dr. And Claire the heart transplant recipient. She really shines in this birthday party scene that she's having with her slightly puzzled friends and family who are indulging a little bit more in the grief of her potential imminent death due to heart failure than she is. She is drinking and celebrating and living life to the fullest. She sings a song called Nobody Gets Out Alive, one that is interrupted by a phone call telling her that she is going to receive a heart transplant. That evening news, which she has a very human response to, made even more complex when she told that the young man whose heart she's receiving was only 19, younger than her children, at which point she sings the song that I was telling you about. And being Heidi Blickenstaff, she sounds absolutely fantastic. But it's the maternal quality that she brings and it's the humanity that she brings that makes this a really brilliant performance. Hopefully one that will earn her the respect and recognition that I think she is long overdue. Hopefully this could be a moment for her like Come From Away became for Giancarlo. Kenita Miller brings this soul bearing performance to the stage as Simon's grief stricken mother. Mother. There are definitely similarities with the character of Hannah from Come From Away, especially at the beginning as she is desperately trying to get through to somebody on the phone that turns out to be her ex husband who is played by Jason Tam. The two of them share a handful of scenes as they discuss whether or not they would be comfortable with the idea of organ donation. She is haunted by one question that a doctor had asked about whether or not she believed her son to have been a generous person and the idea of whether or not he would have wanted this. She and her husband end up rehashing some of the arguments that clearly div their marriage. He is also played brilliantly by Jason Tam with a characterization whose parental shortcomings you can sort of witness even in this outpouring of love and this desire to try and do the right thing by his son. What I like about this show is everybody is afforded layers and complexity. Max McKenna plays Simon's partner Juliet, who is also a DJ, which gives us a little bit of an avenue to explore more of the capabilities of the EDM score. Theirs is a sort of compellingly traumatized performance that just opens the wound of the whole thing for the audience a little bit bit more. Ren Rivera, on the other hand, offers us a very fun diversion as the Transplant coordinator who when we first meet them, is playing an online collaborative video game with a couple of other individuals from around the world. It's at this moment that there is a K Pop Demon Hunters Easter egg. FYI this is interrupted by a work call and their sudden duties to coordinate the allocation of a bunch of different organs. We find out in this moment just how intense and challenging this can be with so many more people on the waiting list, many of whom will die before receiving a life saving transplant, than there are organs to be received. And in one particularly brutal moment during this sequence, one doctor is unable to reach their patient during the allocated time window and the organ has to be passed on to another recipient. That patient has missed out on their chance. Wren also plays another medical professional later on who tries to reassure Heidi Blickenstaff's character Claire in another very entertaining performance during a moment that could get very sombre very quickly. There is at all moments during the show a balance to be found between the devastating and the uplifting. Which brings us to our final few medical professionals. Paul Alexander Nolan plays the cardiac surgeon that I mentioned to you before. The ability of Paul Alexander Nolan to take even the slightest of material and craft such a fully developed human being of a character out of it is absolutely uncanny. If this does transfer to Broadway imminently, there's every possibility that he may not be able to transfer with it because he has just been announced for the Lost Boys. But any opportunity that you get to see Paul Alexander Nolan on stage is always going to be a good one. He is so definingly charismatic with this sort of rugged, damaged quality as well. He's familiar with a lot of those characters that we've seen in medical TV shows like A Slightly More Pleasant House or Dr. Cox from Scrubs. That kind of a vibe. And his ability to shift between the demeanor which he has when chatting outside of the building to a nurse and awaiting the arrival of his patient, having just come back from a date that he had to leave in order to to go and be a doctor again versus him. Scrubbing into the surgery is really expertly played. We get more time with her than any other medical staff member, which initially I found a little bit puzzling, but I think ultimately paid off because we find a decent amount of humanity there. And it's predominantly through her perspective and her voice that we explore the complicated balance for all of the people working at this hospital between their workplaces and their health homes and the inherent personal sacrifices which all of them are daily making in order to save and take care of people. Finally, and something of a revelation to me, Lincoln Clouse, who played Thomas Driscoll. He is the member of staff brought in to engage with the parents and transition them into a conversation about the possibility of organ donation and the manner with which he does this. Again, so expertly played. But we also get a fascinating look at his personal life because we learn that he is a sort of an operatic singer on the side. As a hobby, he has to cancel a voice lesson that he has scheduled in order to help facilitate the heart transplant that evening, but he's been practicing when we first met him earlier on in the day, but just a mesmerizingly engaging performer and it's a really well assembled company as well. One that doesn't feel like a sort of a honed, pristine, compatible Broadway cast. It feels like the inherent and natural realistic combination of people that you would encounter brought together by circumstance, come from away. Always had that same thing as well. These feel like real people, people who would really come into contact in this situation.
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Mickey Jo - Theater Critic and Content Creator
Situation. All of which brings us to the defining question. Is the heart going to transfer to Broadway? Well, I certainly think that it deserves to. I think in the current Broadway season as it is projected and scheduled, there is room enough for a show with a little bit more heart. One that reminds us of the importance of community and of compassion and of the sacrifices that we can make for each other. I mean that both in terms of literal organ donation but also all of the key workers represented in the show and every everything that they do in order to save lives. I think empathy and selflessness are important qualities for us to see reflected at the moment in the US in the current political landscape. I think this would all be very beneficial. God knows we could use a come from away style show on Broadway right now, I think that would be very welcome. And though I dare say it will be met with some level of controversy and perhaps a little bit of backlash, I think this score, and I think this writing also is pushing musical theater in a bold and exciting new direction. And those shows that are furthering the medium and progressing it and advancing it are the ones which deserve to be seen on the largest stage that there is. And on further reflection, and I'm sure people will have extensive thoughts about this, when it comes to the lack of musicians, I understand the priority of protecting jobs and protecting labor at the same time. There are a great many plays on Broadway which are increasingly using more and more music which is not performed by live music musicians. And I think in a post rock opera world, in a post Hamilton world, as we are hearing more and more different types of scores, it is just unfeasible to suggest that they can all be interpreted via the traditional structure of a Broadway band. And I've always said what any musical needs to survive is predominantly a great story and great songs. And I believe that the Heart has both and that that great story is a refreshing one and one that we don't see a lot of on Broadway. So here is to hoping that this world premiere new musical from the west coast does find its way to New York before too long. The meantime, that is everything that I have to say about it and I would love to hear what you think if anyone else had the chance to catch the Heart at La Hoya Playhouse in San Diego during its limited run. Let us all know what you thought in the comments section and thank you so much for listening to this review. If you enjoyed listening to what I have to say and you would like to hear more of my reviews coming very soon, including like I said, another world premiere new musical that I saw on the same trip. Make sure you're subscribed to my theater themed YouTube channel or following me on Twitter podcast platforms. And if you want to see what that trip was like, go and check out the vlog. Now I'm finished. Now you can go watch it. As always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
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Mickey Jo - Theater Critic and Content Creator
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