By Bill Hirschman, FloridaTheaterOnStage.com, for SouthFloridaReporter.com, Dec. 15, 2015 – Marquee Theater Company’s production of Jason Robert Brown’sSongs For A New World slices open the studied flat affect of the “Whatever” generation to expose inner lives as vibrant, complex and tumultuous as that of any group before them.
The ambitious new troupe delivers an emotionally and aurally powerful excavation of the angst roiling inside those seemingly blasé young adults you pass every day in the mall or the office break room.
Brown’s first work to get a major production in 1995 is a song cycle – meaning a collection of numbers hopefully brought together with a thematic glue but with little or no discernable narrative or definitive character arc. In this case, the 16 songs over two acts focus on the moment of decision. The composer-lyricist said, “It’s about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back.” As a whole, the piece would make a fine item to include in a time capsule to reflect urban America entering the new millennium.
But what really bonds these numbers, at least in this production, is the overwhelming passion engulfing contemporary characters and the situations they face offered up along with their emotional viscera by a quartet of simply superb acting singers: Jordana Forrest, James Giordano, Leah Sessa and Elijah Word, led by director-choreographer Ben Solmor. Through anthems and power ballads, the pungency of pain, fear, cynicism, idealism, yearning and hope.is so intense as to border on the violent.
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