By David Greenham

Ace performances help make Night Side Songs a rich and moving experience, compounded by the fact that it is valuable to be in a room full of empathy and love in these trying times.

Night Side Songs, words and music by Daniel and Partrick Lazour. Directed by Taibi Magar. Music direction and piano arrangements by Alex Bechtel. Scenic design by Matt Saunders, costume design by Jason A. Goodwin, lighting design by Amith Chandrashaker, sound design by Justin Stasiw. Produced by American Repertory Theater in association with Philadelphia Theatre Company, presented at the Cambridge Masonic Temple, 1950 Mass Ave, Cambridge through April 6 and at the Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, Roxbury, April 8 through 20.

Mary Testa in the American Repertory Theater presentation of Night Side Songs. Photo: Nile Scott Studios

“Illness is the night side of life,” wrote Susan Sontag in her 1978 essay, ‘Illness as Metaphor.’ “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” Those words, spoken by Yasmine (Brooke Ishibashi), open the Lazour brothers’ latest theatrical venture, Night Side Songs.

The 110-minute musical, with no intermission, is performed with the house lights on. A talented ensemble of Ishibashi, Mary Testa, Jodan Dobson, Robi Hager, and Jonathan Raviv — all making their A.R.T. debuts, join forces to tell the story of Yasmine Hollie (Ishibashi), a vibrant 41-year-old woman living in Worcester, Massachusetts. She’s dealing with the day-to-day frustrations of life when she discovers a lump on her breast. Her pestering but loving mother, Desiree (Testa) brings comfort as well as levity to the crisis. Yasmine begins her journey into treatment at Mass General: her doctor (Hager), via a fun plot device, also happens to be a former school classmate. It is the boy she French kissed in eighth grade.

Yasmine’s episodic story weaves through her chemotherapy treatments, her experience of falling in love and then marrying a quirky and passionate Mainer, Frank (Raviv), her grappling with mounting medical bills, marking an 8-year remission, mourning her mother’s death, and confronting a new diagnosis at Mass General.

Along the way, we are given ‘visions’ that comment on cancer and its treatment. A humorous bit features Testa as a medieval tavern-keeper, Prudence. A handsome traveling minstrel (Dobson) arrives and  Prudence is smitten. The guy sings “now my friends consider the hour when you lose human power….” Prudence seduces the young traveler, and he departs early the next morning. Soon, as the ballad foretold, she detects a lump on her breast. She sets out to find the hunky balladeer, but finds that he’s become a religious leader. The balladeer has become a bishop who will offer Prudence no comfort; in fact, he claims her illness is a result of her sinning ways. The cast sings ‘The Reason,’ which smartly parodies our desire to find some sort of explanatory causal link for a cancer diagnosis. They playfully sing, “Be careful in this life, be careful what you do, because karma is a bitch, and it might get you.”

Another ‘vision’ moves us to the early’60s and focuses on the battle Dr. Emil Freireich (Raviv) has with his colleagues about the use of chemotherapy in the battle against childhood leukemia. As a way to prevent cancer cells from mutating, he’s pioneered the use of four drugs simultaneously, which, with some variables, is a practice that’s still used today. He’s roundly opposed by other doctors, who feel it’s too dangerous for children. He speaks out for the kids, “We are here to be the generals in a battle they have no choice but to fight in.” It’s a powerful scene.

Brooke Ishibashi in A.R.T.’s presentation of Night Side Songs.Photo: Nile Scott Studios.

The minimal production makes use of a set of a few chairs and, at the end, a hospital bed. Modern costumes, with a few quickly added pieces, suggest character shifts or a change in season. The lighting design is simple, featuring only a few instances of ‘theatrical’ lighting. The most prominent technical feature here is the sound – live music performed by Alex Bechtel on piano and guitar, and Dobson on guitar and clarinet.

In this case, the show is being performed in a basement that seats just over 100 people. The evening comes off as an exercise in ‘intimate’ theater, a project in development rather than a fully finished product.

The biggest surprise for audience goers is that they are asked to sing along from the very beginning. Hager, serving as a kind of chorus master, successfully engages the crowd from the first moment of the show, urging them to hum along with the simple melody of “Glow, Glow, Glow”. That gives way to the tune that accompanies Yasmine’s first recognition that something’s wrong. The cast and audience sing a line that epitomizes at least one of the thoughts that come when people discover they are ill: “Sometimes you don’t know, sometimes you just know. Either way you gotta keep it together.”

The music and lyrics by the Lazour brothers are direct and accessible throughout, drawing on considerable repetition. The performers demonstrate that they have outstanding voices, but there is only minimal use of harmonies. There are few deep musical dives. Dobson’s ballad as the minstrel is winning. In another vision, Dobson embodies a musician from California who recently died from untreated pancreatic cancer. The scene’s gentle and reflective song, “Santa Cruz”, is lovely.

Perhaps the most dramatically effective musical moment emerges organically: when Desiree and the cast join to sing Yasmine’s favorite song as she suffers from the painful demands of the cancer treatments. It is Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time after Time,” presented as a peaceful lullaby of hope.

The cast is universally strong in Night Side Songs. Each performer makes the most of their moments in the spotlight while managing to support each other. It is an admirably collective effort to tell Yasmine’s tale of strength in the face of a life-ending foe.

Director Taibi Magar, who with her husband is the co-artistic director of the Philadelphia Theatre Company (where the play premiered), manages to keep the action proceeding seamlessly through its many transitions, including jumps in time and location.

Although it’s a longish one-act, Night Side Songs never overstays its welcome. The story of Yasmine’s illness is forceful, never less than compelling. The simplicity of the music and lyrics might reflect that this is the beginning of the musical’s evolution – it might go in a different direction in the future. Still, ace performances make the production a rich and moving experience, compounded by the fact that it is valuable to be in a room full of empathy and love in these trying times.

David Greenham is an arts and culture consultant, adjunct lecturer on Drama at the University of Maine at Augusta, and is the former executive director of the Maine Arts Commission. He can be found at https://davidgreenham.com/