Marthe (Wren Rivera, right) informs Dr. Breva (Drew Gehling) of an organ donation in The Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Heart.
No symbol is more overused in the arts than the human heart. Served cold, golden, or on one’s sleeve, it has been the stuff of countless theatrical metaphors, from the plays of Euripides to Larry Kramer. The Roundabout Theatre Company has, nonetheless, doubled down on the image for its plainly named yet surprisingly complex medical musical, The Heart. Happily, it is a gamble that pays off. Kait Kerrigan’s book mostly avoids sentimentality in favor of scientific facts and hard emotional truths, while the husband and wife team of Ian and Anne Eisendrath deliver a pulsating score, anchored in the realm of electronic dance music.
Simon (Nick T. Daly) rides the waves. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
Based on Maylis de Kerangal’s 2014 French novel, Réparer les vivants, and having premiered last year at California’s La Jolla Playhouse, the show, set in San Diego, condenses a 24-hour period into a brisk 90 minutes, beginning with the death of a young man and ending with a heart transplant that will bring new life to a middle-aged woman who had all but given up hope.
Simon Lamar (Nick T. Daly) is an idealistic 19-year-old with a passion for surfing. But a brain injury from a car accident on his way home from the beach will spell his demise and start the onstage clock counting the minutes as he is transported to the hospital, diagnosed, placed on life support, and eventually celebrated as an ideal organ donor. What makes the show tick is not the race to the finish, but rather the contrasting perspectives, coming from some eight different angles, of all the people touched in one way or another by Simon’s heart.
For the doctors on call, including the head of the emergency room (Heidi Blickenstaff, in fine voice) and heart surgeon Dr. Breva (Drew Gehling, calculating), it is business as usual as they deal with the matter at hand with cool efficiency. Nurse Cordelia (a sympathetic Bre Jackson) offers a more humanistic approach, singing to the unconscious Simon as if to will him awake: “In these final breaths you take/There’s a dignity, and there’s room for grace.”
“For the doctors on call ... it is business as usual.”
Thomas Driscoll (Lincoln Clauss), who has an apparent wild streak outside of work, buttons up when he gets to the hospital to act as mediator, patiently presenting Simon’s parents with options for their son’s “next steps.” The mother, Marianne (Joaquina Kalukango), speeds through her stages of grief, at first lambasting the doctors for not saving her boy, then reliving moments of Simon’s childhood via flashbacks, before coming to an acceptance. The father, Sean (Jason Tam), has his own anger and memories to work through.
More on the periphery yet equally affecting are Simon’s girlfriend, Juliette (Max McKenna), who releases her feelings while bringing the beat as a dance club DJ, and Marthe (Wren Rivera), the organ donation coordinator who matches donors and recipients with the online proficiency of a skilled video gamer. And, finally, there is Claire (Blickenstaff), Simon’s recipient, who must cope with a kind of survivor’s guilt, given a new start that she barely wanted and which came at an awful cost for someone else.
Simon (Daly) finds a soulmate in dance club DJ, Juliette (Max McKenna).
Christopher Ashley, formerly the artistic director at La Jolla and now assuming that title at the Roundabout, crafts this production with the same gusto as his Tony-winning direction of Come From Away. He is aided by Mandy Moore’s vibrant choreography. Having choreographed Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, she knows a thing or two about linear storytelling through dance, when to keep things solemn and when to pull out the stops. The Eisendrath’s EDM pieces are especially effective in bringing alive all the confusing sounds of a hospital, as well as the cathartic energy of Juliette’s dance club. Their score is also not lacking in traditional Broadway anthems like the full-throated concession to mortality, “Nobody Gets Out Alive,” and clever laments like “A Life for a Life,” which chronicles the everyday sacrifices of the medics. There are even operatic aspirations, with Thomas blasting out an aria in front of his bathroom mirror.
Robert Brill’s minimalist scenic design allows for effective transitions, like Simon’s surfboard becoming his hospital bed. And Lucy Mackinnon’s fine video design excels both at abstract moments, such as an EKG on an upstage screen whose lines soften into ocean waves, and at realistic diagrams in the handful of scenes where the actors serve as instructors, breaking from the dramatic action to teach the audience how a heart is formed or how, quite literally, it can be given away.
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Heart plays through Dec. 1 at The Laura Pels Theatre (111 West 46th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and at 7:30 p.m. Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and information, visit roundabouttheatre.org.
Book & Additional Lyrics: Kait Kerrigan
Music & Lyrics: Anne Eisendrath & Ian Eisendrath
Direction: Christopher Ashley
Choreography: Mandy Moore
Sound Design: Gareth Owen
Set Design: Robert Brill
Costume Design: Sarafina Bush
Lighting Design: Amanda Zieve
Video Design: Lucy Mackinnon
If you enjoyed this review, please click on the Like icon below.
