Can a sing-along musical about cancer break your heart? 'Night Side Songs' never quite finds its pulse

By Matthew Wexler

Night Side Songs, the new musical by sibling writer duo the Lazours, wears its heart on its sleeve. And nubby sweater. And hospital gown. But for all its earnestness and yearning for connectivity, this song cycle about life, illness (what Susan Sontag called “the night side of life”), and death flatlines.

Lincoln Center’s intimate Claire Tow Theater, reconfigured with seating on three sides, invites audiences to participate, with songbooks distributed at the beginning of the performance. The acting company encourages call and response throughout its 11 chapters that tell the story of Yasmine’s (Brooke Ishibashi) cancer diagnosis, marriage, and remission, only to find herself facing leukemia as a result of her longtime medication protocol.

Existential riffs about the meaning of life, death, and everything in between unravel over 95 minutes with a throbbing insistence that we should feel something. But the more often the performers gestured for a sing-along, the less inclined I became to succumb to the emotional gravitas.

The cast of "Night Side Songs" at LCT3. — The cast of “Night Side Songs” at LCT3. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

The songbook said sing along. My gut said otherwise

I once heard a minister use the analogy that we’re all born on a sinking ship. We can’t escape that inevitability, but it’s what we do on the sailing that matters. Night Side Songs evokes a similar mentality, asking us to sit in the uncomfortable truth of our temporal existence. But its earnestness tries to do too much of the heavy lifting.

I’ve sat in a doctor’s office and received a cancer diagnosis. My theater companion survived a brain tumor. One would think we’d be the show’s target demographic, and yet I felt little emotion despite solid performances across the board, with the exception of Robin de Jesús’s “Miracle Song,” in which a mother recalls her father’s survival of war to her child, who is facing her own cancer battle.

In its final moments, Night Side Songs asks us to consider the impossible—“Will you let me know when it’s time to let you go?”—guiding the audience through a musical canon that reminded me of a depressing rendition of “Row, row, row your boat.”

Then I thought of that sinking ship parable and hoped for the best.