Review: The Heart, an Electronic Musical About an Organ Transplant

Great musicals spring from unlikely places: stories of life in the shtetl, a penny dreadful about a serial killer barber, an 800-page biography of America’s first treasury secretary. So when it comes to The Heart, the musical about a heart transplant now making its New York debut off-Broadway with Roundabout Theatre Company, the subject matter should be no obstacle to your enjoyment of this neatly produced and dramatically rich new offering. The music by husband-wife composing team Anne and Ian Eisendrath, on the other hand, is bound to be the subject of fierce debate.

Based on Maylis de Kerangal’s 2014 novel, Réparer les Vivants, it opens with Simon (Nick T. Daly) suffering an automobile accident that leaves the 19-year-old surfer in a coma and on life support. His mother (a heartbreaking but fierce Joaquina Kalukango) thinks he can paddle his way back to consciousness. Dad (Jason Tam, projecting the kind of masculine rage that is meant to mask guilt) reminds the hospital staff that people wake up from comas. But three neurologists have declared their son “brain dead.” It’s a tragedy for the family, but it could be a lifeline for Claire (Heidi Blickenstaff), who has been waiting for years for a new heart.

Book writer Kait Kerrigan (who also contributed to the lyrics) has a real talent for theatricalizing juicy dramatic situations that don’t get a lot of public attention. A scene in which OPC (that’s “organ procurement coordinator”) Thomas (Lincoln Clauss) must break the news to mom and dad that Simon is not coming back and then persuade them to donate his healthy young organs is the most fascinating in a script full of them. Clauss, a gifted countertenor, slyly shows us how a sympathetic arm pat can morph into a gentle twist, a delicate bit of manipulation of the bereaved that has the potential to save multiple lives.

You can tell that Marthe (Wren Rivera), an agent of the National Organ Donation Registry, takes just as much satisfaction in the role of matchmaker, finding a new home for Simon’s heart from a list of thousands of potential candidates. Marthe, a gamer in her free time, attacks the problem like it’s a puzzle to be solved and a battle to be won. Rivera’s wild-eyed delivery of the song “Strike the Match” tells the story of an individual chasing dopamine wherever she can find it.

We only meet Claire halfway through this show’s 90-minute run, but Blickenstaff makes us feel like we’ve knows the sardonic 50-something writer forever. Oxygen tubes in her nose and glass of wine in hand, she resolves to make this birthday her last in the song “Nobody Gets Out Alive,” which is punctuated by a call informing her she’s the winner of a new heart. Blickenstaff brings heaps of humanity to the role of an older woman grappling with the fact that her life will be extended because a young man’s was cut short, making us all confront the reality that the universe isn’t much interested is fairness.

Drew Gehling brings sturdy ambivalence to the role of Dr. Breva, a cocky surgeon who saves lives for a living, and who seems to be using humor as an umbrella to protect him from a raincloud ever threatening to soak him in sadness. It’s a hauntingly beautiful performance.

It’s good that The Heart has a cast of actors skilled at making an immediate impression, because Kerrigan’s script gives them precious little time to do it. Written in a soft Brechtian style, with members of the ensemble playing multiple roles and stepping out of the story to provide commentary, it’s a good match for the skills of director Christopher Ashley, who won a Tony Award for his direction of the similarly formatted Come From Away (Ashley is also the new artistic director of Roundabout following 18 years a La Jolla Playhouse, where this musical made its world premiere last year). Your appreciation of The Heart will depend on a preexisting condition, specifically your tolerance for this hyperactive style of musical storytelling.

Scenes instantly materialize and dissolve on Robert Brill’s iPhone-sleek set, with screen-like walls for Lucy Mackinnon’s futuristic video design. The performers march around the digital grid she creates, turning at sharp right angles, fast-forwarding, and rewinding through Mandy Moore’s time-bending choreography. Serafina Bush’s clear and unpretentious costume design complements the solid performances. Amanda Zieve’s subtly persuasive lighting seamlessly shifts gears from reality to fantasy. And Gareth Owen’s sound design makes us feel like we’ve stepped into a thumping and questionably themed circuit party with a name like BPM or PUMP.

Simon met his girlfriend, Juliette (Max McKenna doing her best with an underdeveloped part), when she was DJing and she noted that his heartbeat was exactly half the tempo of the song. Dramaturgically, it’s a thin branch on which to hang an entire score of electronic dance music, but it keeps the show chugging along at a brisk pace, underscoring the urgency of this operation.

Unfortunately, whenever I try to recall any of the numbers, I inevitably start humming some old ditty by Cascada, the memory of which overpowers anything I heard onstage. The Eisendraths haven’t written anything to compete with “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” which frankly might be a blessing as you settle into bed later that night, head blissfully free of earworms but full of thoughts about your own fragile mortality. Still, they should be applauded for their valiant (if only partially successful) attempt to expand our notion of what a musical sounds like, and what stories can sing.