Review: 'Songs for a New World' at Farmers Alley

It isn’t often that a curtain speech gets a standing ovation, but the patrons of Farmer’s Alley were so thrilled to be back at a live show that the gratitude was palpable.

A young-ish theater company (they opened in 2008) that saw their highest level of individual giving ever during the pandemic, Farmer’s Alley welcomed its audience back with “Songs for a New World,” a four-person musical by Jason Robert Brown directed by Jerry Dixon.

In his director’s notes, Dixon named “perseverance” as the core idea of this song cycle for this time. “Songs for a New World” is more of a concert with a theme than a musical, but there are many themes that could come out of it. For Dixon, he focused on the ways that each singer’s character faced the challenges of his or her life, a message that resonates stronger than ever for people living through an ongoing global pandemic.

In the intimate space of Farmer’s Alley, the voices of the four singers pulsed through the audience, thrilling them with their strength, their crystalline tones, and a full volume embracing all present. Each of the ensemble was able to match each other in strength, bringing varying personalities to each song and to the cycle overall.

They made it clear from the opening anthem that their intent was to put in performances that were stunning and intense, all four singing about the new world they were in, leaving no doubt about the multiple meanings that phrase could have. While they all were strong individually, they wowed as an ensemble, their voices melding to raise the rafters and make the walls tremble.

Jos Banks then took us to the deck of a sailing ship in 1492 as he beseeched God to give him answers and protect his crew and passengers. His pleading was heartfelt, one only a merciless deity could ignore. He’d later run a gamut of emotion from the confident basketball player promising that, “You don’t know me, but you will” to the lost man wondering why he was no longer “king of the world.”

Nattalyee Randall sent chills down the spine when she began her solo in the opening number and then continued to sing one moving song after another, from her assurance that she wasn’t afraid of anything to her identification with Mother Mary to her heartbreaking support role as Amy, a bride left at the altar by a groom who was too afraid of good things happening.

Cara Palomba entertained with some of the few humorous pieces in the song cycle, whether as the high-society wife about to jump from the New York townhouse to the lonely, drunken Mrs. Claus. She also was charming and relatable in the musical’s best-known number, “Stars and the Moon.” Not that her parts were all light. She breaks hearts singing as the mother whose child is off at war in “The Flagmaker, 1775.”

It’s easy to think that Matthew Stoke is the most casual of the quartet, as he plays characters down on their luck, helpless at the tears of women and a man who flees from a loving woman. However, in his duet with Randall, the two prompt tears with their love song, their acknowledgment of all that they almost lost, and their willingness to try again to make things right.

Music Director Cole P. Abod conducts the four-person orchestra with a wonderfully light hand. He recognizes this is a performance that is about the vocalists. The music provides cues and beautiful interludes, but it always lets the voices shine.

Dixon gets credit for keeping the transitions between each song very tight, something that was especially important as this production was performed without an intermission for COVID purposes (also—masks and proof of vaccination were required). The choreography was light, but Dixon used four chairs and a table in the back to great effect.

Lanford J. Potts’ lighting design, executed by Roger W. Burleigh, colored the narrative with beautiful projections that helped produce the moods and emotions of each piece and establish setting and time.

Marcia Smith was in charge of wardrobe, providing the pieces that would help identify characters, whether it was a flannel shirt or a fur wrap. Two pieces that did break the mood were Randall’s belt and Banks’ watch, which sometimes caught the light and sent blinding flashes into the audience.

Farmer’s Alley reopened its indoor, in-person season with a production that testified to the courage of the human spirit, to its resilience, to the way everyone has persevered through hard times unique to each individual. They did so with proof that they have sacrificed nothing in quality over the pandemic and with great promise of what is to come.