A surprisingly lively look at death, We’re Gonna Die directly confronts human mortality with some songs, a few stories, and a matter-of-fact attitude.
The piece is crafted and composed by Young Jean Lee, a spirited, unconventional writer best known for her Straight White Men deadpan comedy that appeared on Broadway in 2018. We’re Gonna Die is not so much a play or a musical as an intimate concert that thoughtfully counsels people to face up simply to their exit from this world.
Not everybody is sufficiently mature, of course, to appreciate the message delivered by the show that opened on Tuesday at Second Stage Theater.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
Years ago I realized that nobody gets out of here alive, so I was willing to roll along with the uncommon 65-minute piece created by Lee in collaboration with Tim Simmonds and John-Michael Lyles on the music.
The central figure of the show, known as the Singer, is embodied by Janelle McDermoth, a powerhouse performer and a friendly, agreeably assertive personality. Dressed by designer Naoko Nagata in a trim black leather outfit over a brilliant golden sweater, McDermoth warmly expresses these bluesy, upbeat songs through strong alto vocals supported by a smooth belt.
Accompanied by five personable vocalist-instrumentalists quirkily dressed by Nagata, the Singer holds forth in a stark yet airy space designed by David Zinn to resemble a vast waiting room.
Dominated by a spiral staircase of doubtless symbolic significance, the room is tinted in an ever-changing and colorful variety of dramatic lighting by Tuce Yasak. Suggesting a bus terminal or an airport lounge, these impersonal yet familiar surroundings underscore how everybody is going through a similar passage towards whatever comes next.
Interspersed and accented by songs, the Singer cozily relates a series of stories. Several are childhood experiences. Another concerns a romance with a perfect boyfriend. Then there is the wisdom a mother imparts to a daughter who has just spied her first white hair. An especially tragic story regards sorrow felt over a father’s death from cancer in spite of a miracle drug.
The sequence of these stories trace an individual’s evolution into maturity. Even as the Singer talks to the audience and performs with the musicians, balloons slowly drift down to the floor one by one from above. Likely they suggest the passing years.
Conversational in their content, the songs are reasonable in their fatalistic message that aging and death represent a natural process.
A refrain that repeats through a rhythmic “Horrible Things” number reminds the viewer: “Who do you think you are? To be immune from tragedy? What makes you so special? That you should go unscathed?” Another affecting number is the pleasantly stoic anthem “I’m Gonna Die,” which offers the strangely comforting zen-like phrase “Then I’ll be gone / And it’ll be okay.”
As the show heads towards its conclusion, eventually all of the musicians romp into a goofy, freely-spirited, happy song and dance around the stage. Sporting party hats and kicking through an avalanche of balloons, the ensemble has been staged by Raja Feather Kelly, the director-choreographer, to celebrate an inexorable fact repeated in the finale: “We’re alive but we can’t live forever.” The audience is encouraged to sing along and plenty of them did the other evening.
A weird show, right? And yet We’re Gonna Die stares down extinction and shrugs it off as an inevitable fact of life. There’s consolation to be found in such a reminder.
We’re Gonna Die opened February 25, 2020, at Second Stage and runs through March 22. Tickets and information: 2st.com
