Full marks for honorable intentions speed to the creators of Lifeline, a visiting musical presently onstage at Signature Theatre. Bookwriter Becky Hope-Palmer, composer-lyricist Robin Hiley and co-creators Alex Howarth and Jess Conway have devised a musical about Alexander Fleming and the development of penicillin. Who would have considered the history of penicillin as a likely candidate for musical dressing-up?
There may be those who argue that some subjects are strictly unfit for musicalization. On first hearing, penicillin — and the complex history of antibiotics — would be a prime contender for keeping musical hands off. But no. Naysayers are just stodgy. It’s documented that if executed by the right talent, anything is game.
Nonetheless, the undertaking is problematic. The people at Scotland’s Charades Theatre Company describe themselves as “passionate about the power of theatre to deal with important social issues.” Though Lifeline arrives here after successful tours and as a two-time sell-out at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, what is on offer is somewhat confused, even shoddy craftsmanship.
In two lengthy acts Lifeline intertwines two stories. The first is that of Fleming (Matthew Malthouse), who notices a green mold denaturing infections afflicting wounded soldiers during The Great War. (He recalls the discovery in the Nobel acceptance speech that opens the production.) As years pass, he also recognizes devastating alterations to penicillin and other antibiotics as bacterial resistance builds.
The second major Lifeline thread involves Jessica (Kirsty MacLaren), a junior doctor at the Edinburgh Infirmary Hospital. She’s also known as Jess, especially to her musician boyfriend Aaron (Scott McClure), who, following a minor procedure, increasingly fights a hospital-induced infection not improved by available antibiotics. As he worsens, Jess and he are visited by his hopeful mother, Layla (Mari McGinlay) and good friend and politician Julian (Robbie Scott).
The resulting drama leads to dialog like this: “We start Camille [another weakened antibiotics sufferer] off with a six-week course of flucloxacillin, the first line of defense, but she doesn’t improve. When we do a dangerous biopsy, it turns out her staphylococcus is resistant to flucloxacillin — MRSA” — MRSA the deadly hospital-incurred infection impeding recovery.
During the two acts, bookwriter Hope-Palmer goes at her two tales. She presents the Jess-Aaron complications chronologically, while Fleming’s episodes dodge back and forth in aggressive, eye-and-ear-challenging ping-pong fashion. Moreover, and for a reason not made clear, a good deal of the second act unfolds during World War I. To provide opportunities for rousing wartime numbers?
Which brings up the score, in which two obligatory(?) ballads are touchingly rendered, “Waltz With Me” and “Stay With Me.” Yet, a sizable part of the inclusions focus on molds, as in “The Man Behind the Mold” and “Tip the Odds in Our Favor,” boasting the gleeful line “They had purified your old mold.” Possibly given the issue at hand, those are to be expected. Perhaps the same for choruses repeating the cries “Sinusitis, Tonsillitis, Conjunctivitis, Cystitis.”
The appropriate judgment to pass on Lifeline — which also manages to slip in a brief climate-change shout-out — is that, despite substantial acting under Alex Howarth’s hand, the purveyors have their hearts in the right place but not the acumen to make good on the honorable impetus.
Lifeline opened September 4, 2024, at the Signature Theatre and runs through September 28. Tickets and information: lifelinemusical.com
