The American Dream Songbook

MARRIAGE, AMERICAN STYLE Doerr and Rank attempt to connect.

PHOTO: MICHAEL BROSILOW

The walls of the Next Theatre space are lined with portraits of great American playwrights and the titles of their works: Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman; Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma; Stephen Sondheim, Assassins. Aligning The American Dream Songbook with these giants is a way of announcing the intentions of Jason Loewith’s ambitious, uneven musical theater project. Pairing Bernstein’s 1952 suburban opera Trouble in Tahiti —which depicts the dark side of the white picket fence—with a revue of newly commissioned songs by five contemporary composers, four of them under 40, The American Dream Songbook aims to examine how the Dream and its dreamers have changed.

The seldom-seen Tahiti introduces us to Sam and Dinah, a married couple living in Scarsdale (or Beverly Hills, or Highland Park or Shaker Heights—Bernstein cleverly names a different tony suburb with every reference, and the irony of hearing it in Evanston isn’t lost here).

Following Sam and Dinah through a typical day is a trio of tight-harmonied singers whose sound echoes old-timey ad jingles. And they do serve an advertorial purpose, putting a jazzy, bubbly ad-man spin on Sam and Dinah’s ideal-from-the-outside 1950s life: “Up-to-date kitchen, washing machine, colorful bathrooms and Life magazine, and a little white house in Brookline… Suburbia!”

The reality, however, is a bit different. The depth of Sam and Dinah’s unhappiness is revealed when the two run into one another later on the street (he on his lunch break, she coming from her therapist’s office) and both lie about their destinations to avoid the prospect of having lunch together. The “bought and paid-for magic” of suburbia isn’t enough; like Miller’s Lomans and Sondheim’s presidential killers, the American Dream has escaped them.

So what kind of magic is keeping us going today? Or perhaps the question is: Is Sam and Dinah’s dream the same dream we have today? Loewith’s five composers have different takes. For O’Donnell, “Fear of Failure” is the threat of emotional disconnect today’s Sams and Dinahs face. LaChiusa’s entry is a comic cabaret piece about plastic surgery, and Mahler’s contribution aboutt the hunger for fame, “The Rise and Fall of Britney Spears,” naturally lends itself to comedy as well. Friedman’s “Things We Wanted” is a wistful remembrance of childhood dreams, and Schmidt’s contribution is an Obama-esque yearning for “a hope that lasts.”

Several of the composers are closely associated with particular companies, and the influence of their respective styles is noticeable. O’Donnell writes terrific scores for the House Theatre and has clearly absorbed their work’s tendency toward the mawkish; unfortunately he’s not as strong a lyricist as he is a composer. Mahler, a company member with Barrel of Monkeys, has incorporated some of that group’s bright, balls-out style (as well as recurring themes from Britney’s own music). His is the weakest contribution, but writing a smart piece of musical theater about Britney Spears (the theater provided Mahler with the name of the song they wanted him to write) is a tall order indeed.

LaChiusa’s vaudeville number feels phoned in, as does Schmidt’s brief, depth-free gospel reference. It’s Friedman who emerges the winner. He writes for New York’s downtown scenesters the Civilians (imagine if the Neo-Futurists did musicals), and brings to his song the same easy theatricality-of-the-everyday that he’s written into Civilians shows like Gone Missing.

This is a massive undertaking for a director, and Loewith has missed a few spots. Collette Pollard’s mirrored backstage scenic design, for instance, feels terrific in concept but shoddy in its execution. And the revue still seems scattershot. Jeremy Ramey’s musical direction, at least, is top-notch, and the ensemble couldn’t be better.

If the second half doesn’t measure up, it’s still a joy discovering Bernstein’s gorgeous, haunting score, which Loewith stages with welcome simplicity. Yet there’s one particularly nagging failure in Loewith’s attempt at updating the American Dream: Of the dozen or so playwrights whose portraits hang in the theater, only one, Suzan-Lori Parks, is a woman; only Parks and August Wilson aren’t white. Like all the rest of the writers on the walls, the five young composers Loewith has assembled are white men. It seems Next could have made a greater effort to find women or composers of color; when we’re talking the American Dream, there ought to be a little more diversity in the dreamers.