Songs for a New World: quick links
Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World is a difficult work to classify. It’s best described as a cycle consisting of a series of songs that lack an overarching narrative. To further complicate things, Soundworks’ production greatly expands the cast from four to 15 performers. This is an ambitious reimagining of the original show. Fortunately, the team is up to the challenge.
Songs for a New World: visually stimulating choreography
The opening number, ‘The New World’ sets the tone with a catchy song performed by the whole cast with visually stimulating choreography. The set has a couple of masts, a large sail and a long nautical rope that’s used in the opening sequence. This setting of a ship, the lyrics and the title for the show gives one the impression that this is going to be about a journey to the new world of America circa 1492.
However, after the first couple of numbers Songs for a New World then pivots to a humorous song about relationship troubles. This is initially confusing until you accept that each song is its own self-contained story; there is no overall structure to the show.
The show lives and dies on Brown’s songwriting and most of the tunes are beautifully written. There is rich variety in content, musical style and vocal demands. The production divides the songs up among the large cast, with each member getting one or two chances to shine. There are solos, duets, trios and whole cast numbers. The first act is strong, with consistent quality across all the songs. Despite some great numbers, the second act is a bit more hit and miss, and thematically all over the place.
Songs for a New World: clever uses of the set
This complex staging works thanks to the direction of Lauren Mckenna and Benjamin Cure’s choreography. When there are a lot of performers on stage the supporting cast provides engaging visual background to the singing without being distracting. There are some clever uses of the set, in particular the sail that’s incorporated in multiple scenes. However, there are several transition sequences between songs that feel unnecessary and could’ve been left out of the production.
Read: The War of the Worlds review: the radio adaptation in a new Perth venue
With such a large cast, it’s a credit to all involved that the quality of the singing is maintained throughout the night. Yet, the lack of a narrative structure means it’s hard to invest in any of the individual characters as they come and go with the completion of each song. Whether a story would enhance the show or not is a difficult question to answer, but it does feel like more could’ve been crafted of the material presented.
Songs for a New World will be performed at Chapel Off Chapel until 10 August 2025.
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