In 'Night Side Songs,' a moving exploration of illness

Boston Globe

31-03-2025

The Lazour brothers premiered '
In the basement auditorium of the Cambridge Masonic Temple on opening night last weekend, a cast of four singer-actors found inventive ways to narrate the story of Yasmine (Brooke Ishibashi), a young woman diagnosed with cancer. By turns, the actors play doctors, lovers, and close family members, as well as off-shoot characters ranging from a hippie songwriter to a bawdy 12th century innkeeper.
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Robi Hager in A.R.T.'s "Night Side Songs."
Nile Scott Studios
Led by cast member Robi Hager, the cast addresses the audience directly with vocal instructions on how to join the sing-along portions
on several of the Lazours' original songs. Don't fret – the actors, fittingly, share a great bedside manner. And no one is forced to sing if they'd prefer not to.
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Whether the show's multiple storylines can hang together is another matter. The innkeeper (played by
It's Yasmine's story that provides the bulk of the narrative, and its most moving moments. While in treatment, she meets a clumsy suitor named Frank (Jonathan Raviv). Their courtship is sweet. They get married, as the officiant says, 'he in health, she in sickness.'
But Yasmine enjoys several years in remission. Then a new form of cancer attacks. It's a known side effect of the chemotherapy cocktail she's been relying on. (Another vignette depicts the vehement debates among the real-life team of researchers in the 1960s who developed the treatment.)
As Yasmine's health declines, the cast members roll a hospital bed to center stage. The physical indignities of illness and the psychological toll it takes on those closest to the afflicted are summed up in three simple words: 'It gets messy.'
The healthcare industry in America comes under plenty of scrutiny. One segment largely consists of a litany of Yasmine's mounting out-of-pocket costs to cover her medical care.
The audience participation component builds from a simple utterance ('Ah!') on an early number called 'The Reason' (as in, we often feel the need to assign some sort of 'reason' to the sicknesses of people we know) to a lovely recitation of a couple's small moments of connection and forgiveness ('When you put your hand inside my hand/What you said or did is of no consequence').
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'Please turn to your hymnals,' Hager says.
On the musical numbers, the cast is accompanied by Alex Bechtel on piano. Dobson sometimes strolls around the floor strumming an acoustic guitar, like a troubadour. The show takes place effectively in the round, with the audience seated in tiers on three sides.
With the lights up in the auditorium and the cast dressed in everyday clothes, the show feels like the kind of community theater the Lazours clearly intended to honor. Director Taibi Magar ('We Live in Cairo') makes it a priority to break down barriers between the actors and the audience.
What may seem like a distressing subject for a sing-along in fact becomes the whole point of the show. 'We get through it together,' the narrators explain. 'There are thousands of people the show cannot contain.' As Sontag noted, none of us are immune to life-threatening illnesses, one way or another.
NIGHT SIDE SONGS
Directed by Taibi Magar. Words and music by the Lazours. $35 and up, with $5 promo code available. Through April 6 at Cambridge Masonic Temple, 1950 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. April 8-20 at Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley St., Roxbury.
James Sullivan can be reached at
.