Starring: - Chip Zien
- Kristin Chenoweth
- Penny Fuller
Description:
William Finn is an acquired taste. Not only is this lyricist-composer one of the few proponents of the (mostly) sung-through musical, but he favors unlikely subjects. His 1992 musical Falsettos was about love, a bar mitzvah, AIDS, and mortality; A New Brain deals with a brain tumor and art and, yes, mortality and love. Both witty and touching, the show displays Finn's melodic gift and his talent for suggesting sentiment without sentimentality. The supporting cast, including Chip Zien, Kristin Chenoweth, and Penny Fuller, is a collection of New York's finest stage actors, each of whom gets at least one splendid song. In the lead, Malcolm Gets allows the listener direct access into Gordon Schwinn's innermost emotions. An acquired taste, yes, but one that will linger in your memory and heart.
It contains some of Finn's best, wittiest and most darkly comic work--aside from some lapses in the lyrics department that are more glaringly apparent on disc. Performances are almost consistently knockouts ... especially Malcolm Gets, who gives a charismatic, diction-perfect, dryly witty account of the brain-afflicted main character.
1. Frogs Have So Much Spring ("The Spring Song")
2. Calamari
21. Whenever I Dream
22. Eating Myself Up Alive
23. Music Still Plays On, The
24. Don't Give In
25. You Boys Are Gonna Get Me In Such Trouble / Sailing - (reprise)
26. Homeless Lady's Revenge, The
27. Time
28. Time And Music
29. I Feel So Much Spring
3. 911 Emergency / I Have So Many Songs
4. Heart And Music
5. Trouble In His Brain
6. Mother's Gonna Make Things Fine
7. Sailing
8. Family History
9. Gordo's Law Of Genetics
10. And They're Off
11. Just Go
12. Poor, Unsuccessful And Fat
13. Sitting Becalmed In The Lee Of Cuttyhunk
14. Invitation To Sleep In My Arms, An
15. Change
16. Yes
17. In The Middle Of The Room
18. Throw It Out
19. Really Lousy Day In The Universe, A
20. Brain Dead
New Brain
