Magnificent Bird/Book of Travelers

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Gabriel Kahane’s pair of song cycles is a welcome throwback to when lyrics were poetry and told great stories. Think of the 70’s when the airwaves were blessed with the voices and songwriting of Harry Chapin, Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens and you will have a basic understanding of what Kahane has successfully put together here.

Both of these alternating programs were triggered by reactions to events in Kahane’s life. Book of Travelers is a result of the presidential election of 2016. The day after the debacle Kahane took a thirteen-day railroad journey from New York to Washington state and back, attempting to connect with all walks of Americans going about their lives beyond partisan divides. As, Kahane points out, to say that American trains which putter from 50 to no more than 70 miles an hour and French high-speed rail that slices through the countryside averaging 173 miles an hour are both “trains” is tantamount to calling both George Clooney and he “men.” The comparative languor of American trains does afford Kahane to meet the subjects of his songs, telling their stories with only a hint of poetic license…each one an insistent query into how our collective journeys and so much decision making can ultimately go so wrong.

Magnificent Bird is what came from Kahane’s decision in late 2019 to get off social media for an entire year. As the pandemic takes over in March 2020, he still holds on to his promise to be offline with the one exception being a Zoom shiva following the death of his grandmother. “Red Letter Days,” a song that documents what was his last performance before the world shut down,  illuminates all the emotions of a performer without his audience, “Bodies lined up in straight rows of velveteen chairs, jewel box, chandelier, standing here nothing prepares you for the feeling that starts when you fall into their hearts and you hold them with your voice. What if that was the last show?”

The one thing that can’t be denied is Kahane’s solid musicianship. As they say, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Son of the stellar classical pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, a mainstay of the finest world orchestras’ guest artists lists, Gabriel a few seasons back composed Heirloom, a concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, with his dad in mind. Earlier this year, the Oregon Symphony performed the younger Kahane’s oratorio, emergency shelter intake form, which examined the homeless crisis in America.

But in the two programs at Playwrights Horizons, the term “art song” must come up. In American classical music art songs were the miniatures offered by composers known more for their larger orchestral works. Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber immediately come to mind. Gabriel Kahane sits astride their level of “classical musicianship,” but also brings to the table an innate education in the more recent “cabaret” work of American composers William Bolcom and Ned Rorem that collaborated with a very willing stable of opera singers as comfortable in a recital setting as they were on the stages of grand opera. Kahane as a singer has written well for his blend of robust baritone and high falsetto that brings to mind Art Garfunkel (post-Simon & Garfunkel) in his own classic love song of the 1970’s, “All I Know.”

Textually during Book of Travelers, we are introduced to some very real people: in “Trophy Longhorns” a widow having met the cowboy of her dreams on Match.com, in “What If I Told You” a woman explains the fear of driving alone down deserted southern highways still reeling from the Jim Crow era, and “Singing with a Stranger” as we learn of Kahane’s encounter with a half-dozen young men dressed like skinheads who turn out to be members of a disappearing sect known as Old Order German Baptist Brethren. They agree on singing from a Lutheran hymnal despite Kahane identifying himself as Jewish. It’s a keen example of the healing power of music as it brings people from vastly different backgrounds together.

The songs in Magnificent Bird can be loaded with whimsy as in “Neurotic & Lonely” which is essentially “found lyrics” from Craigslist personal ads, and stream of consciousness alliteration in “We Need to Institute a Ban.” Then there are the haunting songs about people he knows so well: “Linda and Stuart” about an older couple as they cope with the necessary distancing required during the Covid lockdown and the very poignant “Sit Shiva,” which marks his break from his self-ban on internet to pay his respects to his grandmother via Zoom.

Director Annie Tippe’s past forays into the works of Dave Malloy (Ghost Quartet, Octet and Three Houses) adequately prepared her for the less-is-more approach needed to lead the team in these two works. The key is the intimacy of the material as well as the space. The songs are personal reflections, and bombast would just not work since the theater only holds eight rows. Costume designer Wendy Yang provides a current take on Mister Rogers with a rust-color cardigan over a simple black t-shirt and jeans. The work of AMP Scenography featuring Oscar Escobedo, as opposed to scenic design, is an exciting recreation of Kahane’s studio-at-home in Portland. A Yamaha grand defines center stage (with its top missing, which is for access during a song that requires string plucking) and is surrounded by a very lived-in desk and chair, bookcases, piles of books on the floor and under the piano, guitars, a proliferation of lamps, an easy chair and shaded windows.

What looked from a distance like a number of black tuxedo cat clocks on the wall (we’ve all seen them – the moving tail denoting the passing seconds, the cats grin utterly bejeweled) are actually four-light Molefays that are put to great use by the ingenious lighting designer Christopher Bowser. There are haunting moments where we mark the timelapse behind the shaded windows and in one particular moment in Magnificent Bird a beacon shines through to Kahane at the piano from behind space in the stage walls we weren’t aware even existed. Excellent use of the hanging lamps and floor lamps provide an aura of private moments throughout both works.

It is impossible to choose between the two programs. They both warrant listening, with their snapshots of Americana and their respectful capturing of fleeting domestic moments. Kahane’s way with words will often pull at heartstrings and the humor uses reality more than belly laughs to make his point. In an accompanying essay he goes as far as “How can a person find grace, meaning, and purpose in a world suffused with relentless cruelty?” to shed light on his need to create these collections of songs. As we exit both programs, we realize we’ve been in very good hands.

Magnificent Bird/Book of Travelers (extended through October 13, 2024)

Playwrights Horizons

Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 West 42nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.my.playwrightshorizons.org

Running time for Magnificent Bird: 75 minutes without an intermission

Running time for Book of Travelers: 65 minutes without an intermission