11th Hour Theatre Company presents John Jiler and Georgia Stitt's 'Big Red Sun'

Launching a new musical is a huge challenge for any company, even award-winning 11th Hour, so it's sad to report that Big Red Sun, despite director Megan Nicole O'Brien's capable hands, needs more work.

A promising start

Kyle Segarra plays teenager Harry Daimler, who, in 1960, wants to be a songwriter like his late father Eddie (Michael Philip O'Brien). When a town memorial to fallen World War II soldiers excludes Eddie, Harry starts asking questions.

Mother Helen (Marybeth Gorman) won't explain, so Harry visits a New York City jazz club run by James Johnson (Rob Tucker). With Helen and Eddie, the trio formed a popular prewar act.

Jiler and Stitt create a sophisticated flow between the two storylines — one in the present, the other in flashbacks — with the three performing the records Harry plays over and over, and Harry sometimes chiming in. Hanna Gaffney and Jamison Foreman play many smaller roles and make terrific backup singers.

Act I offers a variety of styles, including swing, Rodgers and Hart torch-songs, klezmer (Eddie performs at bar mitzvahs), jazz scat, and blues. Story drives the songs, and the act builds to a promising surprise finale.

Christopher Haig's simple nightclub set, with musical director Dan Kazemi's tight band installed onstage in costume, works cohesively with Mike Inwood's lighting and Janus Stefanowicz's period costumes. What could go wrong?

Complications

The second act falters due to the tale's demands and a less-assured storytelling approach. "The truth is not nearly as sweet or as clear as I thought it would be," Harry realizes; this applies to Jiler and Stitt's material as well.

Songs feel more separate and less cohesive, failing to reveal the complexity promised earlier. Harry's angry tune "Web of Lies" feels shrill, as does Helen's bitter "Someplace"; both numbers connect important plot points but lack the first act's comfortable sincerity. The characters we expected to grow and change seem tentative and lost.

A climactic flashback — exploring post-traumatic stress disorder before we had a name for it — feels too small and awkward on the nightclub set. Big Red Sun then lurches forward, in a staccato series of time-jumping songs, to Harry's predictable and unconvincing epiphany.

Michael Philip O'Brien gives all he can in yet another fine performance, and Gorman encompasses prewar Helen's enthusiasm and her postwar weariness with insight. But Tucker's Johnson carries too much musical-comedy lightness for the character's seething resentment of racism. Segarra also might not yet be the right performer to carry Big Red Sun, but the fault lies more in the writers' unrealized vision.

Playwright Arthur Kopit said, "It's easy to write four-fifths of a good play." Endings aren't easy, but they're necessary. Big Red Sun rises promisingly, but clouds obscure what should be a glorious sunset.