‘The Heart’ review: Touching EDM musical blends ‘The Pitt’ with Broadway

And now, please welcome to the stage, DJ Steve Aorta!

In the strong new off-Broadway musical “The Heart,” about that literal blood-pumping body part, the word beats gets a “z” at the end of it. That’s because its score is EDM, or electronic dance music for those who learned about hip-hop from “Hamilton.”

It’s a sharp idea in the affecting show that’s nntz-nntz-ing away at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre en route to Broadway. Hearts do beat, ideally, and hospitals, like the one in which the musical is mostly set, beep-boop. Think of the theme song of “ER.”

And then there’s the importance of this genre of music’s pulsing urgency. In “The Heart,” with a catchy “Mr. Roboto” score by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath, we experience a time-sensitive organ donation, from the donor’s sad death to the lucky recipient’s surgery hours later. The sounds and the scenes move fast with nary a pause for breath. Like a sweaty night on a jam-packed dance-floor, stopping isn’t an option.   

If invasive surgery doesn’t automatically scream “a five, six, seven, eight!” to you, you’ll be surprised by how well this likable show works. It has the amped-up emotion of TV medical dramas like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Pitt” that balance doctors’ street-clothes personal lives and high-stakes operations, but goes to deeper and more stylized places with it that only theater can.

For instance, after 19-year-old surfer Simon (Nick T. Daly) is hurt in a car accident early one morning after peacefully enjoying the waves, his soul stays onstage for most of the musical — a constant and potent reminder that life-saving organs were once people with families and dreams. He’s not credited as such, but warm and beaming Daly essentially plays the title character.

Poor Simon is left brain dead from the crash, and is being kept alive by machines. His shellshocked parents, Marianne (Joaquina Kalukango) and Sean (Jason Tam), arrive and hold onto hope that he’ll eventually wake up. But transplant coordinator Thomas (Lincoln Clauss) calmly and collectedly tells them the grim reality — that their son won’t come back, and they should strongly consider donation. 

Clauss, who easily exudes that soothing, pass-the-tissues bedside manner, has a stunner of a counter-tenor voice that’s as energizing as any of the club music.

Once Marianne and Sean make their difficult decision, the exciting sprint to get Simon’s heart to a hopeful person on the national waiting list begins.   

Director Christopher Ashley, who is doing his best work since “Come From Away,” has, just as in that wonderful musical, built an airtight ensemble that plays a pile of characters so seamlessly, you forget that, say, the tender Heidi Blickenstaff is both a forthright doctor and wine-loving mom Claire, who is shocked to learn she’ll get a new ticker on her 50th birthday. 

What unites “The Heart” and “Come From Away” is the way they find beautiful optimism in immense despair. Most plays and musicals — comedies such as “Death Becomes Her” and “The Lucky Stiff” excepted — don’t see the silver lining in death. Because usually there isn’t one. “The Heart,” in many lovely ways, insists that this teenager’s too-short life was worth so much.

What separates the two is that the Canadian 9/11 show thrived on earthiness and small-town charm. The set was flanked by tree trunks, a cod was kissed. “The Heart” is more clinical, with sleek clean and white scenery with pops of color from video. The vibe is high-tech. Mandy Moore’s choreography is angular and the characters’ movement is linear, like a game of PacMan.

Yet that’s how “The Heart” tugs at the heartstrings. Robotic efficiency of speedy doctors is beautifully interrupted by huge explosions of feelings, especially from the marvellous Kalukango as a mother living a nightmare. The actress was terrific in “Paradise Square” a few seasons back. But her ballad in it, “Let It Burn,” was, well, not so nuanced. The Eisendraths have given her some deeply sad songs — “I Will Never Let You Go” and “Drift Away” — which ably blend EDM with more traditional musical theater and let her show a broader range. She’s crushing as she sings them.

I was also quite moved by Bre Jackson as Cordelia, a caring nurse who speaks to Simon like he can still hear every word. The doctors caution against it, but she aids his family’s grieving. Talking to the teen helps her, too. Jackson is another sublime singer in a cast full of them. 

While I’m very fond of “The Heart,” there is the occasional arrhythmia, usually when Kait Kerrigan’s book forces in some random humor. The instinct to lighten up a serious topic is the right one, but some of the jokes are just a tad too cheesy and stick out like a gangrene thumb. 

The character who leans the most humorous, the cocky Dr. Breva (Drew Gehling), also has a bizarre scene in which he gets into a petty fight with an intern right before a difficult, hours-long surgery. The headscratcher moment takes the audience out of the story. Might I suggest a scalpel?

Another un-billed, massive character here is the speakers.

Often when a musical makes the leap to Broadway, the volume gets turned up. That’s not always good, but in the case of “The Heart,” crank it. Gareth Owen’s sound design is layered and excellent. We should feel it get under our skin. During the last song, a cathartic company number called “Mend The Living,” making the music swell even more would give greater finality to a rapidfire, 90-minute story.

And then the musical ends, upliftingly, with a single heartbeat. That one important sound should shake the building, and like any good night out at the club, send the audience home with their pulses racing.