The Singer ★★★

There’s a moment of theatrical transcendence halfway through The Singer, the new musical by KT Tunstall and Cora Bissett now playing at Traverse Theatre. Joe, a deaf singer played by Jamie Rea, leads his local deaf choir — played by the Traverse audience — and teaches them how to sign to a song they’ll soon be performing in an upcoming concert. A brief, magical joining of communities — the deaf and the “hearies” — ensues as the audience practices and then performs the song, arms and hands moving in unison.

Nothing before or after that scene in The Singer reaches such emotional heights, but a taste of transcendence is better than none, and the radiant Rea is an absolute treasure to watch on stage, his exuberant movements and expressions an exemplar of physical poetry.

If only the material surrounding Rea was at the same high level as his performance. This production about the unlikely creative pairing of a deaf artist and a comeback-hungry musician is based on a short film of the same name by Bissett and Rea, but its expansion into a full evening of gig theatre suffers in the transition. Frankly, the book by Bissett — who also directed — is downright naff, so overly simplistic that it borders on patronizing. It’s a surprising problem; anyone who’s seen the fantastic What Girls Are Made Of knows Bissett is capable of better.

Fortunately, Tunstall’s lively music and the performers keep despair at bay. Dylan Wood sounds great as the jaded musician ready to be in the spotlight again, and though clownish narrators Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Peter Dobre start off being wildly annoying — the show’s first fifteen minutes need significant rethinking — by show’s end they’ve become indispensable.