“Home, I’m Darling”: Hey Mama Welcome to the ‘50s, oh oh oh oh oh ohby Randi / September 6, 2018
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about “The Humans”, which is at London’s Hampstead Theatre until October 13.
As summer plays close and the new season slowly gets into gear, London’s drama scene got a much needed infusion of American greatness with the Broadway transfer of “The Humans”. Stephen Karam’s 2015 work about an ordinary American family and the hardships they face individually and together comes to London’s Hampstead Theatre with its Broadway cast intact, along with my favorite Broadway director-that-I-once-saw-give-one-of-the-best-acting-performances-ever-in-The-Normal-Heart-but-that’s-neither-here-nor-there, Joe Mantello, still at the helm. Winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, “The Humans” seems like the basic story of a typical family at first, but its brilliance lies in nuance and individual interpretation that will have you contemplating it endlessly.
As summer plays close and the new season slowly gets into gear, London’s drama scene got a much needed infusion of American greatness with the Broadway transfer of “The Humans”. Stephen Karam’s 2015 work about an ordinary American family and the hardships they face individually and together comes to London’s Hampstead Theatre with its Broadway cast intact, along with my favorite Broadway director-that-I-once-saw-give-one-of-the-best-acting-performances-ever-in-The-Normal-Heart-but-that’s-neither-here-nor-there, Joe Mantello, still at the helm. Winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, “The Humans” seems like the basic story of a typical family at first, but its brilliance lies in nuance and individual interpretation that will have you contemplating it endlessly.
If you are in London and might be seeing it before it closes next month, bookmark this page and read it post-show because there’s gonna be hella spoilers coming.
The play tells the story of the Blake family, from Scranton, Pa., coming together to celebrate Thanksgiving amid a snowstorm at their daughter Brigid’s new Chinatown NYC hovel. You have the father Erik (Reed Birney, who we had just seen days before in his episodes of ‘The Americans’, which we’ve now finished and can’t stop talking about so hit me up if you want in on our support group), the mother Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell, always a goddamn pleasure), the grandmother Momo (Lauren Klein, who does so much with so little), the adult daughters Aimee (Cassie Beck, so perfectly capturing every nice but kind of depressed girl I know) and Brigid (Sarah Steele, so perfectly capturing every self-involved and jappy as hell non-jew I’ve ever known), and Brigid’s boyfriend Richard (Arian Moayad, trying to keep the peace between a family he’s just meeting and sooo nailing that awkward ass-kissing that you have to do while trying to keep conversation smooth).
Brigid and Richard have just moved into this dumpy basement apartment which yes has two levels which is great in a city like New York, but it also has no windows except the one with bars over it that opens onto the smoky alleyway so already it is my nightmare apartment. To make me even more anxious about their living situation, their upstairs neighbor is straight out of those “funny” Upstairs Neighbors videos that imagine them as actively trying to make as much noise as possible, doing things like rolling bowling balls around and moving furniture in the middle of the night. IT’S TRUE WHY ARE THEY ALL SO FORKING LOUD. And they all stomp. Anyway, every once in a while Brigid and Richard’s new neighbor will create some crazy loud BANG. They’re okay with it, trying to make the best of the situation, but Erik is shaken to his core with every sporadic bang or crash from upstairs.
As we meet the family, we quickly learn all their shortcomings and issues through effective and efficient dialogue. Brigid, self-involved as she is, has forgotten to tell her parents about the two-story situation, which, given that Momo is in a wheelchair (and suffering from late-stage dementia), is quite the oversight. God she was S0 many people I know. Aimee, meanwhile, is falling apart at the seams, having just gotten dumped by her long-term partner and dealing with really horrible ulcerative colitis. Her ‘win-sided phin call’, as Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland would call it, to her ex-girlfriend is heart-breaking, as is the reaction of her father, secretly within earshot, who couldn’t do anything to help his daughter. Letting intimate moments like this breathe is what makes this play’s version of this family so special.
Although Jayne Houdyshell is the epitome of warmth, the girls tend to be harder on their mother than they are on their father, who they dote on. They love everything about Erik, but they constantly make fun of Deirdre, from her ridiculous emails to her charity work to her dedication to religion. It seems a little harmless and a little unfair at the same time, although it provides for a lot of great comedy that rings so true to everyone’s family. Like how Deirdre sends Aimee every single tragic LGBT news story simply because she is a lesbian, and so Brigid tells her mom, “You don’t have to text her every time a lesbian kills herself!” They also make fun of her forwarded emails, the kind with 12 different kinds of font used, which we all know so well. Deirdre gives it back though, like telling off the depressed Aimee, when she brings up her interest in superfoods, “If you’re so miserable why are you trying to live forever?” Loves it. The way they paint these characters with such an accurate, familiar brush is genius, letting us immediately identify with so many aspects so that we are invested in their problems.
And the problems become apparent. There are the obvious sort like Brigid’s subpar home, Aimee’s mental and physical health, Momo’s dementia. Then there’s the fact that both daughters are failing professionally, through no real fault of their own, in a harsh specific economy and a hard general world. Like every struggling middle class family, the parents are having trouble at work too, with Deirdre getting passed over for promotions simply due to her age (and probably gender), while Erik’s failings are the only ones attached to actual responsibility. When the demons haunting him come out to the family, it’s shocking, since we’ve seen him as the stalwart, upstanding member of this clan that the girls idolize. That he alone is responsible for hurting his family and their future the way he has changes the easygoing dynamic and leaves everyone unsure of how to proceed in their usual way.
And, as the night progresses, Erik’s reaction to the noise gets more extreme, as does his seeming skittishness about everything, from lights going out to pans falling off tables. This is where the play is not just a family drama but is also kind of a thriller. Erik’s terror at things going bump in the night, and the unexplained reasons for them, make it seem like at any moment an alien predator will pop out and attack, and often had me holding my breath. And it’s why a lot of people think that he dies at the end, when he goes through the hallway that resembles a tunnel of the only visible light. But while I’m not going to tell anyone their interpretation of plays is wrong, I didn’t think he died. I think that his terror and his reactions to the supernatural-seeming elements were there to show that none of that is as scary as facing your own problems, the messes you’ve created in reality. The scary neighbor who freaked him out was just doing laundry, proving that the things that can terrify you in the dark are nothing compared to dealing with your reality when things you’ve done wrong come to light. What he did and what he has to contend with now are much scarier that whatever could have caused those bangs or crashes in the apartment, and that’s the realization that elevates this work from a typical but great family drama to a provocative, intriguing masterpiece.
INFORMATION
“The Humans” is playing at London’s Hampstead Theatre until October 13. It is a 90 minute one act.
STAGE DOOR
The Hampstead’s stage door situation is more like a ‘everyone convene in the lobby!’ situation. The cast is very friendly although I was too embarrassed to talk to everyone or ask for pictures because I’m a weirdo.
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Sting’s “The Last Ship” Leaves Its Mark As It Leaves Broadway
It’s a sad state on Broadway when small, lovely shows can’t succeed. Granted, if you are a tourist with time for only one show in NYC, you’re going to try for “The Lion King” or “The Book of Mormon” (unless you are Mormon) or “Beautiful” (because middle-aged ladies freaking love to sing along in that show, the horror). Tourists, the people that new shows need to attract, are understandably reluctant to risk limited time and money for unproven ventures like “Big Fish”, or the BSE® “The Bridges of Madison County”, or, this season, “The Last Ship”.
“The Last Ship” is the latest artistic casualty on Broadway, closing this past weekend after a short run of just under four months. It wasn’t great, but damn it was moving, lovely, and unique. It sounded like nothing else on Broadway now or in recent memory. Sting, yes that Sting, wrote the musical inspired by his childhood and the shipbuilding yards of the northern UK. His music for “The Last Ship” sounds like quintessential Sting: haunting, dark, but beautiful.
The crazy thing is, I hated the music when I first heard it last year. I attended the Tony Awards dress rehearsal, and along with my bff and my mom I was like, ‘ughhh Sting get off the STAGE this is TERRIBLE’! And then!! And then they had Sting rehearse his song a second time! They could have made Neil Patrick Harris do “Sugar Daddy” again or repeated the amazing “Gentleman’s Guide” number but nooo we had to listen to old Irish wailings twice? I was literally groaning and almost yelling at the people in charge. That’s how crazy I was. And it’s possibly the problem the show had in getting off the ground – the style of music isn’t easy to accept; it is not a recognizable Broadway style. You might not like it at first. But the second or third time, you fall madly in love and can’t stop listening to it or singing it. Maybe that’s what it takes to wrap your mind around something so new and so moving. Listen for yourself:
The crazy thing is, I hated the music when I first heard it last year. I attended the Tony Awards dress rehearsal, and along with my bff and my mom I was like, ‘ughhh Sting get off the STAGE this is TERRIBLE’! And then!! And then they had Sting rehearse his song a second time! They could have made Neil Patrick Harris do “Sugar Daddy” again or repeated the amazing “Gentleman’s Guide” number but nooo we had to listen to old Irish wailings twice? I was literally groaning and almost yelling at the people in charge. That’s how crazy I was. And it’s possibly the problem the show had in getting off the ground – the style of music isn’t easy to accept; it is not a recognizable Broadway style. You might not like it at first. But the second or third time, you fall madly in love and can’t stop listening to it or singing it. Maybe that’s what it takes to wrap your mind around something so new and so moving. Listen for yourself:
Sadly, most shows need to garner an immediate and large fanbase, and it is just getting more and more difficult for new non-jukebox and non-movie-based shows to do this. Sting himself joined the cast in the middle of the run to try to boost ticket sales, proving how devoted and proud he was of this work. I saw the show once Sting had joined, and it was completely magical. That was in large part due to Sting’s presence and incredible voice, but considering he took on only a minor role, it was also due to the rest of the wonderful cast and that haunting music.
The show concerns the people living in a small northern England town, in which the main source of work is in the shipyard. Corporate goons (not really) declare that they are closing the poorly performing shipyard as times achange because new ventures would bring in more income. Instead of accepting the offer to find new jobs working for the villainous (not really) company, the townspeople decide to work together to build one last ship as a symbol of the lives they’ve known and because it would be nice and fun and I guess they had nothing else to do either because it’s freaking way north England and it’s cold and boring there and there is no theatre. Anyway they make this really lovely commitment, yet you can also see why some people had trouble with the book – they were like, soooo this is about people building a ship in protest sort of okay that’s boring. It’s far from the type of fare one would consider worthy of a musical, but the wonderful performances and the poignant music made it more than worthy.
Immediately, the musical sets a certain tone with just the first few bars of the opening song, “Island of Souls”. It sounds like Sting but transposed for theatre, and it’s a bit eerie, a bit sad, and totally lovely as the voices of the ensemble mesh to almost resemble the winds of the ocean. A young teenager leaves his girlfriend behind as he sets off to find his fortune on the seas; the boy’s harsh father confirms his disappointment in him; the men of the town continue building their ships. This first look at the story to come effectively sets the stage.
The show concerns the people living in a small northern England town, in which the main source of work is in the shipyard. Corporate goons (not really) declare that they are closing the poorly performing shipyard as times achange because new ventures would bring in more income. Instead of accepting the offer to find new jobs working for the villainous (not really) company, the townspeople decide to work together to build one last ship as a symbol of the lives they’ve known and because it would be nice and fun and I guess they had nothing else to do either because it’s freaking way north England and it’s cold and boring there and there is no theatre. Anyway they make this really lovely commitment, yet you can also see why some people had trouble with the book – they were like, soooo this is about people building a ship in protest sort of okay that’s boring. It’s far from the type of fare one would consider worthy of a musical, but the wonderful performances and the poignant music made it more than worthy.
Immediately, the musical sets a certain tone with just the first few bars of the opening song, “Island of Souls”. It sounds like Sting but transposed for theatre, and it’s a bit eerie, a bit sad, and totally lovely as the voices of the ensemble mesh to almost resemble the winds of the ocean. A young teenager leaves his girlfriend behind as he sets off to find his fortune on the seas; the boy’s harsh father confirms his disappointment in him; the men of the town continue building their ships. This first look at the story to come effectively sets the stage.
We jump 15 or so years to find that teenage boy, Gideon, returning to the town now an aimless man (Michael Esper), having failed in his pursuits and looking for his old love. That girl, Meg, is now a tough ass broad played by the superb Rachel Tucker, whose belt seemingly has no limits. Of course Meg has a son about 15 years old, and of course Gideon turns out to be the father. Kind of cliché there. Meg’s long-time partner, Arthur (Aaron Lazar), has raised the boy as his own as he waits for Meg to finally marry him. The chemistry of the reunited lovers is palpable, as is the shaky position of pretty decent guy Arthur as he realizes Meg still has feelings for Gideon. One of my absolute favorite parts of the show is that, despite the evident remnants of love between Meg and Gideon, she chooses to remain with Arthur, who is the right man for her now. Expecting Meg and Gideon to end up together, I had already written Arthur off as another ill-treated musical character who never really did anything wrong but whom the audience for some reason roots against – like Benny in “Rent”. (Seriously – what did he do wrong?) So I was pleasantly surprised when the plot took the much more mature path of recognizing that a person’s needs change with time just as much as the person does. It was a beautiful aspect of the book.
Then we have the great Fred Applegate as the town’s priest who is also bad ass as well as big-hearted. They give poor Fred cancer and kill him off in Act 2. Another unnecessary clichéd development. But Fred himself never does wrong, and he was so lovable here as the outspoken, can’t-be-arsed with manners and tradition man of the cloth.
Anyway, the company announces the closing of the shipyard, and the town mourns the forthcoming loss of its defining feature. Priest Fred Applegate convinces the foreman and the builders that they need to build one last glorious ship in order to achieve closure as well as feel proud of themselves for their fine work all these years. Newly arrived Gideon causes quite a stir and decides to help the men even though he left originally to avoid working in the shipyard, effectively. It’s all camaraderie and emotional growth through the symbolic work from here on out.
While the first act was nearly flawless, the second act was kind of a mess. I can’t deny that there were serious problems there. It slowed down in large part due to its breaking of my NUMBER 1 RULE OF MUSICALS: Do not start Act II with a crappy slow song, especially if it is sung by a minor and/or old man character. Seroiusly. To bring people back in from intermission – a truly marvelous segment of time in which you can eat ice cream and freaking pee – you need to start with a rollicking good number. They technically tried to satisfy my rule by having some ensemble girls belt a fun ranty song about the men, but it was still an intermission song, like “Telly” in “Matilda”, and not officially part of the show. So the real first song of Act II was Priest Fred Applegate, who is old and dying, and just ugh. Not the best way to start out, and kind of unnecessary overall. It was absolutely akin to last season’s “Rocky”, in which Dakin Matthews (Headmaster Charleston) as Rocky’s coach starts Act II with a shit song about his old days in the ring. Oh my god, no. Both of these songs dragged the shows’ momentum to a halt and set the stage for mostly lackluster second acts. Hey Broadway, stop this nonsense of having the lovable old men sing shit songs to bring us back in. ahhhh.
It didn’t help that the next song was my least favorite. Gideon and his son get arrested when all the shipbuilders try to protest the yard’s closing. In their jail cell for some forced father-son time, Gideon sort of teaches his son to fight but also to dance??? The song is literally called “The Night The Pugilist Learned How to Dance”. I just no I can’t deal with it.
Luckily, after that, the book picked up and the music got back to being awesomely entertaining. Brian Yorkey (of “Next to Normal”) and John Logan (from film) wrote the book, and despite its slow bits, I thought it was a nice job done on such a small, personal story. Again, killing the priest seemed like unnecessary additional drama in a freaking drama, but it did give rise to one of the best scenes: his wake. To honor such an awesome man, the town throws a crazy Irish-jig dancing kind of wake, and it’s an incredibly fun ensemble number that I would have loved to have seen on the Tonys if the show lasted longer.
Another fantastic ensemble number was the exuberant Act I drinking song “We’ve Got Now’t Else”, which my friend and I spent all of intermission trying to decipher. (“What the hell were they saying? We’ve got what else? Huh?” Still don’t really know what it means but whatevs.)
Seeing Sting in the role of Jackie, the ship yard foreman, was a treat I am so lucky to have experienced. But Jackie is only a supporting part; the rest of the cast was wonderful and made the show as enjoyable as it was overall. I wish the show could have gotten the better run that it deserved. Hopefully the show will find new life, maybe in the West End (where it should have started). But this is the kind of small, touching show that stays with you, so for all the people who did get a chance to enjoy it, at least it’ll remain a part of us. At least the good songs will.
Then we have the great Fred Applegate as the town’s priest who is also bad ass as well as big-hearted. They give poor Fred cancer and kill him off in Act 2. Another unnecessary clichéd development. But Fred himself never does wrong, and he was so lovable here as the outspoken, can’t-be-arsed with manners and tradition man of the cloth.
Anyway, the company announces the closing of the shipyard, and the town mourns the forthcoming loss of its defining feature. Priest Fred Applegate convinces the foreman and the builders that they need to build one last glorious ship in order to achieve closure as well as feel proud of themselves for their fine work all these years. Newly arrived Gideon causes quite a stir and decides to help the men even though he left originally to avoid working in the shipyard, effectively. It’s all camaraderie and emotional growth through the symbolic work from here on out.
While the first act was nearly flawless, the second act was kind of a mess. I can’t deny that there were serious problems there. It slowed down in large part due to its breaking of my NUMBER 1 RULE OF MUSICALS: Do not start Act II with a crappy slow song, especially if it is sung by a minor and/or old man character. Seroiusly. To bring people back in from intermission – a truly marvelous segment of time in which you can eat ice cream and freaking pee – you need to start with a rollicking good number. They technically tried to satisfy my rule by having some ensemble girls belt a fun ranty song about the men, but it was still an intermission song, like “Telly” in “Matilda”, and not officially part of the show. So the real first song of Act II was Priest Fred Applegate, who is old and dying, and just ugh. Not the best way to start out, and kind of unnecessary overall. It was absolutely akin to last season’s “Rocky”, in which Dakin Matthews (Headmaster Charleston) as Rocky’s coach starts Act II with a shit song about his old days in the ring. Oh my god, no. Both of these songs dragged the shows’ momentum to a halt and set the stage for mostly lackluster second acts. Hey Broadway, stop this nonsense of having the lovable old men sing shit songs to bring us back in. ahhhh.
It didn’t help that the next song was my least favorite. Gideon and his son get arrested when all the shipbuilders try to protest the yard’s closing. In their jail cell for some forced father-son time, Gideon sort of teaches his son to fight but also to dance??? The song is literally called “The Night The Pugilist Learned How to Dance”. I just no I can’t deal with it.
Luckily, after that, the book picked up and the music got back to being awesomely entertaining. Brian Yorkey (of “Next to Normal”) and John Logan (from film) wrote the book, and despite its slow bits, I thought it was a nice job done on such a small, personal story. Again, killing the priest seemed like unnecessary additional drama in a freaking drama, but it did give rise to one of the best scenes: his wake. To honor such an awesome man, the town throws a crazy Irish-jig dancing kind of wake, and it’s an incredibly fun ensemble number that I would have loved to have seen on the Tonys if the show lasted longer.
Another fantastic ensemble number was the exuberant Act I drinking song “We’ve Got Now’t Else”, which my friend and I spent all of intermission trying to decipher. (“What the hell were they saying? We’ve got what else? Huh?” Still don’t really know what it means but whatevs.)
Seeing Sting in the role of Jackie, the ship yard foreman, was a treat I am so lucky to have experienced. But Jackie is only a supporting part; the rest of the cast was wonderful and made the show as enjoyable as it was overall. I wish the show could have gotten the better run that it deserved. Hopefully the show will find new life, maybe in the West End (where it should have started). But this is the kind of small, touching show that stays with you, so for all the people who did get a chance to enjoy it, at least it’ll remain a part of us. At least the good songs will.
“Falsettos” Revival on Broadway: March Me to Another Theatre
For a show that begins with four Jews in a room bitching, in a song called “Four Jews in a Room Bitching”, you would think I’d love “Falsettos”. But when I saw the current Broadway revival of this show, I was somehow left cold, which is pretty hard when the focus is on family dynamics and, suddenly, AIDS. I was having trouble with the choppy direction and erratic pacing throughout the show, but I believe the suddenness of the AIDS story is what fully shut down all my feelings aside from ‘disbelief’ and ‘like you’re being punked’. I’ve been told that I would have enjoyed this particular production more if I was at all familiar with it beforehand (I wasn’t), and I could see how this cast would be a treat if you were a fan of the show. But you shouldn’t need to know a piece beforehand to enjoy it. And honestly, it’s a weird show. There are moments of brilliance (possibly due to the actors involved here), but oof, it was difficult to get through. I’ve never been so impatient for a show to end. And I barely remember ¾ of what I saw.
“Falsettos” is the story of a ‘tight-knit family’ of Trina (Stephanie J. Block), her ex-husband Marvin (Christian Borle), their son Jason (a child), Marvin’s new male lover Whizzer (Andrew Rannells), and their therapist Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz). Marvin has just left Trina for Whizzer but still wants to keep his family close and have them accept Whizzer as a new member, which is supes awks for everyone. But even more awkward is the opening number, which I enjoyed tremendously before thinking, wait, WTF, what’s happening. The four male characters are dressed like Israelites straight from the desert as they ‘bitch’ and Trina does some community-theatre-style assistant directing, flying flags and banners and adding some props to the mix. So, going into this cold, my actual first thought was, is this show about an acting troupe? Not joking. It made more sense than the truth, which is that this opening had nothing to do with their reality because no, they weren’t putting on a show, so it was just breaking the fourth wall I guess for a few laughs. Yet it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the show, so I can’t knock it too much.
Weirder was when that vaguely odd number ends and the real story begins, and you realize that despite this being an expensive Broadway production, there is no set aside from some giant gray cubes. And the actors throughout the entire show are constantly rearranging the blocks into different shapes to represent tables, chairs, therapy couches, beds, exteriors of houses, &c. This set design was really distracting and had very little payoff, the only interesting uses being as a house that could be easily knocked down, a decent metaphor for the family strife, and when all the cubes rearranged into a grave at the end. But despite how strong that ending visual was, I don’t think it was worth two hours and 45 minutes of wasted set design and extra jobs for the actors. It looked very ill-fitting for such an enormous stage, and I thought how much more appropriate this production and show in general would be in a small black box theatre. I think I could have appreciated it more in that setting.
Early on, as the cast forms the gray blocks into living room and bedroom furniture, we learn that Jason, the child, is scared that he’ll be gay because his ‘father is a homo’, as he sings. The funniest part was that Anthony Rosenthal, playing Jason, seemed to have a bad cold, and he kept sneezing and coughing in Christian Borle’s face and they tried not to laugh. Not as funny was that, in the wake of Sydney Lucas in “Fun Home” putting all other child actors and child roles to shame, this role (and sadly the actor) was indeed put to shame. We also learn that Marvin sees a therapist to figure out his tumultuous relationship with Whizzer – based more on lust at first than love, though they do admit that they truly love each other. Christian and Andrew’s chemistry was stronger than that of most couples, onstage or onscreen, and these two Broadway superstars made the thin story of the first act more compelling because of it. Nonetheless, their characters were kind of thankless until the very end, which is unfortunate for such incredible actors. They both do extremely well with what they’re given, but aside from a few money notes and their killer chemistry, they aren’t given much.
Then we learn that Trina needs a therapist because of this very difficult time for her family, which is understandable. But what isn’t understandable – except for purposes of the fake story – is that she goes to Marvin’s therapist Mendel. And then they all decide that Jason, who is having an understandably rough time with this transitional period, needs a therapist too…so they also enlist Mendel to therapize Jason. One really important lesson that I wish the characters learned before the show started is that there are lots of psychiatrists in New York City. Like I bet there’s at least one on every block of Manhattan and more when you get to the Upper East Side. So, there’s no good reason for a father, mother, and the son to all see the same psychiatrist. That’s the kind of crazy talk that would merit a visit to a psychiatrist. A different one.
Mendel quickly falls in love with Trina, which is against lots of rules and makes Marvin feel even more alienated from his family. He also needs a new therapist now. We’re supposed to feel bad for Marvin when these things start biting him in the ass but he did leave his family for a hot young thang so I mean what did he expect would happen. Mendel seems great at first, if severely in breach of ethics rules, but he really is the same immature sort that Marvin is, and Trina knows it, but having a husband turn out to be gay has apparently destroyed her confidence so she tells herself she could do worse and convinces herself that its in her best interest to marry Mendel. And I can see how one could arrive at that conclusion because Brandon Uranowitz is flipping hilarious. His subtle gesticulations really made the character and I was loving it for a while. But his character didn’t live up to the early potential. At one point amid all the constant familial drama, Marvin slaps Trina, and I was sooo ready for Trina to stand up and fight back (physically or verbally) but Mendel physically holds her back to prevent any escalation. I think that’s when I lost it. I was pretty close to the stage so it was really hard for me to remember that this wasn’t real and it took all my might to stop myself from climbing up on that stage, punching Marvin for hitting a woman/his ex-wife and then beating the crap out of Mendel for failing to stand up for his new wife. Like what is that shit about. It doesn’t matter that there are two lesbians in the second act (conveniently referred to continuously as ‘the two lesbians who live next door’); this is really a show by, about, and for (gay) men.
Even so, I really tried to love it. I wanted to love it. And one scene got me closer to that point than any other. In fact, as incongruous as it sounds for a show I didn’t really enjoy that much, this one scene – Trina’s “I’m Breaking Down” – might be one of the best performances of a song I’ve ever seen live. I know! Stephanie J. Block is that talented, and this song is directed that perfectly and performed that impeccably. In it, Trina is chopping up food for dinner or a pie or something while she sings a hilarious song about how all this tumult and disorder in her family and in her life is making her lose her mind and all her control, which isn’t that funny on its face, I guess, but Stephanie nails every nanosecond of this scene with perfect comic timing and hysterical frenzied humor, and this one song was worth the ticket price alone. She gets so wild in her crazy that by the end she’s singing through a mouthful of banana and is just a complete mess and it’s amazing. I never thought of Stephanie as a comedian or saw her do anything funny, but this shot her up to the top of the musical comedy list. So, everyone else in the theatre community thought this production was fantastic, to the point where it’s a frontrunner for the Best Revival Tony award. As much as I disagree with that, I would condone such a win just because of Stephanie and this one song. She was that great. As much as I kind of wished I chose a different show to see that night, I am so happy I got to witness this expert performance. I really can’t get over it.
After that scene, I tried even harder to get a bit more into it, as the dynamic was more understandable, with a growing family trying to get through all these changes. But I could not get past how unfortunately terrible a lot of the music was. Not all; there are some bright spots. But too much of the score was terrible. I remember literally gagging when Mendel sings a line about going ‘to jaw’ – as in TO EAT, just so it would rhyme with ‘my paw’ – as in A HANDSHAKE. I can’t stop having nightmares about how terrible that lyric is. There’s no reason for a rhyme that forced when both sides of it are horrendous. Just change both lines!!
And then two insane surprises happen. The first is the most unforgivable because I still don’t understand what it was going for – “The March of the Falsettos”. The four male characters come out in the dark and march over the cubes which are set up as a city skyline or some such. They are wearing bodysuits with patches that reflect the blacklight in the dark, so it’s very 1970s college dorm vibe. And they are singing in falsetto voices. This is legit the one reference to the title of the show. And they march and they sing in those high voices “march of the falsettos, march of the falsettos” and it’s WEIRD. Like, look-around-at-all-the-patrons-around-you-to-see-if-it’s-just-you weird. It was like the opening number in that it was divorced from the reality of the characters’ story and was just for fun or something, I don’t know, but I know my eyes were open rull wide.
The next unforgivable thing is unforgivable for an entirely different reason. See, this is the 1980s, and it’s about some gay men. So maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t because so far it was a comedy, and a silly one at that, at least at times. And its first act didn’t let on that anything of the sort was coming. So when Whizzer starts getting sick, I didn’t get sad; I got ANGRY. Really angry. You can’t have a kind of absurd tone and then all of a sudden start talking about AIDS and expect everyone to quickly get on board with the requisite depth of emotion necessary to discuss the AIDS crisis. It made me angry that they broached this topic in such a poor manner as to prevent me from getting emotionally invested, because we all should always be emotionally invested when this disease comes up. I was pissed that I wasn’t able to connect with this more serious material because it came out of nowhere. And I guess the argument is that well the disease came out of nowhere, to unsuspecting people, and that’s totally true. But so far, this show wasn’t about reflecting pure reality, as the march of the falsettos showed. So I don’t buy that, instead of continuing to tell the story in an artistic way that allowed for maximum empathizing and connection, they suddenly switched to a cold blank reflection of reality. And the whole section of the story about Whizzer dying was incredibly emotional and well done, but because there was no bridge from the former section of the story (the whole first act and change) to this intense drama, I never found a way to catch up to that drama. We were never given another route to it, so it felt very far away and detached from any emotional connection with the audience. Well, some people did manage to find another bridge because there was some SERIOUS sobbing at the end, and I wanted to be there with them, but I wasn’t.
I learned after the fact that my feelings of disjointedness and choppiness were warranted, because the original show was a series of three separate one-acts presented Off Broadway in 1990, like sequels. The Broadway incarnation of “Falsettos” is composed of the second and third one-acts in that series, so, although they are related and follow the same characters and story, the first and second acts are really two completely separate shows. That explains a lot for me. Well, except for the “March of the Falsettos” number. And why they didn’t work more on combining the two more cohesively. And why they kept the second act longer than the first, which should be rule #1 of theatre – never have a longer second act omg especially when people’s attention spans are getting shorter. The show was so long. My hair is so now.
A few days after I saw it, I heard that they are going to air it this season on PBS, as is usually done with one Broadway production per season or so. Despite my frequent exhortation that musical theatre has to be enjoyed live to be appreciated, and despite how lucky I feel having seen these amazing actors live, I kind of wish I’d skipped this one and waited to see it on TV. For free. Still, I’m ecstatic about a few things: one, that I did indeed get to see these actors live, and especially that I saw Stephanie J Block perform this role so wonderfully, and two, that I get to see her perform that role again. For free.
Weirder was when that vaguely odd number ends and the real story begins, and you realize that despite this being an expensive Broadway production, there is no set aside from some giant gray cubes. And the actors throughout the entire show are constantly rearranging the blocks into different shapes to represent tables, chairs, therapy couches, beds, exteriors of houses, &c. This set design was really distracting and had very little payoff, the only interesting uses being as a house that could be easily knocked down, a decent metaphor for the family strife, and when all the cubes rearranged into a grave at the end. But despite how strong that ending visual was, I don’t think it was worth two hours and 45 minutes of wasted set design and extra jobs for the actors. It looked very ill-fitting for such an enormous stage, and I thought how much more appropriate this production and show in general would be in a small black box theatre. I think I could have appreciated it more in that setting.
Early on, as the cast forms the gray blocks into living room and bedroom furniture, we learn that Jason, the child, is scared that he’ll be gay because his ‘father is a homo’, as he sings. The funniest part was that Anthony Rosenthal, playing Jason, seemed to have a bad cold, and he kept sneezing and coughing in Christian Borle’s face and they tried not to laugh. Not as funny was that, in the wake of Sydney Lucas in “Fun Home” putting all other child actors and child roles to shame, this role (and sadly the actor) was indeed put to shame. We also learn that Marvin sees a therapist to figure out his tumultuous relationship with Whizzer – based more on lust at first than love, though they do admit that they truly love each other. Christian and Andrew’s chemistry was stronger than that of most couples, onstage or onscreen, and these two Broadway superstars made the thin story of the first act more compelling because of it. Nonetheless, their characters were kind of thankless until the very end, which is unfortunate for such incredible actors. They both do extremely well with what they’re given, but aside from a few money notes and their killer chemistry, they aren’t given much.
Then we learn that Trina needs a therapist because of this very difficult time for her family, which is understandable. But what isn’t understandable – except for purposes of the fake story – is that she goes to Marvin’s therapist Mendel. And then they all decide that Jason, who is having an understandably rough time with this transitional period, needs a therapist too…so they also enlist Mendel to therapize Jason. One really important lesson that I wish the characters learned before the show started is that there are lots of psychiatrists in New York City. Like I bet there’s at least one on every block of Manhattan and more when you get to the Upper East Side. So, there’s no good reason for a father, mother, and the son to all see the same psychiatrist. That’s the kind of crazy talk that would merit a visit to a psychiatrist. A different one.
Mendel quickly falls in love with Trina, which is against lots of rules and makes Marvin feel even more alienated from his family. He also needs a new therapist now. We’re supposed to feel bad for Marvin when these things start biting him in the ass but he did leave his family for a hot young thang so I mean what did he expect would happen. Mendel seems great at first, if severely in breach of ethics rules, but he really is the same immature sort that Marvin is, and Trina knows it, but having a husband turn out to be gay has apparently destroyed her confidence so she tells herself she could do worse and convinces herself that its in her best interest to marry Mendel. And I can see how one could arrive at that conclusion because Brandon Uranowitz is flipping hilarious. His subtle gesticulations really made the character and I was loving it for a while. But his character didn’t live up to the early potential. At one point amid all the constant familial drama, Marvin slaps Trina, and I was sooo ready for Trina to stand up and fight back (physically or verbally) but Mendel physically holds her back to prevent any escalation. I think that’s when I lost it. I was pretty close to the stage so it was really hard for me to remember that this wasn’t real and it took all my might to stop myself from climbing up on that stage, punching Marvin for hitting a woman/his ex-wife and then beating the crap out of Mendel for failing to stand up for his new wife. Like what is that shit about. It doesn’t matter that there are two lesbians in the second act (conveniently referred to continuously as ‘the two lesbians who live next door’); this is really a show by, about, and for (gay) men.
Even so, I really tried to love it. I wanted to love it. And one scene got me closer to that point than any other. In fact, as incongruous as it sounds for a show I didn’t really enjoy that much, this one scene – Trina’s “I’m Breaking Down” – might be one of the best performances of a song I’ve ever seen live. I know! Stephanie J. Block is that talented, and this song is directed that perfectly and performed that impeccably. In it, Trina is chopping up food for dinner or a pie or something while she sings a hilarious song about how all this tumult and disorder in her family and in her life is making her lose her mind and all her control, which isn’t that funny on its face, I guess, but Stephanie nails every nanosecond of this scene with perfect comic timing and hysterical frenzied humor, and this one song was worth the ticket price alone. She gets so wild in her crazy that by the end she’s singing through a mouthful of banana and is just a complete mess and it’s amazing. I never thought of Stephanie as a comedian or saw her do anything funny, but this shot her up to the top of the musical comedy list. So, everyone else in the theatre community thought this production was fantastic, to the point where it’s a frontrunner for the Best Revival Tony award. As much as I disagree with that, I would condone such a win just because of Stephanie and this one song. She was that great. As much as I kind of wished I chose a different show to see that night, I am so happy I got to witness this expert performance. I really can’t get over it.
After that scene, I tried even harder to get a bit more into it, as the dynamic was more understandable, with a growing family trying to get through all these changes. But I could not get past how unfortunately terrible a lot of the music was. Not all; there are some bright spots. But too much of the score was terrible. I remember literally gagging when Mendel sings a line about going ‘to jaw’ – as in TO EAT, just so it would rhyme with ‘my paw’ – as in A HANDSHAKE. I can’t stop having nightmares about how terrible that lyric is. There’s no reason for a rhyme that forced when both sides of it are horrendous. Just change both lines!!
And then two insane surprises happen. The first is the most unforgivable because I still don’t understand what it was going for – “The March of the Falsettos”. The four male characters come out in the dark and march over the cubes which are set up as a city skyline or some such. They are wearing bodysuits with patches that reflect the blacklight in the dark, so it’s very 1970s college dorm vibe. And they are singing in falsetto voices. This is legit the one reference to the title of the show. And they march and they sing in those high voices “march of the falsettos, march of the falsettos” and it’s WEIRD. Like, look-around-at-all-the-patrons-around-you-to-see-if-it’s-just-you weird. It was like the opening number in that it was divorced from the reality of the characters’ story and was just for fun or something, I don’t know, but I know my eyes were open rull wide.
The next unforgivable thing is unforgivable for an entirely different reason. See, this is the 1980s, and it’s about some gay men. So maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t because so far it was a comedy, and a silly one at that, at least at times. And its first act didn’t let on that anything of the sort was coming. So when Whizzer starts getting sick, I didn’t get sad; I got ANGRY. Really angry. You can’t have a kind of absurd tone and then all of a sudden start talking about AIDS and expect everyone to quickly get on board with the requisite depth of emotion necessary to discuss the AIDS crisis. It made me angry that they broached this topic in such a poor manner as to prevent me from getting emotionally invested, because we all should always be emotionally invested when this disease comes up. I was pissed that I wasn’t able to connect with this more serious material because it came out of nowhere. And I guess the argument is that well the disease came out of nowhere, to unsuspecting people, and that’s totally true. But so far, this show wasn’t about reflecting pure reality, as the march of the falsettos showed. So I don’t buy that, instead of continuing to tell the story in an artistic way that allowed for maximum empathizing and connection, they suddenly switched to a cold blank reflection of reality. And the whole section of the story about Whizzer dying was incredibly emotional and well done, but because there was no bridge from the former section of the story (the whole first act and change) to this intense drama, I never found a way to catch up to that drama. We were never given another route to it, so it felt very far away and detached from any emotional connection with the audience. Well, some people did manage to find another bridge because there was some SERIOUS sobbing at the end, and I wanted to be there with them, but I wasn’t.
I learned after the fact that my feelings of disjointedness and choppiness were warranted, because the original show was a series of three separate one-acts presented Off Broadway in 1990, like sequels. The Broadway incarnation of “Falsettos” is composed of the second and third one-acts in that series, so, although they are related and follow the same characters and story, the first and second acts are really two completely separate shows. That explains a lot for me. Well, except for the “March of the Falsettos” number. And why they didn’t work more on combining the two more cohesively. And why they kept the second act longer than the first, which should be rule #1 of theatre – never have a longer second act omg especially when people’s attention spans are getting shorter. The show was so long. My hair is so now.
A few days after I saw it, I heard that they are going to air it this season on PBS, as is usually done with one Broadway production per season or so. Despite my frequent exhortation that musical theatre has to be enjoyed live to be appreciated, and despite how lucky I feel having seen these amazing actors live, I kind of wish I’d skipped this one and waited to see it on TV. For free. Still, I’m ecstatic about a few things: one, that I did indeed get to see these actors live, and especially that I saw Stephanie J Block perform this role so wonderfully, and two, that I get to see her perform that role again. For free.