Falsettos
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Cititour.com Review
The way we look at love and family has changed dramatically in the quarter century since Falsettos premiered on Broadway. Lincoln Center Theater’s beautifully wrought revival of William Finn and James Lapine’s groundbreaking musical about coming out and growing up takes us back to a more turbulent time in recent history without coming across as dated or passe. It’s an intimate sung-through musical that’s as smart and funny as it is life-affirming.
With a terrific cast of seven, this two-hour-40-minute show, which was originally two Off-Broadway musicals — 1981’s March of the Falsettos and 1990’s Falsettoland — isn’t a splashy blockbuster. Its rewards come in quiet moments between characters. It’s nice to see Christian Borle, an actor best known for broad comedic turns in shows like Something Rotten! and Peter and the Starcatcher, playing it straight — so to speak. He stars as Marvin, a gay, Jewish New Yorker who, in the 1979-set first act, has recently come out, left his wife, Trina (Stephanie J. Block), and son, Jason (Anthony Rosenthal), and moved in with a male lover, Whizzer (The Book of Mormon’s Andrew Rannells).
Though he’s the protagonist, Marvin is also the least sympathetic character early on. Besides being churlish with Whizzer, he resents Trina taking up with his shrink, Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz), and has a strained relationship with Jason. In the first act, the characters try to adjust to their brave new world of divorce, living together and remarriage. Standout moments include the tightly wound Trina singing about the dissolution of her family in “I’m Breaking Down,” and the act’s finale, “Father to Son,” a song of reconciliation Marvin sings to Jason.
Act II has more drive. It’s two years later, Jason is preparing for his bar mitzvah, and a more mature Marvin rekindles his relationship with Whizzer. Their neighbors are a lesbian couple, Cordelia (Betsy Wolfe) and Dr. Charlotte (Tracie Thoms), who notices that gay men are mysteriously getting sick and dying.
This unconventional family comes together when one of its own is stricken. Rannells, who, like Borle, is better known for comedy roles, brings down the house with the soaring ballad “You Gotta Die Sometime.” The strength of Finn’s songs is that they’re tender but not sentimental; his playful and penetrating lyrics keep false emotion at bay, and even love songs are tinged with neurosis. Lapine, who cowrote the show’s book with Finn and directed the original production as well as the revival, adroitly balances funny moments with heartfelt ones.
It all unfolds on a modular set by David Rockwell consisting of cubes that are constantly arranged and rearranged as scenes change. This gives the production a kind of playful, fairy-tale quality, as if the New York these characters inhabit is from a time long ago. With marriage equality and nontraditional families now a reality, in some ways it is. Falsettos is a beautiful reminder of how times have changed but, at their core, love and family haven’t.
By Diane Snyder
Visit the Site
http://www.lct.org/shows/falsettos
Cast
Stephanie J. Block, Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Anthony Rosenthal, Tracie Thoms, Brandon Uranowitz, Betsy Wolfe
Open/Close Dates
Opening 10/27/2016
Closing 1/8/2017
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 9/29/2016
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
800-982-2787
Theatre Info
Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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