Falsettos, music & lyrics by William Finn, presented by 11th Hour Theatre, October 2019 at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philadelphia.
When I recall that William Finn started to write Falsettos in 1981, I marvel at two things.
One, that it was so “with it” for that time, and so daring.
Two, that it holds up so well today, still touching us emotionally.
The musical started as a one-acter titled March of the Falsettos in 1981. The protagonist was an articulate, neurotic Jewish man named Marvin, who leaves his wife for another man and has to deal with the confusion that it causes in his son who is preparing for a bar mitzvah. Finn wrote the lyrics and music.
Nine years later, Finn continued the story of Marvin and his extended family in the one-act Falsettoland. In 1992 Finn, with director James Lapine, combined the two to make the two-act Broadway hit Falsettos. The title refers to the fact that these characters have distinctive “voices” and live their lives at a high emotional pitch.
Finn’s music is distinctive in the way he combines word play, metric surprises and unpredictable line-lengths with direct melody. His subject matter was revolutionary. For the first time, a musical-theater songwriter wrote about gays, and also about contemporary Jews — not just long ago and faraway Jews as in Fiddler on the Roof, but urban American Jews of our time. In addition, they were people with Jewish lives, like Finn himself, wrestling with the meaning of bar mitzvah and the existence of God.
11th Hour Theatre presented a concert version of Falsettos that was first rate. Steve Pasek, a co-founder of 11th Hour, was superb as Marvin. (He previously excelled as the lead in Finn’s A New Brain for 11th Hour in 2015 and at Theater Horizon in 2016.) Kevin John Murray was defiant as Whizzer who contracted AIDS before the disease had a name. They blended beautifully when they sang “Unlikely Lovers.” Murray landed with “You Gotta Die Sometime” and tore your heart out when he sang “What Would I Do?” (“Once I was told that good men get better with age. / We’re just gonna skip that stage.”)
Jenna Pinchbeck, as Marvin’s wife Trina, nailed her big lament that ends with the exclamation, “The only thing that’s breaking up is my family / But me, I’m breaking down.” Young Vincent Crocilla was impressive as the bar mitzvah boy, Jason, who complains that “My father’s a homo” then progresses to begging God to “make my friend [his dad’s lover] stop dying.” Sam Nagel was fine as the shrink Mendel. Kyleen Shaw and Sav Souza exhibited big voices in the smallish roles of the lesbian doctor and caterer next door.
This presentation was part of the company’s Next Step Concert Series, which omits scenery and costumes and uses less than one week in rehearsal. Therefore it was amazing to hear the musical precision of this production.
Jennie Eisenhower directed the semi-staged production, moving cast members from chair to chair, microphone to microphone, to illustrate their relationships as the story progressed. Dan Matarazzo led what’s referred to as “our teeny tiny band” — serving as a reinforcement of the idea that these unconventional lovers are a tiny segment of the population — in a clever Michael Starobin orchestration.
11th Hour is a boutique theater company that presents intimate, character-driven stories rather than flashy spectacles. It alternates the Next Step concerts with fully-staged productions, and its season continues with Chess the Musical in January and Hedwig & the Angry Inch in April.