LOS ANGELES — I’ve never heard more enthusiastic responses to a song than the ones that greeted each fabulous number in the new musical Falsettos. And I was right there, clapping and screaming with all the rest of them.
By the second act, some two hours into the show, however, the applause was more subdued. Falsettos, it appears, is just too much of a good thing.
There is some exceptionally fine singing by Richard Hellstern, who plays Whizzer, but too many screaming fight scenes with his lover, Marvin (Jesse Einstein). And Chip Phillips, as Mendel, everybody’s psychiatrist, also has a beautiful voice and a cheery, bouncy persona, especially when he breaks into his “therapy dance.”
Lani Shipman as Trina, Marvin’s confused ex-wife, provides much of the comedy with her songs of frustration, as in her show-stopping “Breaking Down.” She has a beautiful voice as well, and brings a sweet balance to the goings-on.
But the real treasure is Major Curda, who plays the 13-year-old Jason and walks away with the whole show. He is a phenomenon: a marvelous singer and wonderful actor with a poised stage presence that has to be seen to be believed. And as Fred Astaire once said about himself, he “can dance a little.”
All the non-stop music is lovingly provided by Gregory Nabours on the keyboard and the two Brians: Morales on reeds and Cannady on drums.
Falsettos, the 1992 Tony Award-winning musical by James Lapine and William Finn, is, in fact, an amalgam of two one-act off-Broadway shows: March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland. In Director Richard Israel’s bright production, the two plays are presented as Act One and Act Two. Unfortunately, they really are two very different plays. Act Two opens in 1981, two years after Act One, and although the people are the same, and their unresolved problems are the same, the tone and the mood are jarringly altered.
Trina and Marvin bicker bitterly over Jason’s upcoming bar mitzvah. Jason, in desperation, announces that he doesn’t want a bar mitzvah after all. Two lesbian neighbors (Kim Reed and Wendy Rosoff) portentously discuss “the new epidemic” and Whizzer sings “You have to die sometime…”
There are a number of unnecessary songs that amount to overkill. Everyone ruminates about life, love, death, Judaism, friendship, baseball… Did I leave anything out? If I did, you can be sure the musical didn’t.
In spite of the melancholy second act, though, Falsettos is very much worth seeing. It’s well done, thanks to director Israel, has some beautiful songs, and let’s face it, any lyrics that can rhyme “genetic” with “copasetic” are worth listening to.
Falsettos is the opening show of the brand new Third Street Theatre, located at 8115 W. Third Street, upstairs in the Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts (YADA) building. The show will run Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 through October 16th. Call 888-718-4253 for tickets.
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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief of San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com