"Falsettos" creates a fantasy land; you walk through a mirror, as if following Alice. In "Falsettos," everything is in almost constant flux; you're in an uncomfortable liminal state, always. (Finn may have borrowed from Sondheim. Famously, the "I Want" song is meant to go toward the start of the show. But Sondheim *ended* one of his shows with the big "I Want" song; I'm thinking of "Being Alive," in "Company." Also, "Into the Woods"--which seems, in many ways, more conventional than "Company"--ends with its own similar twist. After all scores seem to have been settled, Cinderella steps downstage and says, "I wish..."--anxiously--and then the curtain drops.) "Falsettos" is a cascade of wants, big and small; Marvin wants to fuck Whizzer while retaining his hetero marriage; Mendel wants to fuck Trina while retaining his license to practice psychiatry; Jason wants Whizzer as a third parent; Jason wants and does not want a bar mitzvah; Whizzer wants to cheat death; Mendel wants a revival of the selfless spirit of the sixties. (Did such a thing exist?) A cascade of desires and problems; it doesn't stop.
The awkwardness of desire leads to some brilliant writing. I'm thinking of two scenes. The first is Jason's parents' wish that Jason see a psychiatrist; they are deeply neurotic and concerned that they're doing permanent damage to Jason, given all the fighting. Jason would rather bow out and think about chess, or about girls' bodies, but he decides to complicate things. He must hear from his father's boyfriend. Ah! The weirdness of love! Inconveniently, Jason really likes the company of his father's narcissistic, cheating boyfriend. And so we see something we've never seen on a Broadway stage: In song, a hetero, half-divorced couple attempts to persuade a gay boy toy to give a serious speech about the virtues of child psychiatry--to a child. Whizzer gets it wrong; Marvin bops him on the head, covertly; Whizzer changes his tune, in an abrupt, hypocritical way. Jason shrugs and says, sure, I'll go; and the randomness of this scene seems, to me at least, to get at something deep and true about the bizarre, puzzling experience that is childhood. The other scene I love is the big bar mitzvah. Jason doesn't want it--because Whizzer is dying--but he also doesn't NOT want it, and so the stunning compromise is a bar mitzvah in the AIDS wing of the local hospital. Whizzer can't fully take this--the image of Jason entering adult life just as he, Whizzer, is made to exit against his will--and so Whizzer says "thanks" through tears and wanders off-stage. There is food for two hundred; it is made to serve seven. The radiologist worries she is overdressed. On his own, Whizzer wonders what kind of person Death will be; will he make a joke?; will he embrace Whizzer? Even without the big canonical eleven o'clock numbers--"Unlikely Lovers," "What Would I Do?"--these two sui generis scenes would guarantee for "Falsettos" its fixed spot in Broadway history.
OK. I need to make two new notes on Sondheim. Sometimes, the big numbers are so big, we forget about the minor gems. I need to say, here, that one of my all-time favorite moments in the Sondheim canon is just Ms. Moore preparing to assassinate President Ford. (Why not write a song about the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford? Ah, Sondheim! Sondheim has said that "Assassins" is his most perfect musical; its sun was eclipsed by the start of the first Gulf War, famously.) "I got this really great gun! Shit...where is it? No! It's really great! Wait! Anyway, it's just a .38. But. It's a gun. You can make a statement. Wrong. Even if you fail, with a gun, it tells them who you are, where you stand. This one was on sale. No, not the shoe. Well, actually, the shoe was, too...." Ms. Moore is digging through her purse, frantically producing items that turn out not to be a gun. Her youthful enthusiasm for firearms is jarring and funny; many writers would stop there. But: no. Sondheim has Ms. Moore declare that the gun was on sale! Death and capitalism--intertwined. But: there's more! She has confused her gun with her shoe! And: still more! She wants you to know that *both* the gun *and* the shoe were on sale. A finely-etched portrait of a crazed mind. Such a tour de force. I nominate this monologue for the Sondheim Hall of Fame.
And then the other thing that doesn't get adequate attention--"Poor Baby." The joke is simple: In "Company," Robert's female friends feign concern about his loneliness, but the minute he meets someone, they start making harsh judgments. (We've all lived through this.) I just enjoy the attention to marital rhythms. The women say, "Sweetheart?" Their husbands, gruffly: "What?" Women: "It's Robert." Men: "Yeah?" Women: "He's all alone." (Notice the men aren't meddling. Sondheim doesn't suggest that the women are right; also, he doesn't suggest that the men are right.) Once Robert has found April, the chorus of women lets loose with some fabulous hypocritical sentences: "You know no one wants you to be happy more than I do..." "Isn't she a little bit...well...." And then, finally, an orgasmic release, a climax of judgments: "Tacky! Vulgar! Old! Neurotic! Aggressive! Peculiar! Tall!" (I love that some of the words in the growing list aren't even adjectives. "Goliath!" "Isn't she a little bit....well....where is she from?" As if "where is she from?" can play the same syntactical role as "tacky." We know easily, in this context, when someone asks, "Where is she from?"--well--someone is doing a great deal more than asking that literal question. A great deal is implied. It's brilliant of Sondheim to make the observation. Form underlines content; SS studies the world, then renders it without declarations or judgments, again and again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orBaVmXP77w
The awkwardness of desire leads to some brilliant writing. I'm thinking of two scenes. The first is Jason's parents' wish that Jason see a psychiatrist; they are deeply neurotic and concerned that they're doing permanent damage to Jason, given all the fighting. Jason would rather bow out and think about chess, or about girls' bodies, but he decides to complicate things. He must hear from his father's boyfriend. Ah! The weirdness of love! Inconveniently, Jason really likes the company of his father's narcissistic, cheating boyfriend. And so we see something we've never seen on a Broadway stage: In song, a hetero, half-divorced couple attempts to persuade a gay boy toy to give a serious speech about the virtues of child psychiatry--to a child. Whizzer gets it wrong; Marvin bops him on the head, covertly; Whizzer changes his tune, in an abrupt, hypocritical way. Jason shrugs and says, sure, I'll go; and the randomness of this scene seems, to me at least, to get at something deep and true about the bizarre, puzzling experience that is childhood. The other scene I love is the big bar mitzvah. Jason doesn't want it--because Whizzer is dying--but he also doesn't NOT want it, and so the stunning compromise is a bar mitzvah in the AIDS wing of the local hospital. Whizzer can't fully take this--the image of Jason entering adult life just as he, Whizzer, is made to exit against his will--and so Whizzer says "thanks" through tears and wanders off-stage. There is food for two hundred; it is made to serve seven. The radiologist worries she is overdressed. On his own, Whizzer wonders what kind of person Death will be; will he make a joke?; will he embrace Whizzer? Even without the big canonical eleven o'clock numbers--"Unlikely Lovers," "What Would I Do?"--these two sui generis scenes would guarantee for "Falsettos" its fixed spot in Broadway history.
OK. I need to make two new notes on Sondheim. Sometimes, the big numbers are so big, we forget about the minor gems. I need to say, here, that one of my all-time favorite moments in the Sondheim canon is just Ms. Moore preparing to assassinate President Ford. (Why not write a song about the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford? Ah, Sondheim! Sondheim has said that "Assassins" is his most perfect musical; its sun was eclipsed by the start of the first Gulf War, famously.) "I got this really great gun! Shit...where is it? No! It's really great! Wait! Anyway, it's just a .38. But. It's a gun. You can make a statement. Wrong. Even if you fail, with a gun, it tells them who you are, where you stand. This one was on sale. No, not the shoe. Well, actually, the shoe was, too...." Ms. Moore is digging through her purse, frantically producing items that turn out not to be a gun. Her youthful enthusiasm for firearms is jarring and funny; many writers would stop there. But: no. Sondheim has Ms. Moore declare that the gun was on sale! Death and capitalism--intertwined. But: there's more! She has confused her gun with her shoe! And: still more! She wants you to know that *both* the gun *and* the shoe were on sale. A finely-etched portrait of a crazed mind. Such a tour de force. I nominate this monologue for the Sondheim Hall of Fame.
And then the other thing that doesn't get adequate attention--"Poor Baby." The joke is simple: In "Company," Robert's female friends feign concern about his loneliness, but the minute he meets someone, they start making harsh judgments. (We've all lived through this.) I just enjoy the attention to marital rhythms. The women say, "Sweetheart?" Their husbands, gruffly: "What?" Women: "It's Robert." Men: "Yeah?" Women: "He's all alone." (Notice the men aren't meddling. Sondheim doesn't suggest that the women are right; also, he doesn't suggest that the men are right.) Once Robert has found April, the chorus of women lets loose with some fabulous hypocritical sentences: "You know no one wants you to be happy more than I do..." "Isn't she a little bit...well...." And then, finally, an orgasmic release, a climax of judgments: "Tacky! Vulgar! Old! Neurotic! Aggressive! Peculiar! Tall!" (I love that some of the words in the growing list aren't even adjectives. "Goliath!" "Isn't she a little bit....well....where is she from?" As if "where is she from?" can play the same syntactical role as "tacky." We know easily, in this context, when someone asks, "Where is she from?"--well--someone is doing a great deal more than asking that literal question. A great deal is implied. It's brilliant of Sondheim to make the observation. Form underlines content; SS studies the world, then renders it without declarations or judgments, again and again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orBaVmXP77w
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