Falsettos
Aug. 11, 2023
Lynn Riggs Black Box Theater
“Happy or sad? That’s a question with no answer.” Those early lines in Falsettos, the 1992 musical by William Finn and James Lapine, map out the terrain of this groundbreaking piece of theatre, which follows the tangled, turbulent, tender journeys of seven people trying to make sense of their lives together. In front of three sold-out audiences last weekend in the Lynn Riggs Black Box Theater at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, Tulsa Repertory Musicals presented some of Tulsa’s strongest musical theatre talent in a rip-roaring rendition of this sung-through score — hilarious, devastating, and everything in between.
With tart wordplay and fizzy pacing (more than 40 songs in just over two hours, ranging from “Four Jews in a Room Bitching” to “You Gotta Die Sometime”), Falsettos tosses us right in the middle of the “unorthodox” family at its heart: Marvin (Mike Pryor, sweet-voiced and deeply honest), his ex-wife Trina (Kara Staiger, in the role of a lifetime), their son Jason (the smart, assured 12-year-old Kyle Patten), and Marvin’s new lover Whizzer (Sam Briggs, who found the warmth inside this sizzling character’s heat). Mendel (a scintillating Thomas Farnan-Williams) is key in the mix too, as psychiatrist to the three original family members and pretty promptly as Trina’s new beau, as are Dr. Charlotte (Cathy Rose-Bergenroth, bold and steady) and Cordelia (the subtle Kendall Trotter), the lesbian couple next door. All these people exist on various points on the neurotic spectrum of love, dismay, betrayal, and hope as their care for each other twists and turns — and ultimately persists. In the confusion that follows after Marvin leaves his marriage for his lover, young Jason approaches his bar mitzvah with an array of questions about manhood, loyalty, faith, and identity — questions that deepen as Whizzer, something of a beloved uncle to Jason, falls ill. (In 1992 AIDS was the number-one cause of death for men ages 25 – 44; Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes premiered on Broadway the following year.)
Under the deft direction of Chris Hietikko and Rena Cook, themes that were edgy in an earlier age still felt keen and relevant. Every moment of the production, from choreography to transitions to prop management, was both detailed and legible. Getting seven people to navigate a small space so smoothly is a testament to the level at which these directors and actors are working. (A favorite moment: all six adults crammed together on one side of the stage to cheer Jason on as he swings and misses in “The Baseball Game,” lovingly tussling and reconnecting while “watching Jewish kids who cannot play baseball, play baseball!”) Unfortunately, even with mics, and with pipe and drape muffling some of the bounce, the performers often had to compete for volume with the corner four-piece band, nimbly led by the great Christy Stalcup. The musicians did heroic duty on this challenging, nonstop score, but nuanced moments among the vocalists could have used more sonic space.
But these seasoned performers are going to take you there, limitations be damned. I’ll never miss an opportunity to sing the praises of Briggs and Farnan-Williams, both of whom shone here in vocal and emotional range and complexity. Staiger slayed as Trina (her duet with a vacuum cleaner in “I’m Breaking Down” was a lunatic tour-de-force) and Pryor, whose program bio noted that he’s been dreaming of doing this musical in Tulsa for 30 years, held the show’s difficult center with a sure hand. If you have a chance to see any member of this cast onstage in the future, grab it.
At the close of Falsettos, five banners were unveiled at the back of the stage: in addition to the Keith Haring design that was part of the musical’s original production, one featuring a quote from Rudolf Nureyev, and one honoring Whizzer, we saw quilts commemorating the lives and theatrical achievements of Tulsans John Thomeyer and Mickey Mayfield — all lost to AIDS. The life-expanding, life-affirming, life-saving power of representative theater like this is real here. I saw more than one young person mouthing the words along with the singers. And the whole crowd was sobbing as the lights came up. The world provides no guidebook for the complex mix of family, personality, sexuality, and faith that meets us when we’re born into it. The best we can do is live out the questions, keeping our compass pointed to the heart, telling and listening to the stories — “love can tell a million stories,” Falsettos says — that map a way through.
Next for Alicia: Black Moon Group Show at The Studio.
Next at the Lynn Riggs Black Box Theatre: The Divine Resigns.
