"...brilliant display of emotions"

August 8, 2002 performance reviewed by Pat Nichols

Falsettos, the Tony Award winning musical, now at Barrington Stage Company, explores what makes a family and how to cope with the changes modern families face. In the end family values like loyalty and support for each other remain true. A combination of two earlier musicals, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland the play unfolds in two acts, set two years apart.

Falsettos opens on a stage with four doors, a huge red heart and a tiny bed which is forefront. Marvin, his gay lover Whizzer, his son Jason, his wife Trina and psychiatrist-to-all Mendel, soon appear. They wheel around on blocks which later become other pieces of furniture. Trina sails through lamenting her wifely slavery. Marvin explains he wants it all. Mendel the psychiatrist wonders if his work is his passion or his alibi.

The entire production is sung through and Marvin explains that all he wanted was “A Tight Knit Family”. Instead his family is falling apart and he doesn’t know how to keep it together. The many songs carry the story about shifting family values and how to cope and the strong cast moves it along with little respite.

Colors change as moods change on the spare set thanks to exceptional lighting. Sandy Binion, as Trina, brings down the house with her rendition of``I’m Breaking Down.” In a brilliant display of emotions, she tries to deal with what’s happening, her broken family, her husband’s lover, who she is. She melts, she rises again, she crumples, she pulls herself together. She uses every nuance at her disposal to show her condition, a look, a movement, all carried to the perfect pitch in a sustained effort.

Jacob Heimer as Jason gives a remarkable performance as the confused child caught in the middle. A little nerdy, he loves chess but he also has a great deal of understanding of human nature. His acting shows finesse beyond his years. At one point, as a discussion rages around him, he listens to his earphones while his body makes incredible moves to the music the audience doesn’t hear but can only imagine based on his rhythmic, fluid jerking. And his face is a wonder to watch.

Bradley Dean as Marvin, the confused husband who wants a tight family and can’t quite figure out how to put it together “grows up” when his lover contacts Aids. Philip Hoffman as Mendel brings his own solidarity to the increasingly fragile family connection and Robert Hunt makes Whizzer, the gay lover, believable as he too fights for what he knows he needs and wants.

The second act brings on a lesbian couple, Leslie Denniston as a doctor and Cheryl Stern as her adoring lover, next door neighbors who offer to help with Jason’s Bar Mitzvah. Whizzer collapses and the play turns serious in the second act as all realize why he collapsed and the seriousness of what has happened to him.

The play works its way around love, in bed and out, the layers of love, that although family values appear to shift, they still maintain strong ties in a world that changes in unexpected ways. Falsettos provides a forceful, well thought out commentary about serious and timely issues.