It’s 1992, and you’re watching the musical Falsettos. It’s the Broadway premier of two off-Broadway musicals from the 80’s, now presented as a single piece. William Finn wrote its eccentric score and co-wrote the book with director James Lapine. The simple set is a red platform and a freestanding door, with furniture coming and going as needed. The opening number, “Four Jews in a Room B******g,” sets the irreverent tone. It’s a contemporary story about idiosyncratic New Yorkers: Marvin, his son Jason, his ex-wife Trina, his boyfriend Whizzer, and his therapist Mendel (who starts dating Trina). The first act covers these shifting relationships and the new type of “tight-knight” family that evolves (even as Marvin and Whizzer’s romance falls apart). The storytelling is impressionistic, told through non-linear songs and sequences, which are themselves full of non-sequitors and surprising turns of phrase. It’s like if ADHD was a musical. (Not that anyone really understands ADHD, because it’s the 90s.) The second act takes place two years later and adds “the lesbians from next door”: Charlotte (a doctor) and Cordelia (a Kosher caterer). As the adults start to plan Jason’s Bar Mitzvah—and Whizzer and Marvin start to reconcile—Dr. Charlotte worries about a mysterious new disease affecting gay men, a disease that soon affects Whizzer. The gang gathers in Whizzer’s hospital room on an “up” day, hopeful that things will improve (“Days Like This”).
Catch up with all the songs to date!
