Word: falsettoland
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...Falsettoland The conclusion of composer-lyricist William Finn's brilliant minimalist trilogy about a man's struggle for sexual identity blends the same style of daffy Manhattan humor (about nouvelle kosher cuisine, opulent bar mitzvah parties and "the lesbians from next door") with the newfound and baffling pain of AIDS...
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND. Manhattan's Playwrights Horizons has an enviable record: many of its limited-run hits, including Driving Miss Daisy, The Heidi Chronicles and Falsettoland, have moved on to greater fame on larger stages. The latest gift, to Broadway, is this musical folktale about love and magic on a mythical Caribbean isle, with a calypso-flecked score that may remind some of Disney's The Little Mermaid...
...croons to herself, "Just what I wanted at a Little League game -- my ex-husband's ex- lover. Isn't that what every mother dreams of?" In that moment, actually among the funniest and happiest of an off-Broadway musical set in the early months of the AIDS epidemic, Falsettoland expresses its edgy wit, cockeyed charm and matter-of-fact acceptance of a world Norman Rockwell never painted...
...Falsettoland depicts a special world, it does not require a special audience. Doubtless many gays attend, as actor Lonny Price puckishly implies during the prologue by pointing flashlights into the house as he sings the word homosexuals. But a once exotic Manhattan world has become familiar, and its emotional issues concern everyone. The prevalence of divorce has imposed a less prescriptive definition of family. AIDS has settled into the landscape as yet another way to lose a loved one too soon. As the show tenderly depicts, life's joys tend to be small and quiet and its sorrows abrupt...
...Mitzvah, played with just the right blend of anxiety and healing gumption by Danny Gerard, 13. Each actor gets at least one beautiful, revealing song, and all of them make William Finn's music haunting. This individual excellence adds up to general excellence: for craft and for heart, Falsettoland is the first great musical of the '90s, and will probably loom just as large when the decade is over. It is a burst of genius...