Far from Heaven is one of those musicals that elicits a very telling, mixed reaction. There are those who love it simply because it does its job with dignity, clarity, sensitivity and high craft. Obviously, none of that is negligible. There are those who think it’s slow and kind of dull. Which it isn’t at all, but it does eschew the trope of the larger-than-life-character in pursuit of a Big Goal that informs most classic musicals and is a conscious or unconscious expectation of some audience members whose sense of engagement is significantly reduced in its absence. Then there are those who say, more or less, “Gosh, I really-really liked it, but somehow it just didn’t cross the finish line for me. Something felt off.”
That’s
the most interesting reaction to me, because within it lies a concrete truth
you can get at if you weigh the elements of intent and execution. (It hass been
sensitively staged by director Michael Grieff and has a terrific cast, not incidentally, but you can read their
praises deservedly sung elsewhere. Right now I want to concentrate on the
material itself.)
I’ll describe the story lightly, because I don’t want those unfamiliar with the 2002 film it’s based on (written and directed by Todd Haynes) to get a bunch of spoilers. The surprises aren’t big reversals but they’re worth the theatricality of discovery.
It’s
1957 and upscale Hartford, Connecticut housewife Cathy Whitaker (Kelli
O’Hara) is living what she believes to be
an idyllic existence as wife and mother to two grade-school age kids, one of
each flavor (Jake Lucas and Julianna
Rigoglioso). But we know as soon as we’re
introduced to him that something’s up with her husband Frank (Steven
Pasquale) who’s a little too edgy to make
domestic bliss wholly convincing. And there’s her growing friendship with her
gardener, Raymond (Isaiah Johnson),
conspicuous in this time and place because he is, after all, “colored.” And
there are gossips everywhere.
The
storytelling plan is to subtly build the world with all its expected
conventions highlighted and then to deconstruct it with the intrusion of
sensibilities as yet unconsidered (and indeed eschewed) in white society
America. It’s a story that, as structured for stage by librettist Richard
Greenberg, is hugely dependent upon the
verisimilitude of a realistic, slice of life approach. Tricky, because in a way
his main character is passive. Even when she takes action, it’s in the form of
expanding the horizons of her understanding—internal growth—so
there’s the risk of focus sprawling; but in keeping tightly to her primary POV,
except for a few moments of transition (all of which relate to what she does
and does not know, thus keeping her tacitly present), Greenberg manages to stay
on track.
The
score, by Scott Frankel (music) and Michael
Korie (lyrics) has very little in the way
of isolated numbers that button for applause, but rather seeks to insinuate.
There is much in the way of recitative. But it’s all expertly formed. Korie’s
lyris delight in subtle, telling wordplay and variations in repeated motifs.
And Frankel’s music is constantly exposing the undercurrent of restlessness
beneath the Connecticut calm, with the use of the familiar tropes and styles of
dramatic (and sometimes melodramatic) music that, I would wager quite
consciously, evokes film scores of the period.
And
the problem is in the combination of book and score. Read the above two
paragraphs again. You’ll find it.
That’s
right…you’ve got a realistic, slice-of-life, verite scenario paired with a
score that’s delivered with assiduous construction and conspicuous use of
musical association. The two don’t fuse. And subtly contradict.
Yet
they co-exist tidily, because this is
not one of those object-lesson examples of two departments who, as the saying
goes, “aren’t writing the same show.” These are men of enormous talent and
taste, absolutely working in
tandem, and though I can’t tell you why their stylistic decision was made or
how they arrived at it, I can all-but-guarantee you it was thoughtfully
realized, thoroughly discussed and deliberate. (I once heard Stephen Sondheim,
in casual conversation, coin a memorable term for purposeful creative decisions
that have unforeseen antithetical blowback: conscious mistakes.)
And
that’s why the show occupies a gray area. That’s why, for some, and I was among
them, it’s a worthy and worthwhile evening…but a klik or two shy of clicking.
By all means see it, though. For whatever else is true, there this: it’s a
lovely experiment in form, one that may well push the envelope in spite of not
being entirely successful, whose ripple effect is potentially quite meaningful
and yet to be assessed.
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