A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
Book by Terrence McNally
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Based on the screenplay by Barry Develin
Directed by John Doyle
Classic Stage Company
Reviewed by David Spencer
I’m going to be cribbing from my original review of A Man of no Importance at Lincoln Center, 20 years ago, and punctuating it with the new review. The old one is double indented. Not to bury the lead, virtually everything I had a caveat about has been addressed in the current revival at CSC. And the reason I review it this way is to emphasize how easy it can be for worthy musicals that aspire to excellence, to open before they’re ready. Not because of anyone’s negligence, but because with delicate, intricate source material, where it’s not merely about song and story, but about concept and mechanism, sometimes the best you can do, first time out, is just get the thing on its feet, as the only way to find out how much more exploration you may have to do.
Set in 1964, the musical, adapted from the film of the same name (whose screenwriter, Barry Devlin, goes irresponsibly uncredited in the program—where were the adapters when the pages were blank?) tells the tale of middle aged Alfie Byrne [currently Jim Parsons], a Dublin bus conductor with a love of the theatre. He is the director of a community group that presents its labors in the social hall of St. Imelda’s church. The players have scored modest successes, most recently with The Importance of Being Earnest, but Alfie is one of those ambitious dreamers, who would elevate his company as far toward high art as he can, never mind the conservatism of society, the acceptable limitations of church basement fare—and he endeavors to mount a production of, as he calls it, Oscar Wilde’s “masterpiece”, Salome.
The complications of casting the production, and then, while rehearsing, defending it against repressive minds, touch upon other factors in Alfie’s life: such as the fact that he is homosexual in an intolerant environment—that he has never entirely owned his homosexuality to the extent of feeling free enough to act upon it. He throws himself into his modest world of “art” as a way of escaping a world he feels he cannot fully be a part of.
Before A Man of No Importance is over, it will take Alfie on an odyssey, both internal and external, in which he will learn some surprising things about society…his friends…his family (which is to say his spinster sister [now played by Mare Winningham]…and the value (and risk) of “finding yourself.’
The great strength of A Man of No Importance as source material is that for all its seeming to be about prosaic characters, Alfie’s robust dreams, and the extremity of their eccentricities, give the small story a larger-than-life resonance—and make it eminently worthy of musicalization. Add the “exoticism” of the Dublin milieu, the moral perspective of being able to look back upon 1964 with 2002 eyes and you have one of those rare stories that practically begs for musical treatment.
More? The adapters have decided to present Alfie’s story as if it, itself, were a theatrical in a church basement—an ingenious variation on black-box presentation that engages the audience’s imagination.
So far…perfect.
In a certain sense, given people of superior talent and taste, the show is now—as the saying goes—theirs to screw up. In other words, they’re home free save for being victims of their own possibly stubborn mistakes.
What mistakes can they possibly have made?
#1: Throughout the whole of the first act, Alfie never has a defining song—the term of art among musical dramatists is the “I am” or “I want” song. He has snatches here and there, parts of larger numbers about other issues that include other people—but he never plainly and powerfully sets forth his quest, his needs, his problem or even the personal view of the world that will carry him through the play. That he is well-drawn enough to emerge clearly is a help…but the lack of this moment for the title character is crippling, because it delays the show taking off, and keeps audience empathy at bay.
Alfie still doesn’t have that number—precisely—but he has been effectively enough integrated into the opening musical sequence that we get a sense of his musical identity.
#2: Throughout the whole of the first act, there are only two musical numbers that are not constantly punctuated by dialogue. And so few of these interruptions are necessary…this is a character-driven piece, very modest of plot, and there’s very little of the internal dialogue needed to make story points clear. And this keeps the score from taking off. Doesn’t matter that it’s sweet, sensitive, intelligent, literate, right…it starves for a chance to take hold. And when it finally does for the first time, you can physically feel the audience settle, and the difference on the applause meter when the song buttons is profound, not a little because of the simple feeling of relief.
Again: done.
I suspect that the original, by interweaving dialogue and song so relentlessly, was attempting verité—”real,” rather than musical theatre, behavior—consciously sidestepping any distracting trappings of “showbiz. But in truth, the interweaving kept A Man of No Importance earthbound and tiny. If you’re adapting this source material sensitively—and these authors are—you don’t need to help the naturalism along. The naturalism is baked in. It doesn’t need a stylistic metaphor. It’s Alfie’s dreams of theatrical triumph that require metaphorical support. And guess what? The metaphor lies in good, old fashioned, uncomplicated musical theatre simplicity. Ironically and astonishingly not trying to re-invent the wheel is what makes the show take flight.
And director John Doyle, in his typical fashion, has understood that. His minimalist realization indicates that while overdoing verite may have been one of those great trigger ideas that got the authors to the right tone, the tone, once achieved, no longer needs the device to maintain itself. He may also have taken some inspiration from what was once the show’s second act—in which the authors indeed let loose their contrived musical naturalism and let numbers land. Which was when, suddenly, A Man of No Importance rose to show musical theatre pros at the top of their game. One of Doyle’s great strengths is the ability to extrapolate from an existing work the elements needed to make it more of what it ideally ought to be. And now the show is its essential self: a lilting, intimate, delicate and uninterrupted 90 minutes.
Twenty years ago, I wrote:
In “A Man of No Importance”, the plusses far outweigh the minuses. But those damned minuses have the power to diminish the plusses something fierce. Again, the beauty of this piece may be in the eye of the beholder…but the shame is, without much tightening, adding a defining number for the hero and cleaning out a distracting style choice, it could have been in the eye of damn near everyone…
I think perhaps it may be for damn near everyone now.