A freshly out New Yorker’s life before and after the AIDS epidemic wreaked havoc on his city makes for the most unlikely of Broadway musicals, and one of the most richly rewarding, in Falsettos, now moving audience to laughter through tears at the Ahmanson.

A mash-up of 1981’s March Of The Falsettos and its 1990 follow-up Falsettoland as a single Tony-winning 1992 Broadway two-acter, Falsettos introduces us to 30something professional Marvin (Max von Essen), who’s left his wife Trina (Eden Espinosa) for a younger hunk named Whizzer (Nick Adams), news which has sent Trina to see psychiatrist Mendel (Nick Blaemire), who also counsels Marvin and the couple’s 12-year-old son Jason (Thatcher Jacob). Got that?

Set ten years after Stonewall and two years before the New York Native published the first reports of a “gay cancer” in an article ironically headlined “Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded,” Act One’s March Of The Falsettos is the bouncy, tuneful, flashy, funny, and occasionally quite touching look at a Gay-Libbed man and his extended family you’d expect from a time when AIDS had not yet reared its ugly head.

Written a decade later, Falsettoland turns considerably darker (as might be expected given its AIDS=death time frame) while retaining much of the first act’s humor … and adding a couple of lesbian next-door neighbors (Audrey Cardwell as Cordelia and Bryonha Marie Parham as Dr. Charlotte) for pizzazz.

Some have complained of a disconnect between Falsetto’s two acts, and though the resulting hybrid does at times feel like two different shows stuck together, it’s precisely this “disconnect” that gives the 2016 Broadway revival now on tour so much of its power.

Act One’s affectionate look back at a time when a case of the clap was about the worst thing that sex could bestow on a gay man reflects the naïve optimism of the ‘70s, a decade during which the scourge of AIDS could hardly have been imagined by any of its characters.

The characters in Act Two are no longer clueless.

Together the two acts make for as impactful a musical as Broadway has seen in the past several decades, filled with so much heart and soul and humor and love that it becomes something quite extraordinary indeed.

Entirely sung-through, Falsettos features Finn’s quirky Tony-winning words and music alongside some some of the most gorgeous ballads you’ll swoon and cry over anytime soon and a Tony-winning book by Finn and James Lapine that is as funny and gut-wrenching as Broadway books get.

Though its intimate nature and teeny-tiny cast make it better suited to a 200-seat theater than the 2000-seat Ahmanson, a sensational touring cast, inspired direction (by none other than book co-writer Lapine), and the most astonishing scenic design you’ll see all year go a long way towards playing to the back row, though if you’ve got the bucks, do try to sit up close.

von Essen captures Marvin’s imperfections to perfection opposite Adams’s dreamiest of Whizzers, both men sing as gorgeously as you’d expect from a pair of Broadway vets, and though it may not matter to everyone, the fact that both roles are being played by out gay men only adds to the authenticity of their richly layered work.

Espinosa dazzles as the increasingly more frazzled Trina, and never more than when she earns the evening’s most extended cheers for the tour-de-force comedic/vocal stunner that is “Breaking Down” (inserted into Falsettos from 1979’s In Trousers, the first episode of The Marvin Trilogy).

Blaemire’s irresistible mensch of a Mendel, Jacobs’s adorably spunky Jacob, and Cardwell and Parham’s matched set of feisty lesbian charmers prove every bit the equal of their costars in a cast that may even improve on the Broadway original.

Spencer Liff’s choreography delights throughout, and never more so than when performed by cast members clad in costume designer Jennifer Caprio’s song-appropriate Biblical garb, space alien attire, or Jane Fonda aerobic-era workout wear … or even when they’re simply dressed in their late-‘70s/early-‘80s best.

Jeff Croiter’s lighting, Dan Moses Schreier’s sound, and Tom Watson’s hair and wigs earn their own design kudos as well.

Still, if there’s anything audiences will be oohing and aahing about long after lights out, it’s David Rockell’s set, inexplicably ignored by Tony voters, but worth not just a nomination but a win.

The massive white centerstage cube that greets audience members upon arrival turns out to be a gigantic 3-D jigsaw puzzle whose dozens upon dozens of pieces of multiple shapes and sizes morph into increasingly ingenious, complex configurations, a scenic design with even more powerful surprises in store post intermission and one climactic wallop.

Last but not least, Falsetto’s terrific “teeny-tiny” band under P. Jason Yarcho’s baton proves more than up to the task.

Associate director Eric Santagata and associate choreographer Ellenore Scott keep Lapine and Liff’s vision fresh on tour. Gregory R. Covert is production stage manager and Joel T. Herbst is production manager.

Jonah Mussolino alternates as Jason. Josh Canfield, Melanie Evans, Megan Loughran, and Darick Pead are understudies.

Though firmly rooted in a time that many in its audience will only vaguely recall (that is if they were even born in the ‘80s), Falsettos’ depiction of a grown gay man’s coming of age proves timeless. It’s also as deeply moving as a musical can get.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
April 17, 2019
Photos: Joan Marcus

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, James Lapine, Los AngelesTheater Review, William Finn