Dissolution of nuclear family, set to song
By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out

How germane — and how equally disconcerting — that Thomas Steele would follow up his role earlier this summer as the ardent bachelor Bobby in Tempe Little Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s early-’70s-era “Company” with a lead in Alternative Theatre Company’s staging of the late-’70s/’80s William Finn musical “Falsettos.”

Connect the two, and you’ve got the story of a man who (after “Company”) settles for marriage and family only to one day (cue ’80s-era “Falsettos”) leave his family for a homosexual relationship. Yow.

What follows in “Falsettos” — itself an amalgam of two off-Broadway one-acts, “March of the Falsettos” and “Falsettoland,” though that’s neither here nor there — is a comic spit-take on the dissolution of the nuclear family, after Marvin (Steele) has dropped the gay bomb on wife Trina and son Jason.

Here’s the first act: Jason, a little boy (played by Maxx Carlisle-King) with a big brain, wonders if homosexuality might be hereditary. (“I get apoplexy,” he intones, “thinking about my father.”) Meanwhile, Trina (Debra Qualtire) hooks up with Marvin’s psychiatrist, to Marvin’s consternation.

There’s something tender to be found — between Finn’s not-too-catchy songs and too-often lame lyrics — in that first act, in which li’l Jason struggles for identity in such familial madness, and Scottsdale fourth-grader Maxx largely steals the show with an adorable singing voice and smart penchant for adult lines.

But that’s before the second act, in which Marvin’s lover (Damon Bolling, in full “Rent” power-croon) succumbs to what in the early ’80s was known only as a mystery disease — though modern audiences know all too well we’ve left romantic comedy land and ventured into the overwrought territory of the AIDS drama.

Maybe it’s a factor of our times — post-“Rent,” post-“Angels in America,” after we’ve seen both in the Valley, along with Stray Cat Theatre’s polemical “The Normal Heart” last season — that invoking another AIDS drama (especially one this unconvincing) feels somehow cheap, like an easy emotional wrenching.

“Falsettos,” even directed with all the earnest passion of Alternative Theatre Company’s Joe Marshall, can’t overcome the hurdles of the modern worldview. And without resolving the family crisis of the first act, consequently, this musical falls apart.

Which is a shame. What the first act of this musical sets up — the hybridization of the modern American family — is something we as a culture need reflected now in our art. Another AIDS drama? That we don’t need. At least, not yet.

‘Falsettos’
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, closing Sept. 24
Where: The Space, 4700 N. Central Ave., Phoenix
How much: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
Info:
Grade: C-