Review: Far
From Heaven
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| Kelli O'Hara has found her greatest role yet as a conflicted Connecticut housewife in Far From Heaven. Note to producers: Transfer please!!! |
Every few seasons, a show comes along that boldly attempts
to push the boundaries of what the American musical can be. Challenging preconceived notions about form
and content, these works compensate for any flaws through sheer ambition and
invention, eschewing the song-and-dance routines of traditional musicals in
favor of something more high-minded and weighty. Far
From Heaven, the new Scott Frankel/Michael Korie tuner currently playing a
sold-out engagement at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons, is not a perfect
show, but it is an endlessly fascinating examination of repressed feelings and
forbidden love that is one final polish away from being a landmark musical
event.
Based on the Oscar-nominated 2002 film of the same name, Far From Heaven tells the story of quintessential
1950s housewife Cathy Whitaker and the slow but inevitable collapse of her entire
world. The queen bee of Hartford,
Connecticut, Cathy’s seemingly perfect life begins to unravel when she
discovers that her husband has long struggled with a repressed attraction to
other men. At the same time, Cathy finds
herself developing feelings for her kindly and unassuming black gardener in a
time when such a relationship isn’t just uncommon but almost unthinkable. Despite the seismic shifts occurring in her
perfectly ordered world, Cathy struggles to keep up appearances and make sense
of her ever-changing situation.
Like Frankel and Korie’s previous collaboration, the
decades-spanning character study Grey
Gardens, Far From Heaven is much more concerned with the subtle nuances of
its characters’ emotions than with overblown shouting matches and volatile emotional
breakdowns. Initially this gives the
evening a feeling of detached
flatness, but as the show progresses and the layers are peeled away this
separation morphs into an emotional realism that becomes the show’s greatest
asset. Despite being heavily musicalized
and underscored, Heaven presents a wholly
naturalistic world filled with characters as complex and conflicted as any real
person, with a soul-stirringly beautiful score that far surpasses the pair’s
already accomplished work on the aforementioned Gardens. The songwriters’
use of character-specific themes and recurring motifs enriches the storytelling
and provides subtle auditory clues about the characters’ emotional lives, and
the music manages to be incredibly varied while simultaneously feeling entirely
of one piece. It is a dazzling display
of musical mastery, sung to near-perfection by the supremely talented cast.
Anchoring the show with what is arguably the performance of
her illustrious career, four-time Tony-nominee Kelli O’Hara is simply sublime
as the vulnerable and slightly naïve Cathy.
O’Hara’s crystalline voice is so superb that you almost take it for
granted, but in addition to her gorgeous tone the actress imbues ever note with
a startling amount of emotional depth and intensity. Her Cathy is definitely a product of her
time, lacking the spine and inner resolve we’ve become accustomed to seeing in
modern musical heroines, but rather than seeming weak this makes her all the
more compelling. She doesn’t have the
strength to tell off her antagonists in a triumphant public spectacle, but like
many real women she quietly soldiers on in the face of adversity while only
allowing herself a few stolen moments to really come to terms with her grief. Rather than being an idealized version of us,
Cathy is us, with all the attendant foibles and momentary lapses in judgment,
which simultaneously makes her more relatable and helps bridge the vast gap
between her conservative mid-century reality and our own.
As her husband Frank, Steven Pasquale brings a rich baritone
and deeply conflicted emotions to his role as a closeted homosexual. The show is understanding of Frank without
excusing him from his mistakes, including his continual lying about his
whereabouts and the emotional abuse he occasionally hurls at Cathy. The character could use a tad more
development in the writing, but Pasquale makes the most of what he is given,
and is a welcome presence whenever he’s onstage. Pasquale makes you understand why Cathy would
want to try and salvage such a deeply broken relationship, and as her gardener Raymond
Deagan the entrancing Isaiah Johnson makes it just as easy to understand why she
would be drawn to someone society deems unworthy of her love. Johnson’s chemistry with O’Hara is palpable,
and the pair beautifully charts the development of Cathy and Raymond’s
relationship from that of friends to the deeper but largely unexpressed love
that overtakes them. There is a quiet
sincerity about their interactions that is all-too-rare on the musical stage,
and their final scene together is one of the show’s most heartbreaking.
The supporting cast is equally impressive, especially Nancy
Anderson as Cathy’s best friend and confidante Eleanor Fine. O’Hara and Anderson have a wonderfully
believable friendship, and their voices sound particularly lovely when singing
together. Quincy Tyler Bernstine
elevates her role as the Whitakers’ maid above that of archetype, displaying a
fondness for Cathy and her children while maintaining a period-appropriate
amount of emotional distance from them. The
only thing resembling a weak link in the cast is James Moye as Frank’s work
buddy Stan, although the problem lies as much in the writing of the character
as it does with Mr. Moye’s performance.
Director Michael Greif does a fine job with the show,
although the admittedly challenging work does present the accomplished helmer
with a few stumbling blocks. Greif makes
excellent use of the smallish Playwrights Horizons stage (aided immensely by
Allen Moyer’s incredibly versatile and inventive set), but doesn’t quite nail
the show’s delicate tone. The acting is
so subtle that it sometimes fails to read onstage, and yet Greif can be
forgiven for not wanting to go too big with the characters’ emotions, as such a
decision would destroy the nuance that makes the work so fascinating. Greif has done an excellent job of providing
the sideways glances and stern looks that help communicate just how scandalous
Cathy and Raymond’s interracial friendship is to a modern audience, but much of
that work is obscured by Kenneth Posner’s overly dark lighting design. Thankfully the stage is still bright enough
to see the period-perfect costumes by Catherine Zuber, whose work helps to
fully transport the audience from 2013 New York to 1957 Connecticut.
Overall, any flaws in Far
From Heaven (including bookwriter Richard Greenberg’s sometimes bland
libretto) are vastly outweighed by its positives. The show is one of the more complex
relationship dramas to be musicalized, and the score by Frankel and Korie is
positively enthralling. The show has
also gifted one of this generation’s greatest singing actresses with one of her
greatest roles, and the show deserves a future life based on the strength of
O’Hara’s performance alone. Since no
transfer has been announced and O’Hara’s impending pregnancy preclude the
chances of the show being remounted anytime soon, any interested parties should
definitely head over to Playwrights Horizons to catch this fascinating new
musical before it ends its limited run July 7th. It’s much closer to musical theatre heaven
than most shows ever get.
