Falsettos is a decent musical about a Jewish family going through some "rough spots," as they say. I emphasize the Jewishness because it seems to play an important part throughout the show. In fact, the opening song is about four Jews bitching. It wasn't really clear what they were bitching about or the extent of said bitching, but I guess it was important to set the tone that there are some disagreements in this Jewish family unit.The basic premise of the story is that a man, leaves his wife and 11 year old son for another man (inexplicably named Whizzer). The wife starts seeing her ex-husband's psychiatrist, who she soon marries. The son is an insomniac struggling with what "love" means. It sounds complicated, but there didn't seem to be any real depth there. We're simply told how things are, but not really shown anything to make us feel what the characters must be feeling.
The music was fine, I mostly heard drums, piano, and clarinet. I usually like to hear some guitar in my musicals, but the lack of didn't really hurt it. The vocal performances were fine and I was very satisfied by the excellent balance of vocals and music so as to prevent one from overpowering the other.
The show ends with the son's bar mitzvah taking place around the hospital bed of the dying Whizzer. We're never really told of what he is dying, but it's clearly something gay people get. This act was set in 1981, so I wouldn't think the reference is to AIDS, but that or something similar seemed to be the implication. It all seemed too contrived for me to take it seriously. I'm not suggesting there needs to be reality for something like this, but it was contrived enough that I wasn't really buying into it and therefore had a difficult time getting into the whole thing emotionally. Sure, it was sad, but I didn't really feel moved.
