This isn’t an easy-access musical for the coach trip crowds, but more of a cult hit in the Fun Home mode; the success of the latter last year, with its similar theme of purportedly heterosexual parents with homosexual desires, would surely have eased the way for Falsettos. Finn’s score is sophisticated, tricky and sometimes tricksy, and in the inferior first half the lengthy song list starts to look oppressive: by the 21st number, audience energy levels are seriously sagging.
The piece is choppy and uneven, betraying its origins as three individual one-act musicals, but everything comes into much sharper focus after the interval. By this point, the dynamics of Tara Overfield-Wilkinson’s production are clear and we are no longer confronted by a tiresome group of neurotic, endlessly kvetching people.
Marvin (Daniel Boys) and Trina (Laura Pitt-Pulford) may not be a married couple any longer, but they are united by their love for young son Jason (impressively played on press night by Albert Atack) and respect for each other’s partners, Whizzer (Oliver Savile) and Mendel (Joel Montague). This formerly dysfunctional family is now functioning nicely, which means there is time for talk about baseball and Bar Mitzvahs, until tragedy strikes.
