I have returned from FALSETTOLAND. The singing from most of the cast could have been better, but the direction was good, the musical director a fantastic pianist, and all were solid on their harmonies. Unfortunately I feel the piece, like MARCH OF THE FALSETTOS, is a meretricious, sloppy, lousy, stupid piece of theatre whose success still amazes me. The lyrics are terrible, as if he pulled any first rhyme that came to his mind, whether it fit the character, the situation, or even sense; and the whole thing seems to me to be a piece of sentimental stupidity pandering to a primarily Jewish middle class audience watching "safe" gay couples be very safely middle class, dealing as cutely as possible with a bar mitzvah in the hospital room of the person dying from AIDS. When my goddaughter Charlotte, as the doctor, sings "Something bad is happening" and that's the shallow depth of commentary on AIDS and its victims in this horror, I wanted to react like the doctor in the brilliant, angry, and much more honest AIDS play, THE NORMAL HEART, and throw the medical records of the 100+ friends I've seen die of AIDS at the stage. Thoroughly repellent!
I still blame Frank Rich for promoting this twaddle and calling the author the next Sondheim. This author didn't write anything good until THE PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE.