I realize you guys have moved on to talking about
New Brain, but here's a great clip of "What More Can I Say?" from the LA production (with the original NY cast):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMojJW8u9XI Eric, I don't know what John Clum (he wrote
Acting Gay and it sounds like a complaint he would make) thinks they "toned down" for middle-class audiences when they made
Falsettos. I thought the latter was still pretty hot for a play in which one of the characters is dying of a contagious disease.
And the plays were always about a middle-class family. As in most musicals and operas, they sing about having sex rather than acting it out on stage.
As I said above, I did think
March of the Falsettos had a fierceness when done alone that was missing when it became Act I. Maybe the actors were saving themselves or maybe the simple knowledge that these characters have another act changes how actors approach them. Or maybe, as others have suggested here, it was just a bigger theater.
I hope you get to see Act I of
Falsettos on its own or in combination some day. Despite the power of Whizzer's death, which haunts
Falsettoland, I do think the middle play is the strongest of the three.
