Top Five Songs: A Man of No Importance

I’ve been on an Ahrens & Flaherty kick lately, and this show has some astounding numbers.  Ahrens & Flaherty are an interesting composing duo.  To me, they’re a bit uneven – each score I’ve heard of theirs has at least a few forgettable songs – but when they’re on, they’re incredibly on.  Here are my favorites from A Man of No Importance.  (Fun fact:  all five are from Act I; this show is seriously frontloaded.)

 

“A Man of No Importance” – Yet another spectacular opening number from these two.  This song sets the stage, introduces the major characters, and hints at conflicts/themes to come.  That, and it’s gorgeous, modern Broadway with an Irish flair – a great introduction to the score.

Best line:  “A handful of people with journeys to make, / Leaving the everyday world in their wake…”

“Princess” – Alfie has decided that his new acquaintance Adele is perfect for the title role in his community production of Salome.  In this song, Adele argues with him, pointing out how unremarkable she is.  At the same time, the number reveals her deep-down desire to escape the quiet desperation of her work-a-day, provincial existence.  The violins are exquisite.

Best line:  “I don’t pretend to be a thing but plain and common. / When you’re brought up in Roscommon, what’s the use pretending? / I leave the fairytale ending to the people such as you.”

“The Streets of Dublin” – This song just radiates life, as Robbie shows Alfie the simple pleasures he enjoys on the city streets.  With its soaring melody and exuberant earnestness, it’s a song perfectly devised to show why Alfie is in love with Robbie.  The triumphant repetitions of the final line give me chills – just a beautiful, beautiful song.

Best line:  “The lamps in the park / Look like God in the dark / As they glow / On the streets of Dublin.”

“Man in the Mirror” – This important song sidles in with little fanfare.  It’s fitting, though, because Alfie is the same way – it makes sense that the first private admission of his sexuality comes in a quiet, wistful number.  Here, he gives tentative voice to the feelings he’s denied his whole life and invokes the spirit of his hero Oscar Wilde, who was as brave as Alfie longs to be.

Best line:  “Where is my golden love? / Where but in musty plays?”

(Yes, I'm recycling this picture - turns out it's super hard to find production photos from A Man of No Importance.)

“Love Who You Love” – Probably the biggest theme number in the show.  As Adele fears the whispers of those who might judge her “impropriety,” Alfie gently encourages her to pay them no mind, telling her that she can’t help who with loves.  Coming from a deeply closeted man, it’s of course full of emotionally-charged irony, but it’s also so simple and honest, you can’t help but root for Alfie to take his own advice.

Best line:  “People can be hard sometimes / And their words can cut so deep. / Choose the one you choose, love, / And don’t lose a moment’s sleep.”

A Man of No Importance (2002)

I’ve always loved Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s talent for writing scores that, despite bearing the duo’s distinct style, are also beautifully adapted to suit the musical for which they’re created.  Ragtime naturally drips with early 20^th-century verve, Seussical’s whimsy comes through in every note, and here, A Man of No Importance superbly immerses the audience in its 1960s Dublin setting.  The Irish flutes, fiddles, and pipes are gorgeous, and the show they inhabit is every bit as lovely.

Based on a 1994 film of the same name, A Man of No Importance follows Alfie Byrne, a middle-aged bus conductor/amateur theatre director, through the events that shake up his quietly-unlived life.  Alfie is a kind lover of poetry and stagecraft, a devotee of Oscar Wilde who’s out of place in his insular, Catholic world.  He lives with his sister Lily, who’s been putting her life on hold waiting for Alfie to get settled.  What she doesn’t know – what no one knows – is that Alfie has been softly languishing in the closet for decades.  He’s hopelessly in love with Robbie, the lively, boyish driver of his bus.  When Alfie wants to mount Wilde’s Salome with his spirited group of dramatists, he starts a maelstrom of controversy that ultimately threatens the secret he’s guarded most of his life.

Alfie’s story is excellent – I know coming-out dramas are plentiful, but there’s something so gentle and reflective about this one.  As this “man of no importance” sees his place in the community threatened by rumors and judgments, as he longs for a “golden love” to call his own, as he pursues the magic of art in his own small way, you can’t help but root for him.  He’s a romantic dreamer of a man who’s reached the middle of his life without doing more than glimpsing at its potential, and his soft self-denial is heartbreaking.  His interactions with Robbie ring with everything he’s not saying, and “Love Who You Love,” a sweetly comforting number to a despondent young friend, is a beautiful but bittersweet declaration – beautiful for its tender assurance, but bittersweet in that Alfie can’t take his own advice.

Meanwhile, the amateur dramatics are an utter delight.  The show wonderfully captures the cozy, impassioned, sometimes ridiculous nature of community theatre, from the aging prima donna to the overeager bit player.  “Art,” which takes Alfie through the chaos of an average rehearsal, is a hoot, but there’s also something so genuine and wonderful about it.  Is the theatre troupe very good?  It seems not, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.  This collection of demonstrative Dubliners congregate because they love the stage and the performance of the written word.  They thrill at being in front of an audience, and they take pride in everything they create together.

I love the way Wilde himself is incorporated into the show.  Alfie quotes him reverently, offers up historical anecdotes like a total fanboy, and sings “Man in the Mirror,” his frankest admission of his predicament, to an imagined Wilde as he wishes he could share Wilde’s boldness and self-assurance.  To Alfie, Wilde represents everything life could be, poetry and wit and, most of all, love, and he makes a fitting symbol to spur our leading everyman to action.

Warnings

Language, sexual content, some drinking, and thematic elements.