Relationship Spotlight: Marvin & Trina (Falsettos)

As I’ve said before, the atypical “triangle” of Whizzer-Marvin-Trina in Falsettos really interests me.  Having already looked at Marvin/Whizzer and Whizzer-Trina, it’s time to look at the last side of the triangle:  Trina and Marvin.  In some ways, this is the messiest side of all (spoilers.)

Marvin’s whole “tight-knit family” arrangement is intriguing.  It’s good that he wants the various parts of his family – “kid, [ex-]wife, and lover” – to all get along, and no matter what, Marvin and Trina will always be connected because they’re Jason’s parents.  But the way Marvin goes about that is far less about peaceful coexistence than it is about control and ownership.  I can’t tell if he’s aiming for the former – later in Act II, this is finally achieved when the whole family comes together over Whizzer’s illness – but for much of the show, they’re definitely getting the latter.

That’s because, for Marvin, Trina is still “his wife” and thus beholden to him.  That means cooking meals for the family with Whizzer, being prepared to cater to any and all of Marvin’s whims, and most significantly, not exploring new relationships the way Marvin has.  Even though Marvin was never attracted to Trina and can’t offer her romantic love, and even though he’s moved on with Whizzer, he resents the idea of Trina doing the same.  When she starts seeing Mendel (admittedly complicated, since Mendel is Marvin’s psychiatrist as well as Trina’s and Jason’s,) Marvin goes into full meltdown mode, because in his mind, Trina is still his.

Needless to say, this puts a tremendous strain on Trina to be caught between Marvin’s demands and her own feelings for Mendel.  (Not to mention, Marvin’s continued preoccupation with Trina affects his relationship with Whizzer, and Jason is negatively impacted by all the tension – this is Marvin at his worst, and it’s hard on the whole family.)  Marvin’s need for Trina to conduct herself on his terms interferes with Trina’s right to pursue her own happiness, something she desperately needs.  Her marriage to Marvin (as with most of her life thus far) was marked by denying her needs/desires for the sake of appeasing Marvin.  It was unhealthy and destructive enough when they were married – now that they’re divorced, it’s awful to see Marvin still trying to exert that level of control over her.

As with all the relationships in Falsettos, Trina and Marvin’s dynamic changes in Act II.  We come back from intermission (with a two-year time jump) to learn that Marvin and Trina now have a more traditional ex-spouse arrangement, sharing custody of Jason and mainly interacting over matters concerning him, like planning his bar mitzvah and going to his Little League games.  I’m not gonna lie – when Marvin announces, “I still have my son on the weekends,” and then ruefully adds, “Just on the weekends,” it hurts, and as much of a mess as the Act I situation is, I do find myself wishing they could have made it work in a way that was respectful of everyone’s feelings.

But ultimately, it is for the better.  While Marvin and Trina bicker over the bar mitzvah plans, it’s far healthier than their previous dynamic.  It doesn’t have the same toxic edge – rather, it’s two stubborn people (still immature at times) disagreeing over what they want for Jason’s big day.  And really, the mere fact that they’re disagreeing is a huge improvement for them, because it means Trina is holding her own and standing up for her views instead of getting steamrolled by Marvin’s demands.  Clearly, getting more distance between them was a necessary step in allowing them to interact in a healthier way.

Relationship Spotlight: Whizzer & Trina (Falsettos)

Another of the fascinating relationships in Falsettos.  This one is perhaps the most intriguing because, while it’s definitely there, the show itself contains next to nothing that features Whizzer and Trina actually interacting as characters.  And yet, through Marvin, their lives have become intrinsically linked, and even if we don’t often seem them overtly relating to one another, the show demonstrates their ties in other ways (spoilers.)

At the start of the show, Trina and Whizzer are in one another’s lives basically at Marvin’s behest.  While Marvin has divorced Trina and gotten together with Whizzer, he isn’t interested in fully letting Trina go, either, and he’s contrived his “tight-knit family” set-up wherein he, his boyfriend, his ex-wife, and his son all coexist and share meals together.  Unsurprisingly, this isn’t a scenario either Trina or Whizzer is comfortable with; Trina makes numerous mentions of her feelings about the unconventional situation, and although Whizzer isn’t nearly as demonstrative about his inner feelings, he struggles with Marvin’s need to go “off playing family charades.”  However, both are to their own extent under Marvin’s demanding thumb, and both uneasily go along with the arrangement until it breaks down through other means.

Trina in particular has reason to resent Whizzer.  After all, he’s the “other man” who broke up her marriage (never mind the fact that, since Marvin is gay, it wouldn’t have worked out with him and Trina anyway,) and after having had such an unsatisfying relationship with Marvin herself, it aggravates her to think of Whizzer making Marvin happy, and vice versa.  But despite what she freely admits are her best efforts, she can’t bring herself to take any of those feelings out on Whizzer.  Nearly every time she discusses her thoughts about Whizzer, it’s clear that she’s upset about the situation, not at him.  “As far as enemies go, / Whizzer is not so bad,” she observes in one song, later confessing that she wants to hate him but can’t, and when Whizzer gets sick in Act II, she wrestles with how to react to it.  Despite “trying not to care about this man who Marvin loves,” she realizes that Whizzer “shared [her] life.”

Through the forced relationship that Marvin engineers in Act I, yes, and through their shared parental/step-parental love for Jason, yes, but more than that.  Because of their mutual experience with Marvin, Whizzer and Trina have both felt the brunt of the ways Marvin takes out his issues and insecurities on those close to him.  Marvin’s messed-up notions of gender roles and need to maintain a traditional “provider husband”/“doting housewife” set-up in his relationship with Whizzer means that Whizzer has to deal with the same sort of crap that Trina did, expected to do the cooking, be pretty, and be ready to give Marvin whatever he wants.  Similarly, both are well-versed in Marvin’s mind games, how he lashes out at others in order to feel less insignificant.

Even though, as I said, we almost never see Trina and Whizzer exchanging lyrics as dialogue the way nearly every other character does, the show repeatedly highlights these parallels in their experiences with Marvin.  In “This Had Better Come to a Stop,” Trina reprises the same “I was supposed to make the dinner” melody that Marvin admonishes Whizzer with at the start of the song.  In the same song, and again later in Act I, Trina and Whizzer “team up” in a way against Marvin, both standing up for themselves in unison.  They don’t precisely act as a united front – in both instances, they don’t stand together but stand on opposite sides of Marvin – but their tactics/grievances are the same.  Whether it’s taunting Marvin with the prospect of other men they prefer to him or reflecting on Marvin put them through (“We had fights and games. / Marvin called us funny names”) and his confounding nature (“And he’s sweet / And he’s mean,”) they sing together.

While the other central relationships in this “triangle” – Marvin-Whizzer and Trina-Marvin – have their share of frustrations for how dysfunctional they can be, the Whizzer-Trina relationship can be frustrating for the potential that’s clearly in it but not fully realized.  It’s such an interesting dynamic, and I wish the show had a lot more of it.  In a way, I think Trina and Whizzer could find a great deal of comfort in commiserating with one another, if they’d allow themselves to do so.

Favorite Characters: Trina (Falsettos)

All the characters in Falsettos get put through the ringer, but Trina in particular has a lot to deal with.  Back in my review of the filmed recording of the revival, I mentioned that I have a soft spot for characters like her, women who bought into the idea of a “perfect” textbook life as a submissive housewife but now find that having “done everything right” doesn’t protect them against heartbreak and turmoil.  Now, after having spent a lot more time marinating in the score, I stand by that opinion and, if possible, love her even more (spoilers.)

When we meet Trina, “the life / [Her] mother assumed [she’d] live” has already imploded.  He husband has divorced her and gotten together with a man but still wants her as a part of his “tight-knit family,” which is hard enough for Trina to deal with but becomes even harder when she’s ready to move on herself and Marvin doesn’t want to let her.  Even though the Norman Rockwell ideal clearly didn’t go the way she planned, she still clings to it, losing herself in cooking, housework, and taking “good care of [her] men.”  It’s the identity that’s been prescribed for her and it’s the only one she knows, and so it’s still where she tries to find her value.  It’s why, when she first takes an interest in Mendel, she spends all day in the kitchen in hopes of impressing him.  “I’ll say ‘twas worth the time,” she explains to the audience.  “I lie.”

Trina does her damnedest to put on her brave face and roll with what’s handed to her, but it’s a barely-maintained façade that crumbles whenever it’s given half a chance.  We often see how she attempts to sublimate her frustrations – in housework, in exercise, in hovering over Jason – but they don’t stay down.  Time and again, this pressure bubbles over and she loses it pretty spectacularly.  This is most notable in “I’m Breaking Down,” in which she airs her grievances while angrily chopping phallic fruits and vegetables.  These moments are often comic, due to the sheer extent of Trina’s mania, but they’re also important, because you definitely get the sense that this is a woman who’s long been denied (and denied herself) that chance to vent her feelings.

But it comes through in quieter, more heartbreaking ways as well.  Trina has spent her life going along with what’s expected of her, and it’s worn her out.  Her most affecting moments are when she gives herself over to that weariness.  In “Trina’s Song,” her plaintive rumination about “all the happy men who rule the world,” she wonders why the world is always handed to immature men whose “toys are people’s lives.”  Why not her, she asks, just once, and she struggles to figure out how she can carve out a bit of her own happiness in a world that’s designed against her.

Falsettos doesn’t have a lot of female representation – Trina is the sole female character in Act I, and while Charlotte and Cordelia are added in Act II, their roles aren’t as prominent – but on the whole, it does a nice job of exploring the patriarchy and its effect on people.  We see Trina react to how other characters treat her, as well as how society has taught her to treat herself, and whether she’s wildly yelling or softly imploring, it’s clear that she’s reached her breaking point:  something has to give.