The Book of Rannells: Favorite Characters: Whizzer, Revisited (Falsettos)

So, with The Book of Rannells, I’ve been going chronologically, and we’ve come at last to Falsettos.  But the thing is, I already reviewed that show back when the filmed recording of it showed in cinemas, and after I got the cast recording and listened to it a million times (ultimately leading to starting The Book of Rannells in the first place,) I did a Favorite Characters post on Andrew Rannells’s Whizzer, along with Relationship Spotlights on Whizzer with both Marvin and Trina, and Whizzer is definite feature on my Top Five Songs posts for Act I and Act II.  I’ve already written about Falsettos, and Whizzer, a lot.

This begs the question, “What more can I say?” (see what I did there?)  And yet, I can’t not talk about this fantastic, Tony-nominated performance.  Not only it one of my favorites of Rannells’s, it’s also the role that, for me, made Rannells one of “my” actors and made me excited to see what else he’s done.  So we’re back, once again, with Whizzer (spoilers.)

First of all, I need a Book of Rannells summation for Falsettos, since none of my many posts on the show explicitly include one.  “Recommend?  In General – Yes.  I get that William Finn isn’t always the most accessible composer, but if you give the show a chance, it opens up in the most incredible way.  Watch the Live from Lincoln Center recording if you can, but if nothing else, listen to the cast recording.  Andrew Rannells – Absolutely.  Rannells is wonderful in this role, a sharp performance with powerhouse vocals.”

Speaking of that performance… Watching the recording again, I’m reminded anew of just how great Rannells is here.  Even though I’m sure I’ve listened to the score dozens of times and I find it very hard to get to “The Games I Play” or “You Gotta Die Sometime” and not instantly replay them, seeing him in the role elevates it to an entirely new level.  As I’ve said before, Whizzer is the family member we know the least about, the one who interacts least with characters beyond Marvin.  He spends a decent amount of time in the background, sitting outside the action, or not present at all.

All that said, Rannells does so much and gives us such insight into Whizzer at every turn.  It’s interesting to see how petty and manipulative he can be, turning up his nose at Marvin’s clothes or playing hard to get just because he feels like it.  When he pulls away from a kiss, when he sweet-talks Marvin into letting him win at chess, when he shruggingly insists he only cares about sex and money, these are the tools he uses in his Act I relationship-cum-power-struggle with Marvin.  Both men love each other deeply, but neither can admit it to the other.  Marvin condescends to Whizzer and calls him a pretty boy, and Whizzer pouts and brushes Marvin aside.  There’s this irritating, sort of childish tone he gets in his voice at times, making Marvin put up with him in order to be with him.  Maybe Whizzer can’t play chess, but he can strategize.  He cops this attitude because he knows he’s desirable enough to get away with it – or so he thinks.

When he needles a bit too far and Marvin breaks up with him, Whizzer is shaken.  I’ve said before that Whizzer uses indifference as a coping mechanism, pretending he doesn’t care to shield himself from hurt, and that’s a tactic he even tries to employ with himself.  But it doesn’t work.  Throughout “The Games I Play,” the lyrics get progressively more honest and vulnerable as the song goes on, but the expressions on Rannells’s face and the emotion in his voice gives the game away instantly.  We see this same truthfulness in little moments during his relationship with Marvin, usually in the reaction shots between his lines – here, though, it takes center stage.  Even as Whizzer refuses to apologize and tries to shrug it all off, it’s clear that he’s utterly heartbroken by what’s happened.

Act II gives us the same defense used in different ways, and its façade again crumbles during Whizzer’s solo.  “You Gotta Die Sometime” is wrenching to watch, the growing terror in Whizzer’s eyes and voice as he fails to convince himself that he can “go out without care.”  It’s a tremendously-affecting scene, hitting home all the harder for what came before it:  all those shots of Whizzer smiling when others are looking.  Before, he feigned apathy to protect his heart from the man he loved, but now, he feigns optimism to protect everyone he cares for.  As everybody bustles around his hospital room in “Days Like This” and Marvin, and later Charlotte and Cordelia, sit up with him in “Unlikely Lovers,” Whizzer is constantly pretending to have more hope than he feels, not wanting them to see how sick he really is.  He puts on a decently-convincing act as people tell him he’s “looking very good today,” but as soon as the camera is on him and only him, the exhaustion starts to peek through.

I can’t go without talking a little more about the singing.  After hearing him in The Book of Mormon, I concluded that Rannells had an excellent pop-Broadway type voice, well suited to more contemporary-sounding scores (I maintain that he has pretty much a perfect voice for a Disney prince.  Menken, Lopez, Miranda – any of them could write him a terrific Disney song.)  With this show, though, I started getting a hint of how versatile his voice really is, a fact that was thoroughly hammered home by the time I got to his Live from Lincoln Center concert.  William Finn’s score is a tricky one, but Rannells absolutely rises to the challenge.  His lyrics on the faster numbers are crystal clear, he injects so much character into his singing, and I enjoy hearing those notes he sings at the tops of the harmonies, making them sound effortless.  And on his showcase songs?  He commands that stage, and those songs tell every inch of Whizzer’s story while still sounding completely gorgeous.  I’m so glad Rannells had the opportunity to play this part, and I’m so glad Live from Lincoln Center filmed it so it could be preserved in its entirety.

A New Brain (1998)

I know I just reviewed a William Finn musical last month, but I had the chance to see a regional production of this one live over the weekend, so I’m coming back around to A New Brain. This was actually the first Finn score I ever heard. I picked up the original recording years ago (starring Malcolm Gets and Norm Lewis, among others,) and I also have the double-CD recording from the 2015 Encores revival with Jonathan Groff, pictured above. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I first listened to it, but it’s really something else, and even if Falsettos holds the top William Finn score spot in my heart, you never forget your first.

Gordon is a composer who isn’t where he wants to be. Despite dreams of Broadway greatness, he’s been languishing writing songs for a kids’ TV show. However, an unexpected health scare, bringing with it the prospect of actual brain surgery, gets him worried about his mortality and the future he may no longer have. All the songs he hasn’t written yet stretch out before him, and he imagines them being performed by the other characters: his overbearing mother, his boyfriend Roger, his friend Rhoda, the hospital staff and minister, and the specter of his boss Mr. Bungee (an “aquatic and despotic” nightmare in a giant frog costume.)

Although the story is fictional, it’s inspired by a real health scare in William Finn’s life. As is usual with his work, the score is a little odd and more than a little unexpected, but at the same time, the emotions of it are immediate and visceral. We see how Gordon pushes Roger away out of fear, how Mimi (his mother) fakes a sense of control when faced with the prospect of her son dying in surgery. Through it all, Gordon’s sense of identity as an artist who hasn’t yet made the art he wants is a palpable presence. I mean, just as one example, here’s a line from “An Invitation to Sleep in My Arms”: “I could have been what I meant to be. / I could have written the score / To our lives or a symphony.” I mean, come on!

Like a lot of Finn’s scores, I think it takes a few listens to really unlock the work, but once you do, there are some incredible songs here. “I’d Rather Be Sailing” and “And They’re Off,” as two of the more liftable songs in the show, get a lot of justifiable attention, but they’re just a few gems among many. I also really love the gorgeous “Heart and Music” and the catchy “Gordo’s Law of Genetics,” and it occurs to me that Mimi’s cathartic “Throw It Out” has some of the same fingerprints as Falsettos’ classic “I’m Breaking Down.”

One thing I appreciate about this show is that the main characters don’t “have” to be gay. Obviously, they are, as is Finn, but it’s not a story about being gay in the vein of La Cage aux Folles, Fun Home, or, yes, Falsettos. It’s about a dissatisfied, somewhat abrasive composer who realizes what he really wants from life when he stares death in the face, and part of that story includes his relationship with his boyfriend. I like that.

Warnings

Language, sexual references, a little gross-out humor, and thematic elements.

In Trousers (1979)

Huge fan that I am of Falsettos, it was inevitable that I would eventually come around to In Trousers, William Finn’s first musical and something of a prelude for what would become Falsettos. While the score is very unpolished and I’d honestly put it at the bottom of my list of Finn musicals, it still contains flashes of musical brilliance and human honesty and, due to what came after, has a special place in theatre history.

Even more so than March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, the first chapter in this trio of one-act musicals centers around Marvin. In a non-linear narrative that flits through Marvin’s life to date, we learn of his wife and child, his growing-up years, and his secret boyfriend. Marvin’s neuroses and doubts are on full display and he often hurts people unintentionally, even as he struggles to understand who he is and what he wants.

First off, let me say that I’ve never seen a production of this show, only listened to the cast recording and read a fairly sparse synopsis. Depending on the show, that can be a tricky way to get a feel for the plot, and it’s particularly true of In Trousers. Even going into it already knowing the basics of who Marvin, Trina, and Whizzer were, there was quite a bit that I couldn’t follow. By contrast, I’ve watched the filmed recording of Falsettos multiple times and could go on and on about the intricacies of that plot. I’m not as equipped to talk about In Trousers, but it is clear to me that the show 1) has good bones but 2) is pretty scattered. It has a very in-progress feel to it, which is maybe part of the point – Marvin is trying to understand himself and come to grips with his desires, and he both doesn’t know how to go about doing that and leaves wreckage in his wake as he tries. As such, maybe it makes sense that the show doesn’t feel all that put-together.

I won’t deny that listening to or watching Falsettos is a much more satisfying experience (along with other Finn shows like A New Brain, Elegies, or The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,) but I also can’t ignore the glimpses of greatness yet to come within this score. While the score is raw and experimental and there are parts of it that don’t quite land, some of it is really incredible. I especially love some of the adult Marvin’s songs: “My Chance to Survive the Night,” “Whizzer Going Down,” and “The Nausea Before the Game” are all excellent in their own way, and Trina (who, in this show, is simply known as His Wife,) has some beautifully-plaintive themes.

In some ways, William Finn reminds me of a musical-theatre answer to Christopher Isherwood. Both are iconic queer writers, of course, and both tend to draw a lot from their own life experiences in their works (A New Brain is a famously-fictionalized reimagining of a major health scare that Finn had, and Elegies pays tribute to many of the people he’s lost in his life.) But beyond that, both write with this unflinching sense of humanity that can resonate so strongly. With Finn, that can be expressed sloppily at times and it can be so honest you can scarcely bear to look at it, but at the same time, it’s so real and immediate. In Trousers isn’t afraid of Marvin’s self-centeredness, his self-loathing, or his self-denial, and it gives us moments of naked vulnerability that slip in unexpectedly. Even if it’s far from a perfect musical, it’s an engrossing one, and I’ll forever to grateful to it for giving us the in to the story that would one day become Falsettos.

Warnings

Language, sexual references, and strong thematic elements.