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.

Favorite Characters: Irisa (Defiance)

Genre stories are no stranger to badass women who are handy in a fight, both of the human (Zoë Washburne, Melinda May) and non-human varieties (Aeryn Sun, Wonder Woman.) Yes, we’ve definitely seen the blueprints for Irisa’s character before. But as I’ve said, it’s not so much about the archetypes themselves as it is what you do within them, and I really like how Defiance explores Irisa (a few Irisa-related spoilers.)

A young Irathient woman who was born on the terraformed Earth, Irisa has the unfortunate distinction of being singled out for great purpose. And this isn’t even the kind of “great power, great responsibility”/“Chosen One” stuff that burdens the lives of heroes ranging from Harry Potter to Buffy. This is the “her parents sold her to a cult as a child” kind of great purpose. When she was a kid, Irisa was hailed by a group of zealots as the prophesied Devouring Mother, an instrument of colossal destruction.

Fortunately for Irisa, the cult was interrupted mid-ceremony by Nolan, who killed the perpetrators and took Irisa in to raise her as his own. Her childhood is spent in relative anonymity, but it’s still marked by violence, with Nolan teaching Irisa the importance of doing what has to be done in order to survive in a harsh world. By the time we meet Irisa in the pilot, she’s a hard young woman who wields knives like they’re extensions of her hands. She’s a skilled scavenger, and she’s used to having no roots or connections other than Nolan.

Moving to Defiance challenges a lot of the notions Irisa was raised on. Her priorities start to stretch beyond her and Nolan’s survival. The two of them both get caught up in the concerns of the town, and even if Irisa is initially more eager to move on than Nolan is, she too quickly finds herself starting to care about Defiance, more than she’s using to caring about anything outside the two-person bubble of her and Nolan. She begins a tentative flirtation with Tommy, and probably more significantly for Irisa, develops friendships with the Irathient spirit riders who live outside town.

Even though we’re introduced to an Irisa who is incredibly capable and undoubtedly lethal, Defiance demonstrates the ways that she’s still growing up and coming into herself. Though she’s definitely strong-willed and will bicker with Nolan about field tactics, Irisa is generally used to falling in line behind him, half daughter and half deputy. As they settle in in Defiance, however, Irisa starts to reckon with who she is and what she wants. Whether that’s exploring her culture amid her own people, guardedly pursuing a shy romance, or confronting the apparent great purpose that still lays dormant inside of her, Irisa begins to make more of her own decisions. It’s a neat journey for the character to take, marked by a great deal of inner conflict and a lot of pain, but it’s fascinating to watch.

News Satire Roundup: December 22nd

Sunday, December 22 – Today’s episode was on how American trade is exporting obesity around the globe. We had the usual culprits – McDonald’s, KFC, Coke, etc. – but Hasan dug into a lot of interesting stuff here. His point about China, a country that no one in the world can order around, kowtowing to Coke on promoting “you can maintain a healthy weight through exercise alone!” BS was huge. I was also appalled by the stuff about Samoa, where someone tried to reverse the rampant obesity by banning imports on high-fat offal from the U.S., but the country was forced to get rid of the ban in order to join the WTO. Since it was the last show of 2019, Hasan also gave updates on earlier stories from the year and had some pretty sound words on compassion fatigue. I liked comparing it to having 50 browsers tabs open in our brains, and his advice on giving ourselves permission to “close a few tabs” for our own well-being was good.

Today, I want to look at The Daily Show’s coverage of the Democratic primary. In a way, Trevor and the show had their first crack at this sort of thing back in 2016, when we had such a surfeit of Republicans running, but the Democrats this year are out of control. The show has had some great jokes on the absurd numbers (“please remember to spay or neuter your presidential candidate!”), and I adore the running gag of slipping an extra person into the graphic of all the candidates, from Us’s Red to Tyrion Lannister to Baby Yoda.

But despite the huge juggling act of candidates, I think the show has done a fine job keeping track of them all. The “big three” – Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders – get plenty of attention (Biden doubly so, since his name has often been invoked by Trump and in the impeachment inquiry as well,) understandably so. But Trevor and co. cast a wide net, demonstrating that they have jokes to go around. The Pete Buttigieg jokes are probably my favorite, both the cracks about his youth and, especially, the “kid doing a report on a book he hasn’t read” characterization of his campaign. Really, though, everyone gets in on the action, all the way down to the minor candidates: Marianne Williamson is an obvious one, but I also really liked the John Delaney jokes from (I think?) the first debate, when Trevor thought he should shout his name like DJ Khaled after every applause line to help people remember who he was.

Another highlight of the primary this election cycle has been the focus on the “beefs” at each debate, moments when certain candidates stop being polite and start getting real. There’s been some great stuff in here, like candidates arguing over which of them has the least wealth, and Trevor always relishes “body slams” that seem to come out of nowhere, like Tulsi Gabbard coming for Kamala Harris in the second debate. It’s also a handy way to track where the perceived threats are, seeing who gangs up on whom.

Lastly, I want to look a little at the post-debate guests we’ve had on the show. I always enjoy the analysis that Trevor and the guest talk through together, and the show does a nice job securing pundits who have some good commentary to offer but who also recognize some of the BS. The guests regularly laugh at Trevor’s demands to know who “won” the debate, and they’ve offered some good observations on things like double standards for female candidates and the trap of chasing “electability” instead of policies you believe in.