If this summer’s spats in theatreland have taught us anything, it’s that producers should pause whenever they itch to answer controversy. First came the mansplaining team behind Idris Elba’s Tree – initially at the Manchester international festival – with its disputed authorship. Then Selladoor, producing the musical Falsettos, leapt into aggressive-defensive mode when a group of Jewish theatremakers, in an open letter, claimed the show apparently lacked any Jewish voices among the cast and creative team. For good measure, the production’s “cultural consultant” tweeted about actors sporting yellow stars on their sleeves. None of this was a good look.
Why the controversy? Falsettos, by the US composer William Finn, is undeniably a Jewish story. Most of its characters are Jewish, and the last scene portrays an unconventional barmitzvah. Its irresistible opening number is Four Jews in a Room Bitching (“I’m neurotic, he’s neurotic, they’re neurotic, we’re neurotic”). There are scraps of Yiddish, squabbles about catering, angst for days. You can understand the argument that, without Jewish voices in the room, the musical will lack the savour and authenticity of lived experience – that everything will feel slightly awry, like the story’s “shiksa caterer” who can’t pronounce gefilte fish.
And yet, Falsettos, which opened in London last month, is also a milestone gay musical. Theatre scholar Emily Garside has explored the show’s place in modern theatre history, placing gay men – and their female, often lesbian allies – centre stage. The first section was written in 1979, as gay liberation spun the glitterball in New York, and a man like Marvin might be emboldened to leave his wife for a male lover. The last act, premiered in 1990, pushes forward into cruelly changing times, as the Aids epidemic takes hold. Events turn musical comedy into something approaching musical tragedy.
Questions about identity pervade the piece – about finding your truth, then trying to live it. In the first act, everyone struggles through their meshugganah emotions – the husband who leaves his wife for a man, but enters an equally unsettled dynamic; the lover coddled yet constrained by commitment; the wife left wondering what her marriage really meant, then starting a new relationship; the child bewildered by his parents’ choices; the shrink who treats them all then marries mom. (It’s very Manhattan.)
In the second act, the characters settle into their choices, even as time comes for them: Reagan and Aids arrive in sync. It’s a brilliantly witty show – every line a paper cut – and the register is quintessentially New York: fitfully campy and achingly sincere. These are hyper-articulate, emotionally conflicted, painfully self-aware characters – even pre-teen Jason can sing, “I’m too smart for my own good, / And I’m too good for my sorry little life.” Of course, weighing identities – ethnic, sexual, gender – against each other isn’t helpful. The musical swims in that merry mess.
The production at the Other Palace could use more flair. But could it be more Jewish? What would that even mean? After the Guardian’s report on Falsettogate, the actor David Djemal wrote in a letter to the paper: “It’s the difference between being in on the joke, or the joke being on you.” Beautifully put, but I wonder how that distinction plays in practice. Finn’s characters live a very different Jewish life from the one their parents would have experienced – overwhelmingly secular, pursuing sex and self-fulfilment, returning to ritual with wavering conviction.
As Adam Lenson, one of the authors of the open letter published in the Stage and a theatre director, has been at pains to point out, this isn’t principally about casting (though the letter’s list of high-profile, non-Jewish actors in Jewish roles was distracting). And it’s unfair to focus on actors, who can only work with the roles in which they’re cast. However slow-footed and surly Selladoor’s public responses, its terrific cast doesn’t deserve any flak.
Gay people and Jews can both “pass”, to use the throwback term. Artists who want to swivel around these identities can often do so, but that means that Jewish experience has too easily been ignored in British theatre, even when integral to the material. What has changed for Jewish artists in recent years is the pressure and impetus around visibility. As voices across the political spectrum, in the UK and elsewhere, feel increasingly comfortable with antisemitic rhetoric, Jewish artists are less polite about drawing attention and making a fuss.
It’s notable that prominent artists of colour – such as Daniel York Loh and Roy Alexander Weise – have joined the argument around Falsettogate, and the production’s apparent unconcern with representation. It shouldn’t seem remarkable to argue that all voices should be respected and heard. In future, you’d hope that producers of Jewish-themed material will at least consider what expertise they need in the room. Raising the level of first-hand knowledge, information and empathy is an unmatchable resource. What productions do with that context – well, that will depend on the intelligence and integrity of the artists involved.
Falsettos is at the Other Palace, London, until 23 November