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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2006)
Stout 43 JULY 21. 2006 iu music SONGS Musical Chairs See is dense and unlistenable; Unmade Bed is hysterical and sophisticated by Floyd Sklaver usical theater composer Michael John LaChiusa is that rarified bird most cherished by the intelli gentsia—the noble failure. Time and again, he’s written music theater pieces of arcane sophistication (The Wild Party, Marie Christine), earning the admiration of foundations giving grants, nonprofit theater directors who other wise disdain musicals and critics who like that kind of thing. In other words, everyone but audiences. His musical See What I Wanna See (Ghostlight) is no exception. Listening to the world premiere recording of this production from the Public Theater in New York, one wonders just who would want to listen to it. Occasionally tuneful without being hummable, the score is a postmodern take on 1950s film noir soundtracks. There’s not a song here you want to sing along to in your car. Fans of Idina Menzel, who is featured here, will just have to keep lip-synching to their recordings of Wicked. Even worse, See What I Wanna See possesses a densely complicated story told from multiple tives that requires a careful reading of the synopsis and following the libretto. Even deliberately obtuse American operas like John Adams’ Nixon in China (recently performed in a definitive production by Portland Opera) require less of the listener. What’s this show about? I have no idea, and 1 don’t care enough to find out. Who wants to work that hard? sleeping with), having sex with an actor who readjusts his hair mid-coitus or, in “He Never Did That Before,” realizing your lover is cheating because he tries something in bed he only could have learned elsewhere. The ballads are enormous- ly touching, as well. Brutally honest without being self-pitying, the loneliness expressed in them is tempered with self-deprecating humor, as demon strated in this lyric, a reference to the unmade bed that sat on the stage of the original production: I could die here tonight. Die unknown, here in my bed. And yet it is abundantly clear ar more satisfying is the world premiere record That even the act ing of Songs from an Unmade Bed (Ghostlight), Of being dead by music theater singer Mark Winter, which Would only feel redundant here.... connects 18 cabaret songs by as many composers, Campbell has a gift for expressing ideas that are yet all with lyrics by the witty Mark Campbell. The Kith surprising yet inevitable. There’s not a senti concept works astonishingly well. Campbell’s ment here that most gay men won’t identify with. As distinctly gay worldview provides continuity, while a result, the entire album is the kind that gay men the range of composers provide variety. Unlike won’t be able to resist singing along with, not only LaChiusa, the music here manages to be sophisticat because of the “Oh my Gixl this is my life" lyrics, but ed without being off-putting. Why any of these 18 also because of the manageably conversational range composers aren't getting LaChiusa s commissions is in which singer Michael Winther performs. Winther a mystery to me. has a lovely, easygoing bari-tenor voice of the Most of the songs concern the ins and outs (pun Michael Feinstein variety: a sheer pleasure to listen intended) of dating, yet somehow they never to, but accessible—the kind of voice your average gay manage to be redundant, dealing with such previ guy who sang in choir thinks he has, but doesn’t. He’s ously untapped material as being the “other other backed by a trio of piano, percussion and cello, the woman" (one of two fuck buddies a married guy is latter highlighted in “He Plays the Cello,” a hysteri F cal love song akrut a Kiyfriend who can’t play in tune, ingeniously composed by Jeffrey Stock: He plays far pleasure And not far art. , He plays in private. And that is smart. The arrangements of the rest of the songs are equally inspired; the inclusion of the cello especially provides a touching counterpoint and sophistication. Most moving is “Our Separate Ways,” composed by Stephen Hoffman, which mixes the pathos of a memorial service with bitchy observations: Maurice read a verse he wrote (Completely devoid of charisma). Debra swallowed a note Midway through her melisma. This is the kind of album that makes you wish you’d seen the original production or hope that Winther will bring the show to Portland. 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