Review - February House at the Public Theatre

What if you gathered together some of the most profound thinkers and artists of the 20th century, and then didn't give them anything particularly profound to say? That's pretty much what we get with February House, an ambitious but disappointing new musical making its New York premiere at the Public Theatre.

February House is based on the book of the same name by Sherill Tippins, and concerns a short-lived artists' commune in Brooklyn Heights created by author/editor George Davis in the early 1940s. Residents included poet W. H. Auden, novelist Carson McCullers, composer Benjamin Britten, English tenor (and Britten's lover) Peter Pears, and, believe it or not, Gypsy Rose Lee.

Quite a crowd, huh? Add in the spectre of World War II, hanging like a heavy pall over the proceedings, and you have a situation rife with literary, political, and artistic possibilities. February House, however, leaves most of them unrealized. The show has music and lyrics by Gabriel Kahane, a book by Seth Bockley, and is directed by Davis McCallum, and all three show tremendous promise in crafting smart and challenging musical theater. As for the show at hand, I mostly sat hoping to be transported, inspired, provoked. And, for the most part, I kept waiting. I left the show mildly entertained, sporadically moved, but mostly encouraged by these very promising new voices. (February House is certainly far more engaging and artistically successful than The Blue Flower, which attempted to cover similar territory, but in a far more oblique and irritating way.)

If February House is short on profundity, it is certainly rich in characterization. Kahane and Bockley make these famous names deeply human, with touching moments of sincerity amid the artistic posturing. This is perhaps the most affecting in the interactions between Kristen Sieh as McCullers and Julian Fleisher as Davis. As McCullers sings a song about how she identifies and feels comfortable with the freaks at Coney Island, Davis lies at her feet, his platonically affectionate hand crawling playfully up her leg. Later in the show, Erik Lochtefeld as W.H. Auden sits at the foot of a day bed watching his college-age lover sleep, and sings movingly of this "awkward angel," another stirring combination of moment and performer. It is in these instances of effortless intimacy that the show finds its strength and its heart.

Too often, though, February House takes its quest to portray the humanity of these larger-than-life figures to a detrimental extreme, reducing their interactions to petty squabbling over corned beef and bed bugs. The most promising source of meaningful tension -- the fact that the British expatriate Auden has thus far remained silent about the war, in particular about whether the U.S. should become involved in the conflict -- is essentially reduced to an argument at the dinner table on New Year's Eve 1941, during which Auden defends his silence by defining his role as someone who will "carry the fire of civilization through the darkness." Auden's wife-of-convenience, Erika Mann, accuses Auden of not cultivating anything except his own reputation. Then it's back to the bed bugs.

February House boasts a universally strong cast, particularly the aforementioned Sieh, Fleischer, and Lochtefeld, each bringing nuance and empathy to these complicated figures. Also warranting mention is Stanley Bahorek as Benjamin Britten, who is establishing himself quite a career in challenging Off-Broadway musicals, including See Rock City and Queen of the Mist. A.J. Shively as Chester Kallman, Auden's young lover, shows a good deal more depth and presence than he was able to as Jean-Michel in the recent Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles. And Kacie Sheik is a delight here as Gypsy Rose Lee, ably putting over the one genuine showstopper of the evening.

To be fair, though, showstoppers are really not what the creators here are interested in, and that's fine. I will certainly be keeping an eye on Kahane and Bockley as they continue to make names for themselves and develop even more challenging and, hopefully, more successful musical shows. In the meantime, February House runs at the Public until June 10th. The show is a noble experiment, but much like what happened with the eponymous house itself, the results fall considerably shy of the goal.

 

Comments

[Seth Christenfeld]

FYI, Chris: Auden was married to ERIKA Mann. Emily Mann is the artistic director of the McCarter. ;)

[ccaggiano]

You know, I always get those two mixed up. ;-)

[Geoff]

Saw the show this afternoon. Found the first act a little overstuffed, mostly because there were so many characters and plot lines to introduce. The payoff in the second act was, I thought, well worth the wait. The stormy arguments over Auden's silence, the accusations of cowardice leveled at the British expats, the dissolution of the two homosexual couples, and the abandonment of the commune by all the artists was to my senses gripping and heartbreaking.

I think I enjoyed the score a bit more than you. "A Room Comes Together" oozed charm as it gracefully set the stage and established character in one of those here-we-are-and-who-we-are numbers that American musicals dote on. "A Little Brain" was a clever, if derivative, strip number (sort of a "Zip" meets "A Little Brains, A Little Talent") enhanced by staging as racy as it was tame. "You Sit In Your Chair" thrillingly raged against the British expats and made the pulse race as the threat of violence loomed. But the real meat of the score was found in the setting of the Auden poems. It takes real audacity for a composer to set Auden's work and Kahane hit the bullseye all three times. "It Is Time For The Deconstruction of Error" was probably my favorite for sheer dexterity of composition, that is until "Funeral Blues" came along. Here was a truly shattering setting of a classic text which made me hear those words as if for the first time. A real poetic howl of pain, enhanced by a stark, aching melody over dejected, brittle harmonies. Just perfectly realized.

I know I always say "I hope there will be a recording." But this time I really need one because this score is simply too rich to fully absorb in one sitting.

[ccaggiano]

Geoff, one of the reasons I value your input almost above all others' is that you can disagree respectfully. As one of my critical mentors put it, the conversation should ideally be, "You're right, and I disagree."

I think there was sufficient disagreement here on February House that it might be worth my reconsidering. I certainly saw some talent in the writing and the characterizations. And the performers were universally world-class.

[Shua]

Out of curiosity, have you re-visited the cast recording now that it's out? I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop lately, and find it to be one of the most unique, arresting scores I've heard in quite some time, adapting modern indie-music sounds to the stage in a way that's much more successful and inherently theatrical than, say, Spring Awakening. Of course, I'm only hearing the score, not the book, which I can easily imagine not being able to carry the weight of everything going on here. But I think the music points toward some interesting new possibilities that I'd like to see others explore.