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ON THE RECORD: LaChiusa, Hammerstein and Sondheim
By Steven Suskin
09 Mar 2003
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Michael John LaChiusa
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | A discussion of Michael John LaChiusa’s First Lady Suite, the Carmen Jones reissue and Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle
FIRST LADY SUITE [ps classics PS-206]
Since November 1993 — in less than ten years, that is — New York has seen six musicals by Michael John La Chiusa. As far as I can tell, this makes him the most prolific American theatre composer of the last decade. At a time when people like John Kander and Cy Coleman and Charles Strouse are sitting with multiple unproduced musicals in their piano benches, this is somewhat surprising. If only one of LaChiusa's musicals so far can be deemed a success — Hello Again, the second of the six — the others are filled with interesting ideas and arresting material.
Hello Again was recorded by RCA, as was Marie Christine and The Wild Party. First Lady Suite, the first of the musicals wholly written by LaChiusa, was revived in March 2002 by the Blank Theatre Company in Los Angeles. Tommy Krasker's independent label, ps classics, most fortunately decided to record it, giving many of us a first chance to hear this score.
First Lady Suite is unusual, certainly; as with LaChiusa's other work, he formulates his own form as he goes along. What is clear is that from the beginning of his career, LaChiusa has displayed a remarkable talent for expressing ideas in music and words. The ideas haven't always been expressed clearly on stage, mind you; but that's another conversation.
The work at hand focuses on three mid-century first ladies, in thematically linked one-acts. Over Texas comes first; Jackie Kennedy flies to Dallas on Air Force One on that November day in 1963. She sings of riding in an open car: "My hat will be immortalized, I know." The dream of the events that will transpire that afternoon turns nightmarish: "All that I can do is/ Turn and scream and/ Turn and reach and/ Reach and reach and / Reach and reach and / Reach and reach and reach/ And reach and feel . . . I feel the smallest thing/ In the heat/ Of the blood/ Of my husband/ As a million million flashbulbs/ Turn the blood to black and white."
Powerful stuff; and this is a lyric, mind you, set to music. The second section, Where's Mamie, turns Mrs. Ike into a Lucy-like madcap. Imagine; LaChiusa makes Mamie Eisenhower sympathetic! While Ike goes off and does whatever he does, Mamie — on a pink flying carpet, in the company of Marian Anderson — addresses civil rights and the crisis in Little Rock. (She also takes Anderson to Algiers in 1944, ambushing the philandering Ike with his mistress Kay Summersby.)
In "My Husband Was an Army Man," Mamie tells us how Ike was stationed in Panama, "with bugs as big as airplanes"; in Normandy, "with bombs as big as buildings"; in Germany, "with rats the size of men" — and, finally, in Washington, "with men the size of rats." This is deftly incisive musical theatre writing, shades of Sondheim's "Bowler Hat."
Eleanor Sleeps Here is even more gripping. This is a piece for three characters: Eleanor Roosevelt, "first lady of the United States"; Amelia Earhart, "first lady of flight"; and Lorena Hickok, first lady of nothing. Hick is the star of this section, which takes place in Earhart's plane flying above Washington. In the prologue, the ladies remember Election Night: "Do you know what I wished for? I wished for flight." And flight is central to all three acts. So are rules, by which they are all bound. "First Lady, but I'd never been first/ My husband was first in all things," leaving the President's wife "a minor joke in late night monologues/ The hostess of a beautiful house I do not own."
Who is this Hick? What does she do? "I live in the White House/ I sleep on a cot/ In a dusty little hallway/ Next to Eleanor's Room." LaChiusa has an uncanny ability to come up with precisely the right phrase. "My life is wearing a napkin on my head/ And following Eleanor." How's this for a lyric? In LaChiusa's hands, set to his music, it is almost unbearably poignant.
As Eleanor flirts with Amelia, LaChiusa gives Hick an amazing breakdown in-song, "Eleanor's Hand/When Eleanor Smiles." Absolutely lacerating, shades of Sondheim's "Franklin Shepard, Inc." This is not to say that LaChiusa writes in the style of Sondheim; rather, that he has the ability to create the style he needs, in this case with a boogie woogie beat. LaChiusa is able to pinpoint the weak spots of his characters, expose them like raw wounds, translate them into words, and set them to music. There is writing of this same high caliber in the recent Little Fish; it would take more than a single hearing to discuss this score, but there is some very interesting stuff (like the song that begins "I lived in Buffalo with Robert").
The First Lady Suite CD is well recorded, with the five-piece band led by Stephen Bates. I am unfamiliar with the Blank Theatre Company, whose artistic director Daniel Henning staged this production. Nor am I familiar with most of the cast of nine, other than Greg Jbara (who plays the one male role). But the performance is good, led by Heather Lee (as Jackie's secretary Mary Gallagher), Eydie Alyson (as Mamie) and especially Mary-Pat Green (as Hick).
So chalk up First Lady Suite as a surprise, an adventurous (and funny!) flight in the uncompromising hands of Michael John LaChiusa. Continued...
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