Faith Prince had better clear some space on her mantel because another Tony Award may be waiting for her in the wings.
Prince leads the cast of Harvey Fierstein and John Bucchino's soul-stirring new musical "A Catered Affair," which has its world premiere at the Old Globe Theatre this month before transferring to New York for a spring 2008 run. Making her Broadway comeback after a five-year hiatus in L.A., Prince brings down the house with her raw, gutty performance as the hard-shelled matriarch in a troubled Bronx family, circa 1953. But she's just one ingredient in a truly original, intimate and bittersweet new musical with Bucchino's lush romantic score and smart lyrics, Fierstein's honest, witty book and multilayered, thought-provoking stage direction by John Doyle.
Based on a 1955 teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky (later adapted on film by Gore Vidal) and set in David Gallo's evocative three-story tenement set, "A Catered Affair" is the emotionally searing musical drama of working-class Bronx couple Tom and Aggie Hurley grieving over the death of their son, Terrence, in the Korean War, and struggling over whether to invest their life savings in Tom's cab-driving business or to blow it all on a splashy wedding for their only daughter, Janey.
The musical's plot has heartbreaking timeliness with the ever-escalating U.S. body count in Iraq, and Aggie's delivery of the show's best number, "Our Only Daughter," touches hard on the unbearable agony of a parent's loss. But "A Catered Affair" is not all darkness. Fierstein, who wrote the adaptation and stars in the production as Aggie's openly gay florist brother, Uncle Winston, brings ribald jokes, broad physicality and his trademark droll, basso-profundo one-liners to the show. And the musical ends ever so subtly with the dawn of hope, illuminated beautifully by Brian MacDevitt's naturalistic lighting.
The Hurleys are no idealized family of the '50s. They suffer and shout. Set jaws and silence -- drawn out palpably in several scenes by Doyle -- are the norm. No-nonsense Janey borrows her parents' bed for her "dates" with fiance Ralph, Tom is so closed down emotionally he can barely mumble congratulations on his daughter's engagement, and Aggie's unhappiness, beautifully detailed in the song "Married," stems from a lifetime of bitter disappointments.
Just 90 minutes with no intermission and a slim 10-member cast, "A Catered Affair" is spare and small, layered with haunting harmonies and minor keys like a chamber musical. Audiences who come expecting a light, frothy comedy may be surprised, but this story has heart, poignance and realism that's rarely seen in musical theater.
Doyle directs his cast with great detail. Prince performs all of her songs and lines while scrambling eggs, peeling potatoes, cleaning fish and making up beds, and Fierstein sings while wringing out his underwear in the sink and arranging flowers with artistic detail. Even the stiff, measured walk of the robotic wedding dress saleslady is thought through. It gives the show a natural, gritty honesty, and the extended pauses -- often with the square-jawed Aggie, "all worn out and grown old," staring vacantly into the distance -- hold the audience spellbound.
Bucchino's beautiful score is modern and melodic with slyly clever lyrics that advance and give chromatic layers to the story, like Aggie's "Vision," a haunting reverie of the perfect wedding that she never had but dreams of for her long-neglected daughter; and "Married," a warts-and-all examination of wedded "bliss." Another winner is "Your Children's Happiness," a snide bit of braggadocio sung by the groom's show-off parents. Fierstein's over-the-top "Immediate Family," where the drunken Uncle Winston causes a scene over not being invited to the wedding, is too, too much, but his sweet, simple "Coney Island" shows a well-trained voice under his froggy croak.
What's missing is a father-daughter song. Tony nominee Tom Wopat is wonderful as Tom Hurley, but he's woefully underused in this show. Carrying himself with slump-shouldered, pot-bellied resignation, Wopat has barely any lines, but his grief is bottomless in the silent, tear-jerking scene when his son's casket flag is delivered to their door. He unleashes his pent-up hurt, resentment and undeclared love in the ranting, cathartic solo "I Stayed," but one longs to hear his beautiful baritone in a duet with his daughter.
As the smart, practical Janey (who never wanted a big wedding in the first place), Leslie Kritzer is sassy and razor-sharp. Raised without affection, she's cold and emotionally reserved until she sees herself in a wedding dress and the vulnerable little girl inside escapes. Matt Cavenaugh, so wonderful in La Jolla Playhouse's "Palm Beach" and Broadway's "Grey Gardens," is given precious little to do as Janey's fiance, Ralph (give this boy a song!). Philip Hoffman is boastful as Ralph's father Mr. Halloran and blue-collar as Tom's cab-driving partner, Sam; Katie Klaus plays Janey's angry, impoverished and unhappily married best friend, Alice; and Heather MacRae, Kristine Zbornik and Lori Wilner play the neighborhood gossips, among other roles.
Fierstein's Uncle Winston is the show's comic relief, and he sprinkles himself liberally through the story. He's wonderful in his brother-sister scenes with Aggie, particularly when he helps her visualize the wedding and then encourages her to open her eyes and heart and ride the roller-coaster of life's ups and downs in "Coney Island." His drunken dinner party scene, though, throws the show's realism off-balance. It's not believable that in the 1950s Bronx a party-crasher would behave so terribly without reprimand, and his double-entendres about his long-time lover would likely have sent most dinner guests (especially in the homophobic '50s) scurrying for their hats in a second.
David Gallo's tenement set is accented with beautiful antique projections by Zachary Borovay. Ann Hould-Ward's costumes are period-appropriate. Aggie's drab dresses fit the dreariness of her life, and of particular note is David Lawrence's pageboy wig for the Janey character -- its severe angles accentuating her character's hard edges.
Sound designer Dan Moses Schreier reverbs many of Janey's lines and lyrics into echoes, reflecting the dreamlike stage Aggie enters as she visualizes her daughter's wedding. Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts the orchestra and serves as musical director, and Don Sebesky created orchestrations.
Fierstein fans who come expecting a wild comic romp may be disappointed. But theater fans who want to experience an up-close, heartfelt family drama with modern relevance and emotional punch that'll put a lump in their throats should catch this fine musical before it heads to New York.
"A Catered Affair"
When: 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; extended through Nov. 4
Where: Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego
Info: $52-$79
Tickets: (619) 234-5623
Web: www.theoldglobe.org
