{"id":572,"date":"2021-03-29T17:29:36","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T21:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/?p=572"},"modified":"2021-04-08T14:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:37:54","slug":"angels-in-america-vs-falsettos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/2021\/03\/29\/angels-in-america-vs-falsettos\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels in America vs. Falsettos"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I was reading Angels in America, <\/em>I was struck by how similar it is to one of my favorite Broadway musicals. The musical being Falsettos <\/em>which showcases a man named Marvin who leaves his wife and child in order to pursue a relationship with another man named Whizzer who has AIDS. Initially I found similarities between the two because of the subject matter, but the more I thought about it, the more similarities I found. Falsettos, <\/em>like Angels in America <\/em>mixes humor and camp with heavy topics like the AIDS epidemic, death, and religion.<\/p>\n

To understand the humor this show blends within the discussion of heavy topics, look no further than the first song which is titled \u201cFour Jews in a Room Bitching.\u201d This opens the show in a very light way, but it also portrays to the audience that the rest of the show will have many arguments and heavy topics. While many of the songs in the musical are filled with humor and camp, the one song that sticks out to me the most is \u201cMarch of the Falsettos.\u201d In it, we see Marvin, Whizzer, Marvin\u2019s psychiatrist Mendel, and Marvin\u2019s son Jason dressed in bright white and neon orange outfits that stand out in the blacklight above.\"Falsettos:The four males start singing in a shrill falsetto while doing a really silly dance routine, showing the overtop hilarity of the musical. The scene is sandwiched between two meaningful solos by Trina, Marvin\u2019s ex-wife in which she reveals her insecurities about life before ultimately deciding to stand up for herself and take what she deserves. She reminds me a lot of Harper who initially feels like the world is ending when her husband wants to leave her before deciding that she doesn\u2019t need a man to get what she wants out of life.<\/p>\n

One of the other topics portrayed in both productions is the AIDS crisis and in Falsettos <\/em>we see Whizzer, like Roy and Prior, struggle with illness while Marvin, like Louis, struggles with whether or not to stay with his dying lover. \u00a0Throughout the show, Marvin makes many mistakes, much like Louis and Whizzer doesn\u2019t want to forgive him for the pain he caused him. However, unlike Prior, Whizzer does end up getting back with Marvin.<\/p>\n

In my mind, the most important similarity between the two productions is how they both directly address the audience and call them to action in the fight against AIDS. Similar to Prior\u2019s final monologue in Angles in America, <\/em>Mendel, in the final scene of Falsettos<\/em> breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience singing, \u201cHomosexuals, women with children, short insomniacs, we\u2019re a teeny tiny band. Lovers come and lovers go. Lovers live and die fortissimo. This is where we take a stand. Welcome to Falsettoland.\u201d By ending with those words, he is calling all Americans, especially the gay community to stand up and fight, to wake up and realize that this is the country we live in and we must protect each other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was reading Angels in America, I was struck by how similar it is to one of my favorite Broadway musicals. The musical being Falsettos which showcases a man named Marvin who leaves his wife and child in order to pursue a relationship with another man named Whizzer who has AIDS. Initially I found … Continue reading Angels in America vs. Falsettos<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4637,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}