MUSICAL 'SESSION' NOT PERFECT, BUT FULL OF POIGNANCY
Palm Beach Post, May 20, 2005 | by HAP ERSTEIN Palm Beach Post Theater Writer
You could see the life-or-death decision facing singer- songwriter Gideon in the musical drama The Last Session as a metaphor for any dire crisis we each must come to grips with. But for composer-lyricist Steve Schalchlin, Gideon's real life alter ego, it is barely fictionalized autobiography, how he weighed the imminent physical ravages from AIDS and became determined to commit suicide.
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| Gary Waldman stars in THE LAST SESSION Click HERE for video |
Prospective audience members who believe that musicals should be about nothing weightier than who gets to take Miss Laurie to the Oklahoma church social have probably already turned the page.
The rest of you should head to the Hollywood Playhouse, where Gary Waldman and his newly created Florida Musicals, Inc. - a spin- off of his quickly closed-down Atlantis Playhouse - has produced another emotionally potent ride, far removed from his original mission of for-profit, entertainment-only theater.
The Last Session, which first surfaced off-Broadway in the late '90s and has slowly been building a national reputation in small regional theaters, is hardly a perfect musical. Schalchlin's score varies from songs of honest, earned anger to mawkish tunes with lyrics that would be at home inside a greeting card. Jim Brochu's script clearly wants to be comic relief from the dark-toned musical numbers, but the strain for laughs is all too evident.
Still, when it works, which is often, its impact is as moving as any area show in several seasons.
The show's premise is contrived, but just go along with it. Long HIV-positive and starting to experience some of the misery that lies ahead for him, Gideon (Waldman, in a touching, well-sung performance) decides to record an album of songs about his life for his longtime companion, the unseen Jack, then kill himself the next evening.
He confides his plan to sound engineer Jim (Jamison Troutman), but not to his ex-wife Vicki (Jeanne Lynn Gray) or friend Tryshia (Lyrehc Jordan), both of whom he hires to be back-up singers on the disc.
Even more of a credibility stretcher is the unexpected arrival at the studio of Buddy, who happens to idolize Gideon until he learns the once-popular troubadour is gay. You see, Buddy is a devout - devoutly bigoted - Christian, a straw dog for Brochu's message machine, who will gain a worthy lesson in tolerance, though his enlightenment seems overly contrived.
Go instead for Schalchlin's songs - driving, insistent compositions with punchy lyrics, in a variety of genres from pop to jazz to gospel to light rock. The Group is a sobering description of a gathering of AIDS therapy patients, Friendly Fire bitterly sings of the hazards of AIDS drugs, which can be as devastating as the disease, and Connected is a forceful ballad of interdependence that Waldman delivers with authority.
Most of his supporting cast comes from the Atlantis production of The Life and they again impress with their impassioned vocals. Waldman takes them over-the-top in their dialogue scenes, where a more understated approach would have been more effective, but theatergoers open to the show's viewpoint are likely to find the experience affecting.
How ironic that Waldman, who used to take pride in valuing commerce over art in the theater, has now produced two shows - The Life and The Last Session - that no other company in South Florida is adventurous enough to touch, and done so with such artful poignancy.
REVIEW
The Last Session
B+
Where: Florida Musicals, Inc. at the Hollywood Playhouse, 2640 Washington St., Hollywood.
When: Through June 19.
Tickets: $27.50-$30. Call: (954) 426-2040 or (800) 655-1773.
The verdict: An emotionally potent, musically moving look at a singer-songwriter with AIDS, weighing his options.
Copyright 2005
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