Have you ever served as the designated driver for a group of friends who proceeded to get totally wasted and have a great time while you sat around bored? That’s roughly akin to the experience of watching the new musical written and directed by James Lapine and featuring a score by Tom Kitt (music) and Michael Korie (lyrics). Imagining what might have happened if famed personages Aldous Huxley, Clare Booth Luce, and Cary Grant had taken LSD trips together in the 1950s, the hugely ambitious Flying Over Sunset unfortunately remains stubbornly earthbound.
The musical receiving its world premiere from Lincoln Center Theater was one of the most eagerly anticipated of the season, for good reasons. Besides the formidable creative team, the lavish production features a killer cast including Harry Hadden-Paton, Carmen Cusack, Tony Yazbeck, and Robert Sella as Gerald Heard, the philosopher/author who guides the trio through their drug-induced trips. Besides, how can you not root for a large-scale Broadway musical not based on a pre-existing property and featuring such an audaciously original concept?
It’s sad to report, then, that the show from the librettist of such landmark musicals as Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Passion is a misfire. A provocative misfire, to be sure, and one that will no doubt have its ardent admirers. But a misfire nonetheless.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Lapine’s presumed intention was to illustrate how psychedelic drugs can enable its users to explore hard truths about their lives that they would otherwise not have the courage or ability to face. Thus, each of the main characters is shown dealing with personal tragedies while at dramatic crossroads in their lives. Huxley (Hadden-Paton), the author of such books as Brave New World and The Doors of Deception, is grieving the recent loss of his wife Maria (Laura Shoop). Playwright and former congresswoman Luce (Cusack) is haunted by the loss of her mother and teenage daughter in separate car accidents and has just declined a nomination for the ambassadorship to Brazil because of political headwinds. And Grant (Yazbek), still traumatized by his childhood in which his father told him his mother was dead when in fact he had her committed to a mental asylum, has recently announced his retirement from acting.
Considering its fascinating real-life characters and the theatrical possibilities of depicting hallucinogenic drug trips, Flying Over Sunset proves a surprisingly lackluster affair. Feeling severely attenuated at its nearly three-hour running time, it’s endlessly talky and repetitive, its second act failing to interestingly expand on the ideas of its first. Essentially, the four major characters get together, exchange arch comments about their lives, and ingest the drug carefully administered by Heard which prompts them to grapple with their personal demons.
Those demons don’t prove particularly interesting, and don’t really lend themselves to musicalization; this is one those shows for which the musical numbers feel extraneous, which would be tolerable if they were more enjoyable. But except for a few exceptions—a rousing tap dance performed by Yazbek and his character’s younger incarnation Archie Leach (wildly talented 13-year-old performer Atticus Ware), the gorgeous title song, and a soaring 11 o’clock ballad beautifully sung by Cusack—the music and lyrics make little impression.
The show’s attempts at surrealist flights of fancy prove more cringeworthy than transporting. Grant engages in an awkward tango with the object of his desire, Sophia Loren (Emily Pynenburg), who rebuffs his marriage proposal. Luce is reunited with her late mother and daughter, at one point rummaging through some bushes to retrieve the former’s cut-off leg. And most egregiously, Grant sings a song in which he proclaims, “I am a giant penis rocket ship!”
Director Lapine proves too indulgent of Lapine the librettist, allowing the proceedings to ramble on to the point of tedium. By the time the drug-tripping men go for an ill-advised swim in the ocean which nearly ends in disaster, you’ve long been desperate for them to sober up.
The show certainly looks spectacular on the vast Vivian Beaumont stage, with Beowulf Boritt’s sets, Toni-Leslie James’ costumes, Bradley King’s lighting and particularly 59 Productions’ projections making striking impressions. On the other hand, the show also looks lost at times, the theater feeling far too large for this character-driven piece which would have benefited from a more intimate production. When the characters periodically clomp around performing the ritualistic stomping devised by choreographer Michelle Dorrance, the effect feels silly rather than haunting.
The performers do everything possible with their characters, especially the luminous Cusack, but they’re ultimately undone by the material, which includes Sella being reduced to doing a pratfall and planting his face in Yazbeck’s posterior for a cheap laugh. And why the talented Yazbeck doesn’t even make an attempt at impersonating Grant’s distinctive Mid-Atlantic accent is a question best left unasked.
Flying over Sunset opened December 13, 2021, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater and runs through January 16, 2022. Tickets and information: lct.org
