Review: SpeakEasy Stages a Visually Rich FAR FROM HEAVEN

Book by Richard Greenberg; music by Scott Frankel; lyrics by Michael Korie; based on the Focus Features/Vulcan Productions motion picture written and directed by Todd Haynes; directed by Scott Edmiston; musical direction, Steven Bergman; choreography, David Connolly; scenic design, Eric Levenson; costume design, Charles Schoonmaker; lighting design, Karen Perlow; sound design, Noah Thomas

Cast in Alphabetical Order:

Gus/Band Crooner, Darren Bunch; Eleanor Fine, Aimee Doherty; Mrs. Leacock/Doris Decker, Kerry A. Dowling; Cathy Whitaker, Jennifer Ellis; Janice Whitaker, Audree Hedequist; Chase Decker, Tyler Lenhart; Dick Dawson, Michael Levesque; Sarah Deagan, Sophia Mack; Esther, Carla Martinez; Dr. Bowman/Morris Farnsworth, Will McGarrahan; Doreen Dawson/Sheilah Decker, Jennifer Mischley; Stan Fine, Terrence O'Malley; Raymond Deagan, Maurice Emmanuel Parent; Mona Lauder, Ellen Peterson; Sybil, Carolyn Saxon; David Whitaker, Josh Sussman; Nancy/Connie, Rachel Gianna Tassio; Frank Whitaker, Jared Troilo

Performances and Tickets:

Ended October 11 at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Roberts Studio Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass. Next up is Bad Jews October 24-November 29; tickets are $25-$61, seniors $5 off, $25 for 25 and under, student rush available day of performance; purchase online at www.SpeakEasyStage.com or by calling the Box Office at 617-933-8600.

It's a picture-perfect world when the lovely Donna Reed-like housewife Cathy Whitaker (the luminous Jennifer Ellis) sings the joyous "Autumn in Connecticut" to open SpeakEasy Stage Company's lush and lovely production of FAR FROM HEAVEN. Based on the gripping 2002 Todd Haynes film that starred Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, the recent failed Off-Broadway musical by the composers of Grey Gardens and author of Take Me Out is an ambitious and evocative attempt to transfer the cryptic style and tone of the 1950s social melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk from the screen to the stage.

At the center of the story is Cathy, a dutiful innocent who is happy in her role as supportive corporate wife and mother but whose joy in hosting company cocktail parties and baking cookies for her two children is perhaps not as fulfilling as she makes it seem. As the autumn colors in this particular year start to fade and the air begins to turn cold, a devastating secret shatters Cathy's carefully managed world, darkening her sparkling eyes and withering her iridescent smile into a taut plastic façade that barely hides her sudden pain.

Cathy's emotionally distant husband Frank (Jared Troilo), it turns out, has "urges" that he can't control, and since homosexuality is an "illness" that dare not speak its name in suburban Connecticut in 1957, Frank eventually turns his self-hatred onto Cathy, lashing out cruelly - and even physically. Confused and afraid, Cathy seeks solace in a budding relationship with her new gardener, Raymond Deagan (Maurice Emanuel Parent), a widower trying to raise his young daughter in a community with more opportunities than are typically available to a black family. This "scandal" raises more eyebrows among Cathy's friends than her husband's sexual proclivities. They can accept her being a victim of Frank's "aberrations," after all, but they can't accept her consorting with a black man. Abandoned first by her husband and then by her friends, Cathy has never felt so alone.

FAR FROM HEAVEN is more moody and haunting than the "traditional" Broadway musical - akin in many ways to the more mainstream but nonetheless atypical THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. Unlike that multiple 2005 Tony Award-winner, though, FAR FROM HEAVEN is more memorable for its visual impact than for its score. Whereas the dissonance in Adam Guettel's sumptuously romantic music soars gorgeously, here Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's songs stir initially but have no lasting impact. Korie's lyrics are often poignant, but Frankel's melodies seldom land.

Thankfully director Scott Edmiston (who by no small coincidence also directed a stunning production of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA at SpeakEasy a few seasons ago) has brought the same deft touch to FAR FROM HEAVEN. With his creative team of Eric Levenson (scenic design), Karen Perlow (lighting) and Charles Schoonmaker (costumes), Edmiston has brought to life in three dimensions the moody world of Sirk's enigmatic films.

Oversized picture frames painted in bright orange and gold hues dominate much of the scenic design, paying homage to the frames that literally make up a motion picture. They also suggest the ironic duality of purpose which marked Sirk's films - providing a window through which the viewer (in this case the eavesdropping neighbors) can see past the pretty family portrait to discover the hidden truth. In one clever turn, a large empty frame serves as both a painting that Cathy and Raymond are viewing at an art gallery and a means by which the audience can see their developing empathy for one another. Because of this device, we get the sense throughout the play that we are observing Cathy's world through a time warp. This is 1957, and as a result the stakes for Cathy, Frank and Raymond are very real.

Schoonmaker's inspired costumes especially transport us back to the Eisenhower Era, capturing the country's post WWII conformity but also expressing character through texture and tone. As a chrysalis aching to burst from her cocoon, Cathy is bathed in vibrant autumn colors, a vision in the Dior style, suggesting her potential for unleashing an innate joie de vivre that has been long repressed by her overbearing husband and by societal pressures and expectations. In contrast, Frank and a chorus of males in search of late-night trysts skulk in the shadows dressed in trench coats and grey flannel. Men at the office all look like Madison Avenue clones while their social climbing wives wear gloves, hats and pearls - even while running the most mundane of errands or visiting friends at home.

Edmiston has also assembled a first-rate cast who invest themselves fully in the time period. They behave as if their bigotry against homosexuality and bi-racial relationships is morally justified, a position most middle class white Americans undoubtedly took during the unenlightened years before Civil Rights, Equal Rights, and Gay Marriage. It is to everyone's credit that even as the Tea Party today tries to dismantle all the progress that has been made since 1957 there is no collective wink or nod toward current issues.

Jennifer Ellis as Cathy is the undisputed heart and soul of SpeakEasy's FAR FROM HEAVEN. Her performance ranks among the best this reviewer has seen in Boston in many years. Ellis' eyes glisten with a passionate ache to be loved. As she tries to find her place in a world that has suddenly disintegrated before her she vacillates between denial and controlled disillusion. With her husband she tries desperately to make things work. When that fails she bravely but naively imagines a future with Raymond. Ellis glides effortlessly from one emotion to the next, and when she sings (quite beautifully, in fact) it is with a simple honesty that exposes every tender nerve.

Maurice Emanuel Parent as Raymond is warm, wise and gentle, but also duly aware of the implications of contact with a white woman. As a black man in a white community he "knows his place" but also aspires to something more meaningful. Parent sings pleasantly and imbues his performance with a wistful longing that is tempered by a reluctant reality. He and Ellis share a lovely chemistry as they discover they might be soul mates, and it's heartbreaking to realize that they could have shared a happy life together had they been born in a different place and time.

As was the case in the movie version, Cathy's distraught husband Frank comes across as unlikable and self-absorbed, a fault apparently in the writing. It's a challenge that Jared Troilo only partially overcomes. Because of Frank's intense self-loathing at being unable to "cure himself" of his sexual desires for other men, Troilo comes across as sullen and even downright angry for most of the show. When he finally does get the chance to show Frank's more vulnerable side and gain some sympathy with the revealing song "I Never Knew," it's too little too late.

The key supporting role of Eleanor Fine, Cathy's socially adept confidante and best friend, is played with great panache by Aimee Doherty. Doherty is full of bravado when she swooshes through a corporate cocktail party but surprisingly sympathetic when it's revealed that she and Cathy have more in common in their marriages than previously suspected. Eleanor is more confident and worldly than Cathy, but more cautious, too. Doherty expertly walks the fine line between sincere nurturing and wary disapproval.

The serious but also the brighter moments, too, shine a penetrating light on the mores of the times. In the girl talk number "Marital Bliss," Cathy avoids discussing her non-existent sex life while Eleanor and their two friends Nancy (Rachel Gianna Tassio) and Doreen (Jennifer Mischley) giggle their way through their bedroom exploits. In "Office Talk," the male ensemble kicks up its heels in precision jazz moves to underscore the mechanical and impersonal nature of corporate life at Magnatech. "Interesting" has the ensemble of townspeople and the community's biggest gossip monger Mona Lauder (Ellen Peterson) simultaneously fawning over and backstabbing the flamboyant art critic Morris Farnsworth (a delicious Will McGarrahan).

Although FAR FROM HEAVEN as a musical may lack a truly compelling score, musical director and conductor Steven Bergman teases every ounce of humor and pathos out of its haunting dissonance. His singers wring the sadness, pain and biting irony from Korie's lyrics, and at times his six-piece band sounds like it could be playing the soundtrack to a Douglas Sirk movie.

Ultimately, though, it is Scott Edmiston's thoughtful and detailed direction - and a magnificent performance at its center by Jennifer Ellis - that make this SpeakEasy season opener a winner. It will be fascinating to see what the company does with BIG FISH, another ambitious but unsuccessful Broadway movie to musical adaptation, later in the season.

PHOTOS BY CRAIG BAILEY: Jennifer Ellis as Cathy Whitaker and Maurice Emanuel Parent as Raymond Deagan; Jennifer Ellis; Jared Troilo as Frank Whitaker and Jennifer Ellis; Maurice Emanuel Parent and Jennifer Ellis; Aimee Doherty as Eleanor Fine, Jennifer Mischley as Doreen Dawson, Jennifer Ellis, and Rachel Gianna Tassio as Nancy; Maurice Emanuel Parent and Jennifer Ellis