Listening to A Catered Affair

I've been listening to the Broadway cast recording of A Catered Affair for the past couple of days. After I see a show, listening to the music either confirms how I felt about it in the first place, or makes me reconsider. In this case, I love John Bucchino's songs even more.

I'd never heard of Bucchino before A Catered Affair, so I didn't quite know what to expect. But his melodies are absolutely beautiful. I know there's been some criticism that the songs in this musical all sound alike. It's true that on one level the music is similar - there aren't any upbeat numbers, for example. Honestly though, the music is so stirring, the similarity didn't bother me. In fact, I think it's a strength - it makes the 90-minute musical a cohesive whole.

But don't be misled - even though the music may sound similar, if you listen to the lyrics, they're all quite different in tone. Each one is told from the perspective of a different character in this working-class family in the Bronx in the 1950s. And Bucchino packs so much into those lyrics - they're little stories in song, and they reveal so much about the lives of these people.

Each song paints a very clear portrait of each of the characters - Tom and Aggie Hurley, who are grieving the death of their soldier son in Korea, their daughter Jane, so eager to begin married life, and Aggie's brother Winston, who's at a crossroads in his life.

One song that stood out for me even more on the cast recording was when Faith Prince's Aggie sings about "Our Only Daughter." She and her husband, played by Tom Wopat, placed all of their hopes and dreams on the back of their son, to the detriment of their daughter. Terrence was the one who got a chance to go to college, while their daughter, Jane, had to go to work.

It's only after their son is killed that Aggie realizes all of the sacrifices that Jane, played by Leslie Kritzer, has made for the family. "She never asked for more because life taught her that there was nothing more for our only daughter." It's that realization that makes Aggie want to use her son's military death benefit to give her daughter a lavish catered affair - the big wedding that she herself never had.

I've known families like this - who basically sacrificed everything for their son, and their daughter's needs came second. I think it's probably very realistic for that time period. I even remember 25 years ago having a roommate in college who told me that her brother was smarter - and it was better for a boy to have the brains.

Another moment I loved was when Harvey Fierstein's Uncle Winston sings "Coney Island." It really moved me when I heard it on stage. The only other time I'd heard him sing was on the Broadway cast recording of Hairspray. And he sounds so different here, like he's trying to modulate his famously gravelly voice.

When he sings to his sister about a long-ago ride on the roller coaster at Coney Island, "You're halfway through another ride, don't wait until the scary feelings pass. Just take a breath and open up your eyes right now," it's really sweet and tender. I was so touched by the sentiment behind those words, the love and caring between this brother and sister.

I think A Catered Affair is the type of show where I'll find something new whenever I listen to the score. And I definitely need to start listening to more of John Bucchino's music.

A Catered Affair

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

I've written before about my love for musicals with elaborate sets, rousing songs and intricately choreographed dance numbers. But that's not all I love. There's plenty of room in my musical theatre fandom to heap some praise on a small gem of a show like A Catered Affair.

This is a thoughtful musical that treats working-class characters in the Bronx in the 1950s with dignity and tenderness. Its themes of family and love and sacrifice resonated with me. John Bucchino's score is quite moving in the way that it articulates what the characters are thinking and feeling. And Harvey Fierstein has packed a lot of emotion, including a bit of humor, into his book, based on a movie by Gore Vidal and a teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky.

This is a musical that's really unlike any other I've seen over the past 18 months. A Catered Affair doesn't overreach. Under John Doyle's direction, it's a well-told slice of life about a family at a crossroads. I liked the way it showed the different dreams of people living under the same roof. And one thing I appreciated when I thought about it later, it's generally a very quiet musical, which was kind of nice for a change.

Aggie and Tom Hurley, played by Faith Prince and Tom Wopat, are coping with the loss of their soldier son, killed in Korea. Understandably, that grief contributes to the subdued mood of A Catered Affair, but I wouldn't describe it as a gloomy or somber musical. Just the opposite - I found it very hopeful and life-affirming.

Aggie wants to use the military's death benefit to give their daughter Janey the lavish wedding that she never had. But Tom has a dream of his own that he's been harboring all these years: he wants to buy a share of his taxi business. And their daughter, played so sweetly and with such determination by Leslie Kritzer, wants a simple wedding at city hall with her fiance, Ralph, a nicely low-key Matt Cavenaugh, so that the two can embark on a cross-country car trip.

Prince and Wopat portray Aggie and Tom with great sympathy and poignancy. Up until this point, they've been consumed by the details of daily life. They've probably spent the past 20 years not talking to each other. Now, for the first time in their marriage, they will be alone with each other. And all of that bottled-up emotion is coming out, when Aggie dreams about the perfect wedding in "Vision," or Tom's stunning and forceful "I Stayed."

The disagreement about what to do with the money reminded me of another working-class family in the 1950s, the African-American Youngers in A Raisin in the Sun. But seeing the folded, triangular-shaped American flag resting on the kitchen table also reminded me of stories I've read recently, of families who have lost a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan and face a similar dilemma.

This was my first time seeing Harvey Fierstein on stage, and hearing that gravelly voice in person was thrilling. Initially, I had some reservations about his role. He plays Aggie's brother Winston, a "confirmed bachelor" in 1950s jargon. His comic turn seemed a bit out of place in a story about a grieving family. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how essential he was to the story.

I think audiences really crave the relief that laughter provides. A Catered Affair is a pretty serious musical, but Fierstein's book wisely includes a few scenes that lighten the mood. In one of them, his anger at not being invited to the wedding leads to a drunken outburst that's sad and funny. Ok, maybe his voice isn't the best, but I thought he was so touching in his big song, "Coney Island."

There's another reason why Winston's role is so important. In the popular culture of the 1950s, blacks, Jews and gays are largely at the margins of society, or invisible. But of course, there were gay men in the 1950s. What A Catered Affair does is make these men visible by giving a voice to their lives and their loves and their dreams, by showing them as fully realized human beings, as part of supportive families. And that's the way it should be.

I also loved the way David Gallo's set and Zachary Borovay's projection design evoked New York City - from the pictures of tenements projected on the back wall, to Janey and Ralph's beautiful duet on a fire escape, "Don't ever stop saying I love you." This was an era when extended families lived with each other in cramped apartments, and when two young people would never think about taking a cross-country drive together unless they were married. I also loved the trio of neighborhood busybodies, played by Lori Wilner, Kristine Zbornik and Heather MacRae, who lean out of their windows to trade the latest gossip.

At its core, A Catered Affair is a story about love - between a husband and wife, between siblings, between parents and children, between two men. Even though we never actually see the object of Winston's affection, we know there is someone special in his life. It's a story about what family members do for each other, the sacrifices they make, it's about the things that get unsaid in a relationship, about a younger generation yearning to break free from their parents.

I wrestled with my rating for A Catered Affair, whether to give it 3 1/2 or 4 stars. But I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. In the interest of full disclosure, a knee injury flared up soon after the show started, and I was in intense pain for the first 45 minutes. I spent the last 45 minutes standing at the back of the mezzanine in the Walter Kerr Theatre, which actually was a pretty good vantage point.

Since then, I've thought a lot about A Catered Affair. While some musicals are pretty forgettable, this one stayed with me. I went to the Web site and listened to some of the songs, and they moved me once again. Even the parts that gave me pause initially, like Winston's role, seemed to fit when I really thought about them. If it weren't for the knee pain, I think these things would have struck me while I was watching, and made a bigger impact.

In the end, A Catered Affair isn't the biggest, boldest or brashest musical I've ever seen, but it's certainly one of the most heartfelt.