Marie Christine

If you've heard of Medea you know what she did. The question of any adaptation is why. The cast album did not make this clear to me. Audra MacDonald's Marie sounds remarkably self-possessed, boasts of her magic powers and is clearly too good for Dante Keyes. The libretto told me more.

In Marie Christine LaChuisa spends time developing the world Marie is fleeing from. Act One's Louisiana is no more home to her than Act Two's Chicago. Her magic is questionable as well. She boasts of her power to seduce men but uses her magic to manipulate and murder other women. She has no biscuit or ribbon to hold on to Dante. Her obsession with Dante becomes a fatal flaw. She "will not let go" and she cannot change enough to fit the new life he leaves her in. 

Children complicate the matter. If she simply fled with them she'd have no means to support them. If she left them to Dante they'd become servants. Perhaps that would have been better but she'll never know. 

Hello Again

If La Ronde was a play about class then Hello Again is a musical about loneliness. Both stories feature a daisy chain of hook ups but neither has much to say about sex. In a sense that's the point. The sex in Hello Again is rarely for love or pleasure. It's a tool to gain something from a partner; financial support, a career boost or a sense of feeling "safe."

The scenarios are flexible enough to allow for literal or fantastical staging. The 2017 film version includes a lovely mix of both. The roles are juicy enough to showcase stars or newcomers and the original Off-Broadway cast has gone on to great things. The show was not LaChuisa's first musical but it was definitely the one that put him on the map.

Queen of the Mist

Michael John LaChuisa is fond of existential crisis.  His protagonists come from all walks of life but most of them feel empty and trapped. Queenie, Charlotte, The Priest and the lost souls of Hello Again. and Anna Edson Taylor

"It can get pretty lonely being the kind of person who goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Anna Edson Taylor (1838-1921) made her name more than a century ago by doing just that, and received oceans of publicity...
As deeds of daring go, writing eccentric, highbrow historical musicals in a business that rewards hummable tunes and straightforward story lines may not rank with... shooting the falls. But it probably requires a similar degree of true, mad, deep dedication." ~ New York Times

"I like to work, but if I just did projects like Queen of the Mist, which I just adored and is one of the most magnificent parts I’ve ever had, I would be in the poorhouse..." ~ Mary Testa

See What I Wanna See

Like The Apple Tree, Weird Romance and Little Fish before it See What I Wanna See grouped short stories with similar themes. Michael John LaChuisa adapted three short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa concerning the theme of "truth." The subject matter earns mixed reviews but the compact cast size makes it attractive to smaller theaters.

Little Fish

Michael John LaChuisa has been writing musicals non-stop for over two decades. He’s drawn from a wide variety of source material including Greek myth, celebrity biography, French and Spanish drama, Japanese cinema and American poetry. Little Fish was drawn from two short stories Deborah Eisenberg: Days and Flotsam.

The heroines of Days and Flotsam are forced to reinvent themselves. The former after she quits smoking and the latter after she flees an abusive relationship. LaChuisa combines them into the character of Charlotte. The cigarettes had been a coping mechanism for so long that she forgot what she was coping with. Her pain forces her to build a community with those around her instead of swimming upstream on her own.

Tension builds as she passes from person to person, then dissipates in a "don't worry / be happy" ending. The structure has been compared to Company though there's no "Ladies Who Lunch" or "Being Alive" to cap off the night. Instead I held on to the songs for Charlotte's Sorry-Grateful friends, Marco and Kathy, who end up the most fully formed characters on stage.

First Lady Suite

Michael John LaChiusa remains committed to writing challenging musicals with complex scores. Audiences may not flock to them but they gather committed fan bases. First Lady Suite and the sequel First Daughter Suite each present four vignettes about women who've lived in the White House. Some focus on the First Ladies themselves. Others view them through the eyes of their staff and admirers.

Variety writes: "What’s missing is any semblance of insight or revelation. A talented ensemble, under the capable guidance of Daniel Henning, instills as much pizzazz as possible into the proceedings but ultimately is defeated by LaChiusa’s convoluted, unfulfilling libretto."

The New York Times was kinder writing: "Weird, funny and wigged-out, "First Lady Suite" looks at history through frankly surrealistic glasses and extends its feminist sympathies even to a Presidential spouse as seemingly conventional as Mrs. Eisenhower. Yet, with the exception of "Eleanor Sleeps Here," the last and best developed of the three segments, Mr. LaChiusa's ambitions for his musical are more bracing than the musical itself."

Dueling Wild Party's

The Wild Party is more existential dread than horror themed, but it has something in common with the other horror musicals I'll be looking at this week. Public domain source material and two competing musical versions.

New York Times on Lippa:
Mr. Lippa's score, dexterously orchestrated by Michael Gibson, has a jittery, wandering quality, conscientiously shifting styles and tempos as if in search of a lost chord. ... Mr. Lippa's book and lyrics have expanded the focus of March's notoriously cool-blooded poem to depict a quest not just for novel sensation but for that funny thing called love.

New York Times on LaChiusa:
This latest version, the work of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, is big on letting its characters suffer, loudly and aggressively, in the spotlight. The suffering is embodied by talented stars like Mandy Patinkin, Toni Collette and the legendary Eartha Kitt.