Flying Over Sunset: The Real Drug Was The Friends We Made Along The Way
I saw Flying Over Sunset -- the new musical by James Lapine (Sunday In The Park With George), Michael Korie (Grey Gardens), and Tom Kitt (Next To Normal) -- once at the very beginning of previews, and a second time at the very end, two days before opening. It is interesting to watch a new work in development, to see how it changes as its creators try to clarify their intent. And while Flying Over Sunset did not fix all of its problems in its preview period, I can say with no hesitation that they did make strong steps toward rendering the show considerably more coherent. Things which seemed random the first time around clicked into place, things which seemed redundant better justified their retreading of trodden ground, and things which seemed aimlessly didactic were still fairly didactic, but less aimlessly so. And the whole thing became tighter with the cutting of about fifteen minutes of run time.
Flying Over Sunset opened on December 13th, 2021, to mostly negative reviews. And, interestingly to me, the reviews seemed to hover around issues which I had taken with my first viewing, but which I felt my second had, if not totally, then at least significantly resolved. Maybe not just the revisions made, but the chance to digest the show and see it a second time after some rumination helped.
Flying Over Sunset is about Aldous Huxley, Cary Grant, and Clare Boothe Luce all taking LSD. In the first act, we see each of their first experiences with LSD. Huxley experimentally, Grant medicinally, Luce recreationally. At the end of the act, coincidence brings the characters together in a restaurant, and Clare invites the others to join her in Malibu to try the drug together, and that trip forms the second act. A fourth historical figure, Gerald Heard, acts as a guide.
The fundamental misunderstanding of Flying Over Sunset is one that the musical does itself foster from its earliest marketing right up until near the finale, and that is the notion that it is a musical about LSD. I contend that it is not a musical about LSD, any more than Sunday In The Park With George is a musical about painting. LSD and painting are merely the vehicles used by Lapine to explore the characters. The musical which Flying Over Sunset arguably shares the most in common with is Lady In The Dark, where, as in Flying Over Sunset, the music is overwhelmingly concentrated in surreal dream sequences which seek to place the main character under psychoanalysis.
The one change made during the preview process that most clarified this was to the finale. Initially a short reprise of the title song (its second reprise in the show, plus underscoring, makes "Flying Over Sunset" the score's most memorable tune in a way which feels fairly manufactured), by the end of previews it had been exchanged for a subtler, and more effective musical echo: Judith's music from the very first (post-prologue) scene heard in the underscoring beneath the final dialogue. When I sat down in the theater the second time, simply seeing in the song list that the old finale reprise had been replaced with "Bella Donna Di Agonia (Reprise)" immediately set my mind buzzing as to what the implications of that were, and I instantly began recontextualizing large portions of the show with the view of it leading toward that second hearing of the Judith music. Shortly, a much more satisfying dramatic whole began to emerge.
The show begins with a prologue, involving a lot of walking in circles, which I found thrilling and brilliantly-executed both times I sat through it. But other audience members seem not to have been so keen. For what it's worth, my initial interpretation was based on polyrhythms: As each character is introduced, they seem out of step with one another. But as they keep walking, each in their own rigid rhythm, a more complete and intricate musical whole begins to emerge. The musical is advertised as being about bringing these seemingly unrelated people together, and the prologue was a rhythmic representation of that. Later, I thought of a second, more banal -- but perhaps more realistic --interpretation, that the walking in circles was meant to represent nothing more than itself. The rut that each of the characters are in, that they keep walking forward, but never get anywhere. Maybe it's both, maybe it's neither, but in any case, I thought the prologue was one of the strongest points of the show, and even on first viewing, it got me excited to see what it would lead to.
After the prologue (which also includes brief overlapping speeches which are more clear in their intent), the first scene in the musical belongs to Aldous Huxley, who is in Rexhall ("the world's largest drug store") with his wife Maria, and friend Gerald. He has taken a dose of LSD, having previously experimented with mescaline (the subject of his book The Doors Of Perception), and as the effects begin to kick in, he opens a book of paintings, whereupon Botticelli's The Return Of Judith To Bethulia comes to life before his eyes. (Incidentally making this the second James Lapine musical to feature a singing painting.)
Unlike the real Huxley (who described the protagonist of Botticelli's painting unflatteringly as "pale [and] neurotic"), the musical's Huxley admires Judith as an image of "bravery personified." Judith argues against this, claiming that Botticelli has merely painted a valiant figure over the actually quite terrifying situation of the mission she was on.
This turns out to not be arbitrary. Though barely glanced over at the time in favor of moving on with Huxley's fascination with color and light -- at times you wonder if Lapine is trying to remind us of his previous work -- Judith foreshadows the case of all three of the musical's protagonists. They are all public figures, concerned with their image, and afraid to be seen as weak. This turns out to limit their ability to connect with other people. Clare Boothe Luce relates how, when being interviewed by the Senate to be confirmed as ambassador to Brazil, she is asked if she has ever seen a psychiatrist. The hushed tones with which Gerald Heard responds to this make clear that admitting to seeing a psychiatrist would be seen as weakness. Cary Grant is perpetually concerned with what the papers will report on him, and expresses concern that they'll find out about the little LSD party that makes up the second act. He is also the character who expresses a fear of making a fool of himself while high, which he ultimately does. Huxley, meanwhile, is quick to shut down any conversation about his wife's illness, and equally quick to rush to his own defense whenever someone criticizes his work. All of the characters are insecure about how they are perceived, and afraid to talk about their fears and insecurities. They attempt to paint over themselves an image of stoic professionalism, much in the way Judith accuses Botticelli of having painted over her fears. Huxley even points this out directly to Clare, that she is dealing with "Three Englishmen" who are not known for being open about their feelings.
A common effect of LSD in all the principal characters is that it conjures flashbacks. This is something that the doctor treating Cary Grant in the musical explicitly states. I am given to understand that this is not a thing that LSD actually does (or at least not with such consistency) but theatrical psychoanalysis usually starts with asking characters about their childhoods, and so, much in the same way that dreams in plays and movies are much more narratively coherent than they are in real life, creating flashbacks is simply the job that LSD has to perform for this musical to work. Cary sees his younger self. Huxley dances with his recently-deceased wife. Clare sees her mother and daughter, both killed in separate car crashes. Is it any wonder that Clare and Huxley in particular become so drawn to the drug? Cary Grant's flashbacks are not nearly so pleasant, and, correspondingly, he has a more serious attitude toward the drug, and is not eager to increase his dosage.
That is the content of the title song. It is Clare describing a flashback, while her daughter and mother (played by the same performers who play Judith and Judith's handmaiden) harmonize. When the song is reprised as the Act I finale, the figures from all the characters' pasts turn up. Aldous and Maria sing in thirds, hearkening back to the Bel Canto sensibilities of Judith's music. The vision of Cary Grant's father seem skeptical of the whole thing, and to close out the act, the chorus issues a warning: "Just don't fall."
Upon first viewing, I thought Clare's big Act II scene seemed redundant. A retread of her trip from Act I without giving much new information. A criticism I had, and a common criticism in reviews, was that after spending so much effort to bring the three characters together in the second act, none of them really seemed to figure in each other's epiphanies. If Clare's big epiphany is going to be her singing solo on an empty stage, why bring Huxley and Grant into the equation at all?
I no longer think this is the case.
It is true that the front half of the scene seems redundant. Clare conjures visions of her dead relatives and sings with them for a bit. (Another Lapine-ism: Clare's mother's appearance in a wreath of leaves evokes the appearance of Cinderella's mother in Into The Woods. Also, Huxley quotes the Wolf in Act I.) But the latter half of the scene takes a turn. Clare realizes that they are only visions, and has to face up to the fact that all of this heaven dialogue is something she has just made up in her head. Her Act I trip resulted in no such epiphany. What changed? The only thing that has changed in the meantime is she's talked to Huxley and Grant, and their experiences with the drug. Huxley reduces it to scientific terms and robs it of its mysticism. Clare sees Huxley dancing with empty air (Huxley sees his wife in that space), and Cary making a complete fool of himself with seemingly no explanation. (Even upon repeated viewings, Cary's Act II trip is a mix of painfully unsubtle and entirely nonsensical. Revisions made during previews helped a little, but mostly by making it shorter so as painful as it was to sit through, at least it didn't last as long. I reckon that is the weakest part of the show, it is stylistically jarring, and the most glaring place where rewrites need to be done.) Overly long parenthetical aside, it is Clare's witnessing other people on the drug that bring into perspective for her the fact that it is only a drug, and cannot actually connect her with her mother and daughter from beyond the grave. This becomes Clare's big Act II number, "How," which takes us through Clare's entire arc in a single song. Her crisis of faith, followed by her initial reaction, which is to rely even more on LSD: "I took a magic drug / To show me how to grow / 150 micrograms / Enough? Not enough! Not nearly enough!" But she then pulls back, and in the final strains of the song realizes that rather than more drugs, what she actually needs is to open up to connection with actual humans in the real world.
Which brings us back to Huxley. As the drugs in the second act wear off, Huxley's initial reaction is much like Clare's. He asks Gerald for more, but Gerald refuses to give him any, voicing his concern that, without Maria, Huxley is becoming too dependent on the drug to be happy. (We are primed for this in the first act by a scene in which Huxley, speaking to an incredulous interviewer, compares LSD favorably to alcohol, saying that alcohol brings a person away from the world, while LSD does not. It becomes a bitter irony when in the second act we see Huxley seeming to develop a dependency on the drug as a means of escape.)
This is coupled with a fight between Gerald and Clare, triggered by poor communication while both were inebriated, and exacerbated when both become sober. It is made abundantly clear in this final dialogue that the temporary happiness granted by the drug is an illusion, and has only served to drive the characters apart. (In retrospect, this should not have come as a surprise; It is explicitly stated that two people on the drug do not share hallucinations. For the bulk of the second act, all of the characters are experiencing different irreconcilable realities. This is what initially triggers Clare and Gerald's fight.) The reason that the second act seems so much to merely restate the content of the first is that, contrary to their goals in the experiment, LSD does not bring the characters together, and they continue to push each other away until after the drug has worn off in the last five minutes. The first act is one giant misdirect, and it is the job of the second to expose where it went wrong. Much like in Sunday In The Park With George, the second act does build on the foundation of the former, but not in the way you are lead to expect. Unlike Sunday In The Park With George, the subversion of expectations in Flying Over Sunset is extremely subtle. Ironically subtle, considering how blatant much of the expository dialogue was, and perhaps, it turns out, a bit too subtle to get on first viewing.
For the final minutes of the musical, the characters split up into pairs. Cary and Gerald get one section of the stage, Aldous and Clare another. And for the first time in the show, the characters open up to one another while sober. And where at the first preview a reprise of the title song was sung, a retreat back into the world of LSD flashbacks, now the strains of Judith's music are heard, and they bring a very different message: That after this experience, Huxley (who is the central focus of the prologue, the audience's introduction to the drug, and now the character most centered at the close) is now able to hear the music without the aid of the drug. He has found the human connection that the drug was an artificial substitute for. Clare and Cary too, in these final moments, are finally able to express vulnerability in front of other people, and that is the first step they take toward being able to resolve their deeper issues. Judith's music brings us full circle, both by reminding us of the framework which Judith set out for the characters in her criticism of Botticelli, thus letting us see how the characters have progressed, and by reminding us of the last time Huxley seemed actually happy, and restoring those feelings, but now without the aid of the drug. Flying Over Sunset is not, as it has been advertised, a musical about three characters finding themselves through LSD. It is about three characters trying to do that, but realizing that what they really needed to find themselves was each other.
It turns out the real drug was the friends we made along the way.
I would not rate Flying Over Sunset as highly as Sunday In The Park With George. It still has a number of weak points which I had hoped would be addressed, but ultimately were not. Much of the expository dialogue seems to hit you over the head with a giant mallet labeled "EXPOSITION". (I would argue that the final scene of the first act is almost entirely unnecessary.) The wrap-up song "The 23rd Ingredient" shows a similar lack of subtlety, generally evoking the Robot Devil. On the other end of things, as much as I felt Judith's significance had become clarified, more clarification early on would not be unwelcome. As mentioned before, Cary Grant's Act II trip is a significant weak point. (Although his Act I trip got the biggest round of applause both times I saw the show. Tony Yazbeck can tap!) In addition, the fact that Clare's epiphany involves coming to grips with the fact that her visions are only in her head -- something the audience is of course aware of the entire time -- I am uncertain what we're supposed to get out of the bulk of the first half of her vision, which could probably be substantially abridged without hurting its meaningful dramatic content.
Still, the musical has many strong points. The cast has received fairly universal and well-deserved acclaim. Tom Kitt's score, I think his best since Next To Normal, deserves praise, as do Michael Starobin's orchestrations. ("The Music Plays On" might just be the prettiest waltz to hit Broadway since John Kander gave his take on The Merry Widow -- I just hope the cast recording will include a more complete version of it, as on stage it keeps getting interrupted.) While Lapine's book needs some work, his stage pictures are often stunning, and made in collaboration with lovely sets, costumes, lighting, and projections by Beowulf Boritt, Toni-Leslie James, Bradley King, and 59 Productions respectively.
It is not a flawless work, and certainly seems to be shaping up to be a divisive one. I hope, however, that when the cast album is released and the script is published and it becomes possible to analyze this musical more deeply than a single cold viewing tends to allow, we will find there is not insignificant substance here.
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