For theatergoers of certain age, merely hearing that their play's setting is a middle-class Connecticut suburb in 1957 is enough to trigger expectations of secrets, shame, and illicit sex lurking beneath a veneer of privileged tranquility. The “Far from Heaven” screenplay by Todd Haynes providing source material for this song-cycle musical is not an authentic product of that repressive era, however, but a conscious replica thereof, steeped in hindsight. Richard Greenberg's book delivers a concise depiction of a time when recovery from the upheaval of recent decades mandated a level of conformity unimaginable today. (For example, unmarried men and childless women were regarded with suspicion as "social deviants.") After the local newspaper designates Mrs. Cathleen Whitaker the "model housewife"—despite her being seen speaking one on one with her Negro gardener—kaffeeklatsch chat hints at a troubled marriage. Like many husbands, Frank Whitaker often works late at his Manhattan office, but one night his spouse pays him a surprise visit, only to discover him kissing another man. During their struggle to keep up appearances, Cathy increasingly confides in single-father Raymond—even to accompanying him on his horticultural errands—to the disapproval, titillation, and ultimately condemnation of their neighbors. What remains unclear in 2016 is the purpose behind a narrative too idealized for any historical value in terms of civil rights or gay liberation—Cathy may suffer from excessive naivety, but surely Raymond knows that crossing the color line will not end well, and Frank opts to undergo draconian "conversion therapy" to cure his homosexuality against the advice of his doctor. Granted, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie have crafted a score of sung dialogue replete with extended tremolissimo final notes, alleviated by a few bona fide melodies in quasi-jazz and Latin-American mode. Bill Morey has assembled a wardrobe out of Mademoiselle and McCalls magazines for moms who disdain house-dresses. Music director Chuck Larkin (no stranger to the syrup-and-soap school of pop warbles) guides this Porchlight Musical Theater ensemble, led by the exquisite Summer Naomi Smart, through their recitative-based vocalizations. For some playgoers, a three-hankie cry is enough to justify a nostalgic two hours-plus fantasy of affluent bigotry, but a timeline in the playbill reminding us, say, that Hartford experienced its own civil rights protest marches in 1965, or that a gay bar operating in Westport since 1937 continued to do so until 2010, would offer context to better allow us to reflect on how far we have come since those bad old days.
