The most important part of any musical is the score. And “Far from Heaven” — about prejudice and repressed desire in 1957 Connecticut — boasts a gorgeously lush and evocative score. Composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie easily topped their Tony-nominated work from “Grey Gardens.”
Their songs are given the deluxe treatment from Playwrights Horizons, which put together a 12-piece orchestra and a terrific cast headed by Kelli O’Hara (“Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “South Pacific”), one of the finest interpreters in the biz.
All this almost makes up for that fact that Michael Greif’s production, which opened last night, looks awful. The projections are the most amateurish this side of your great-aunt’s vacation slides, and parts of the set look like a jungle gym.
This is especially frustrating since style played a huge part in Todd Haynes’ 2002 movie of the same name, a meticulously designed tribute to the overheated 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk.
This aspect is completely lost here, though glass-half-full types will argue that the visual indigence is balanced out by musical sophistication.
And the songs are not just well crafted, but tuneful, too: You’ll leave with the haunting “The Only One” firmly lodged in your head.
That theme perfectly captures the show’s focus on repression and isolation: “What does it feel like/Knowin’ you’re on your own?/Packed in a room of people/Yet all alone.”
The number is performed by a housewife, Cathy Whitaker (O’Hara, in the Julianne Moore role), and her gardener, Raymond Deagan (Isaiah Johnson). Their close friendship sets tongues wagging in the Eisenhower era: He’s African-American, she’s white — and married, with two kids.
Her husband is at the root of the frustration that pushes Cathy toward Raymond: Tortured by homosexual desires, dashing executive Frank Whitaker (Steven Pasquale) neglects his family. Mind you, that doesn’t stop him from getting angry when he hear rumors that his “lovely spouse/Is playing house/With the gardening Nat ‘King’ Cole.”
Book writer Richard Greenberg (“The Assembled Parties”) is faithful to the film, but his script is bumpy: Some scenes end abruptly, others fizzle out, as when Frank flees in a panic after Cathy catches him in his office after hours, making out with a man.
Greenberg and Co. also struggle with the story’s main challenge: What to do with a passive protagonist like Cathy, who seems more decisive about her wardrobe than her life options?
The score is more deft at evoking the superficial order of the ’50s and the turmoil and regrets roiling beneath. One song in particular, “Tuesdays, Thursdays,” captures Cathy’s disillusion as she looks back on her perfect world. “Promises I put my faith in,” she sings, her heart crumbling. “Every minute every day/Gone.”
Moments of grace like this one make up for a lot of fumbles.