Who knew that taking LSD could lead to spontaneous singing and dancing? The outré plot of the new Broadway musical Flying Over Sunset, which opened at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater on Monday night, centres on three characters who use the psychedelic drug to confront their demons and find enlightenment.
And not just any three people, but a trio of huge names from the mid-20th century: Cary Grant, Brave New World author Aldous Huxley and American writer and politician Clare Boothe Luce, all of whom spoke publicly about taking LSD.
But what if they had experimented with the drug together? That’s the fictional premise that James Lapine, the musical’s book writer and director, explores in the second act, when all three gather at Luce’s residence in Malibu, California, in the 1950s after taking individual trips in Act I. For a show with such bold ambitions and esteemed creators, including Next to Normal composer Tom Kitt and Grey Gardens lyricist Maichal Korie, the result is rather conventional, although there are echoes of Stephen Sondheim in the songs, which range from the playful to the philosophical.
Lapine, who was Sondheim’s collaborator on the magnificent Sunday in the Park with George, struggles to craft compelling scenes for his characters. The dialogue conveys plenty of biographical details and backstory but lacks deeper insight.
Grant, for example, who reinvented himself as a suave sophisticate, is confronted with a hallucination of his child self, the working-class Archie Leach, who performed in music halls. The song Funny Money segues into a magnificent tap number for Grant’s portrayer, Tony Yazbeck, choreographed by Michelle Dorrance.
LSD opens up a colorful world for Huxley (an affecting Harry Hadden-Paton), who suffered from vision problems. Bradley King’s lighting suddenly has him seeing a palette of rich hues in a scene re-creating an experience Huxley describes in The Doors of Perception: looking at paintings in art books in a Los Angeles drugstore.
The accomplished Luce (Carmen Cusack), who went from playwright and editor at Vanity Fair to a conservative US politician, turns down an appointment as ambassador to Brazil and struggles to cope with the loss of her mother and daughter in separate car accidents. LSD propels her on an out-of-body experience in the title song, and Cusack’s rich, luminous voice makes the music soar.
That’s all in the first act, which ends with Grant, Huxley and Luce meeting and deciding to trip together under the guidance of another real-life figure, author Gerald Heard (Robert Sella), an LSD guru to Huxley and Luce. The second act traipses over similar territory without expanding on it or the characters’ struggles, even in Luce’s big song, How?
Exceptions are the numbers The Music Plays On, in which the intellectual Huxley shows his tender side and dances with his late wife, and I Like to Lead, a steamy duet between Grant and Sophia Loren, with the actress taking charge.
When so many new Broadway musicals are based on hit films or filled with jukebox songs, a show that has an original story and score is a radical project. But, as much as the characters in Flying Over Sunset talk and sing about enlightenment, the audience rarely feels them experiencing it.
Booking until Feb 6. Tickets: FlyingOverSunset.com
