"Falsettos" fizzes and crackles with the rare quality of absolute newness. "Company" had it, "A Chorus Line" had it: a completely unexpected, this-is-how-people-actually-live-today truthfulness that represents a new era in how musical theater presents the world.

The Alliance Theatre Company is giving a first-rate production to kick off its 25th anniversary season. The 1992 Tony Award-winning show by William Finn and James Lapine - receiving its premiere outside New York in its finished form - might be described as a superspeedy, postmodern, music-hall romp with moments of heartbreaking drama and a continuous sense of surprise.

Surprise No. 1 is how something so new can be simplicity itself. There's a father, a mother, a son, a psychiatrist and the father's "friend" (the male lover he's moved in with), dashing around and singing songs - or often just bits of song. But the songs are witty, melodic, mischievously catchy. They tell of love, anxiety, racquetball, conflict, "yuppie pagans," linguine, an impending bar mitzvah (the son's), mortality and gefilte fish that's "so good you'll think it's Italian" (the family's Jewish, if that has not already become clear).

The father, Marvin (Chris Coleman), yearns for a tight-knit family so brings his new lover, Whizzer (Michael Gruber) over to his old house often. Things get tighter-knit than he counted on: Ex-wife Trina (Denise Connolly) marries their mutual psychiatrist, Mendel (David Studwell). His son Jason (Evans Colton), as if he weren't having enough trouble just being 12, yearns for "a normal life."

Is there such a thing, "Falsettos" provocatively asks? This household is uniquely weird, true - but then each household in the world is unique and weird in its own way. Consider "The Sound of Music" - several perfectly scrubbed kids raised by a single dad and a former nun.

In its zeal to show gay characters as likeable and unthreatening, "Falsettos" is a tad propagandistic, occasionally slapping on the sentimental whitewash. Yes, the heart-to-hearts between father and son are deeply touching, but couldn't Marvin have shown his concern for the boy a little better by not exposing him to so many confusing life lessons before the seventh grade? (More on this topic in a Sunday Arts section commentary).

Another problem is the "lesbians from next door" (Mary Beth Purdy, Patty Mack), who have a kind of sketched-in, tacked-on quality, as if in a pang of politically correct guilt the authors didn't want any group to feel left out.

As he showed in last spring's "Once on This Island," director David Bell knows how to make a show move, how to yank the heartstrings. Like "Once," "Falsettos" was a pocket-musical in New York that he has resourcefully expanded in scope, with the help of Dex Edwards's clean, sleek, wide-open set bordered by mirrors and scaffolding. A huge garage-style door across the back is an unfortunate choice, though - the lovers in a movable bed look like they're backing offstage in a Buick. But the stunning final tableau makes up for everything: the extended family gazing off into the white glare of the unknown, where a patch with Whizzer's name - like a personal star in the firmament - appears on a giant screen.

Arrayed in Susan Mickey's perfectly observed costumes of Upper West Side style, the cast is terrific. Ms. Connolly's "I'm Breaking Down" - in which carrots and bananas suffer her anti-phallic hostility - is a hilarious showstopper. And young Mr. Evans is phenomenal, a kid-next-door with more sense than the whole frazzled crew.

Mr. Coleman has an uncanny quality of energy-in-stillness; as Marvin, he can quietly extend a hand over the footlights and hold the audience in it. His song, "Unlikely Lovers" (a final bedside duet with Whizzer) should be required listening for those protesters in Cobb County. I challenge them to keep their eyes dry.


main Falsettos page