A Love Story for the 90s - NOT!

by Fr. John Dresko

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

(Romans 1:20-27, NKJV)

Remember the sappy Love Story book and movie of about twenty years ago? It is the story of how a selfish yuppie-type with the depth of cheesecloth comes to live for someone other than himself when he falls in love with a girl who is dying of some dread disease. I have encountered the Love Story for the 90s. It is called Falsettos.

My wife and I went to see this "musical comedy" as part of season tickets to which we treated ourselves as an anniversary present. Neither of us knew much about it. Let me give you a capsule summary of this "musical comedy" which has won rave reviews and numerous awards, including at least three "Tonys":

­ The first act opens with three men and a boy singing "Four Jews sittin' around bitchin'."

­ The premise of the play becomes very obvious quickly: the boy's father (Marv) leaves the boy's mother for his male lover. Marv's therapist (Mendel) betrays Marv by marrying his ex-wife. Marv has a hard time living with his lover (Whizzer) because it turns out that Marv has a hard time living with anyone. After breaking up, in two years Marv and Whizzer get back together and move in next to two lesbian characters, a doctor and her homemaking lover. Jason (the boy) is placed in the middle of all this and has to plan his upcoming Bar mitzvah after learning that Whizzer (the only character in the play that the boy really relates to) has been diagnosed with AIDS and is dying, being treated by the lesbian doctor and cared for by all the various and sundry characters in the play.

­ The play has a "feel good" ending and a moral to it, because Jason (and everyone in the audience) learns that in Falsettoland, every man is really a man when they put on no conventional façades and act as they really are. It turns out that Jason would really only accept Whizzer as the replacement in Marv's life of his mother, so in the end, they really were, after all, a family.

­ The witty repartee and songs include jokes about Jews always complaining since they were under the yoke of Pharaoh, the lesbian homemaker gushing about how she lives with a doctor, Jews not being able to play baseball, four letter words and "potty humor" of the type that you might hear in the Boy's Locker Room at the local junior high, and the boy singing that "My Father's a Homo." The beautiful, melodic love song (love theme, even) is sung by Marv when in bed with a naked (presumably) Whizzer.

­ Throwing a bone to convention, religion and faith is discussed. When it is time for the Bar mitzvah to be planned, Mendel, the stepfather, reminds the family that "...religion is crap; made up junk for the dumb and unlucky." Jason also sings a song to God asking Him to spare Whizzer; that is, just in case He really exists.

So goes the Love Story for the 90s.

As vulgar, offensive and absolutely witless this musical comedy was, the most horrifying things I saw that night were not on the stage, but in the crowd in the theater. First of all, there were children in the crowd. We saw two that were, at the most, ten years old. Their parents were with them and, as far as I could tell, thought nothing of their children being exposed to this mindless, perverted stuff as just "the way things are today." Of course, when their children do not display any of the Christian values that they might desire later on, for example in their teens, the parents would do well not to criticize their children, for they may simply be reminded of that night when they saw Falsettos.

Worst of all, the crowd absolutely loved the whole thing. There was no denying it. They hooted together at all the "humor," they loved the characters, they cried at the appropriate time, they gave the actors two standing ovations at the end of the performance. I swear to you, I said something to my wife about how offensive it was, and the woman sitting next to me changed seats after the intermission. She obviously did not want to sit next to someone who was not as sophisticated as she, and who was even, horrors, intolerant. The crowd saw absolutely nothing wrong with all the family caricatures portrayed in the play. It was, after all, just a comedy. It wasn't real. I'm sure that everyone there would think that I should just "loosen up." I stayed and watched for every scene to finally give some depth and meaning to the story, to somehow transcend the normal "everything goes" attitude in today's world. Alas, it did not.

Then I thought about all the people in our parishes. If I was at the play, were others from our churches? Did they react the same way I did? If not, then what have we done as a Church to instill the Word of God in our people? There is some desensitizing among all of us. Things that shocked us ten years ago don't even make us bat an eye now. Children talk about things that I think I found out about as an adult. Does this, in the conventional, sophisticated wisdom around us, mean that I am intolerant? Are my feelings a betrayal of the ever more swiftly approaching middle age years in my life? Am I just "not with it"?

I don't think so. I think as a society, we have truly begun to confuse Christian forgiveness and tolerance for acceptance and even promotion. It is very "in" today to be completely and totally accepting of any kind of lifestyle as long as it doesn't interfere with my lifestyle and as long as we are "adult" in our behavior and make sure that proper "precautions" are used in the privacy of our own bedrooms. Why do I, as a parish priest, have difficulty making our young people see that Christian values such as virginity, fidelity, and self-denial are eternally important? Why do people living together without the blessing of marriage look at me as if I just stepped out of Jurrasic Park when I tell them that that type of lifestyle is incompatible with Christian living? Is it because, generally speaking, even their parents don't accept those values or at least, don't promote them or expect them from their offspring? I have had parents say to me, "Father, at least no one got pregnant, and, thank God, at least he was with a girl. He's normal."

I think as Christians we have to, now more than ever, wage a fierce battle against this type of attitude which makes trash like Falsettos look like it is just "fiction." We can never get rid of it. It will always be present. But we can make it a little less respectable.

Falsettos - a love story for the 90s. What a riot!