*Director Rob Lindsey explores racism and homosexuality in 1950’s American in the musical “Far From Heaven,” which is based on Richard Greenberg’s book, with lyrics by Michael Korie, music by Scott Frankel, and based off the 2002 movie featuring Julianne Moore.
The story centers on a privileged suburban family whose lives are dictated by family etiquette, social events, and the desire to keep up with the Joneses.
Their world is turned upside down when both husband and wife engage in behavior that makes them gossip fodder, but also changes their lives forever. Sh*t gets real when wifey takes a late-night surprise trip to her husband’s office and finds him kissing his male co-worker.
Summer Naomi Smart and Brandon Springman star as husband and wife “Cathy and Frank Whitaker in Lindsey’s musical. The director, who himself recalls “coming out of divorce and the closet,” explores how homosexuality in the 1950s was viewed as a disease. Cathy begs Frank to seek out behavior therapy to “cure” him of his desire for other men. She doesn’t share her troubles with her posh friends, instead, she finds comfort and a confidant in her black gardener, Raymond Deagan (played by Evan Tyrone Martin), per Rolling Out.
A Windy City Times review of the play notes: “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.”
If reliving America’s ripe racist past through art, in order to better understand the present, tickles your fancy, then check out “Far From Heaven” at Stage 773 – it’s playing through March. More information here.
Can’t make it to the play? The movie is available to rent at your local Redbox, or Netflix.
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