Three Homes Theater Evaluate – New York Theater

I gained an entire new understanding of “The Three Little Pigs” on the finish of Dave Malloy’s newest sing-through musical theater piece, which has a vigorous rating and a gifted solid, however largely falls wanting its effort — seemingly impressed by Sondheim’s strategy in “Into The Woods” — to say one thing important about life throughout the pandemic. Nonetheless, the ending is a revelation.

 At an open mic evening in a darkish bar, three storytellers take turns singing of their experiences throughout lockdown. Their tales are shot by means of with monsters and metaphors and coincidences, and with allusions to at least one fashionable folktale particularly: The bartender, Wolf, provides a present to every one earlier than their efficiency — to Susan a straw for her drink;  to Sadie, a (swizzle) stick; to Beckett (dishing out with the intelligent bartender tie-in)  a brick.

Within the folktale, it’s possible you’ll recall, every of the three porcine siblings builds a home to guard themselves from being eaten by the Massive UnHealthy Wolf – the primary home manufactured from straw, the second of sticks, and the third of brick. The wolf simply blows down the home of straw, sending the primary pig scurrying to the home of sticks, which the wolf additionally simply destroys, with the 2 pigs then escaping to the home manufactured from bricks. That one is just too sturdy for the wolf to blow down, and the wolf then makes the deadly error of attempting to enter by means of the chimney.
The ethical of the story, as I’ve at all times heard it, is that it pays to be diligent and ready, just like the third pig, and in contrast to the opposite two. However a personality in “Three Homes,’ the grandfather, affords a clue to a distinct which means: “ The three little pigs isn’t about structure, ” – which quickly after results in a “Coda.” The three essential characters, who’ve every sung individually one after the opposite for about thirty minutes apiece about their isolation, get collectively to sing of the dream that they had of “three strangers at one desk” who tentatively contact each other. “In that second/you didn’t really feel like a stranger/you felt like household.” It helps immensely that the three golden-voiced performers — Margo Seibert as Susan, Mia Pak as Sadie and J.D. Mollison as Beckett – render in wonderful concord this most tuneful music within the present.

It’s group that enables the little pigs to outlive the Wolf – and, Malloy appears to be indicating, a way of group that may have us survive previous the pandemic. An uplifting message, mellifluously delivered. Nevertheless it arrives too late to redeem all that precedes it.

Sure, there are touching moments all through. In “haze,” Sadie sings a chorus

my coronary heart broke
after which the world broke
after which my mind broke too.

and I don’t know which one responsible
I simply know I’m not the identical.
I’ve been drifting,
drifting by means of the haze.

And there are playful moments. Sadie spends fourteen hours a day on-line,  constructing a duplicate of her grandmother’s home as a part of a SIMS-like online Game; the opposite performers painting the online Game avatars.

Nevertheless it all started to really feel rePetitive. Why are all three tales so related? Every of the three characters has simply cut up up with their associate/partner, every retreats to an empty home because of a relative – Susan’s in Latvia, Sadie’s in New Mexico, Beckett’s in Eire — every conjures up their grandfather and grandmother (portrayed every time by Henry Stram and Ching Valdes-Aran) and every lives in isolation with a speaking creature (every of them pupPets) – Susan with a Latvian  dragon, Sadie with a video badger, Beckett with a big spider.

For near fifteen years, Dave Malloy has impressed me together with his febrile abilities and fierce intelligence, his skill to show such arcana as a slice of “CoNFLict and Peace” into the favored “Natasha, Pierre and The Nice Comet of 1812”  and Web habit into “Octet,” put collectively in 2019 by the identical inventive crew and a few of the similar solid as “Three Homes.” It was additionally introduced by Signature; certainly, “Octet” was the theater’s first-ever musical

Like these different reveals ,“Three Homes” is unquestionably meant to appeal, however  it extra typically struck me as peculiar or pointless. It additionally could be saying one thing weighty that I simply missed.

There’ll doubtless be theatergoers who will react the identical manner Sadie does when, after Susan’s efficiency, the Wolf asks “whaddya  assume? “

“Oh! Yeah, this place is cooooooool.The entire open mic confessional factor. And the ghosts are trippy.”

Three Homes
Signature Theater by means of June 9
Working time: About 100 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $49 – $124
Music, lyrics, e-book and orchestrations by Dave Malloy
Directed and choreographed by Annie Tippe
Music path and supervision by Or Matias
Scenic design by dots, costume design by Haydee Zelideth, lighting design by Chrisotpher Bowser, sound design by Nick Kourtides, hair and make-up design by Earon Nealey, pupPet design by James Ortiz
Forged: J.D. Mollison as Beckett/Zippy, Mia Pak as Sadie/Pookie, Margo Seibert as Susan/Shelob, Scott Stangland as Wolf, Henry Stram as Grandfather, and Ching Valdes-Aran as Grandmother. Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh (Conductor/Piano/Organ), Yuko Naito-Gotay (Violin), Blair Hamrick (French Horn), and Maria Bella Jeffers (Cello).