Thoughts on - First Daughter Suite

Hey, everybody!  Boy, has it been awhile between posts!  I'm currently experiencing a particularly cash poor time of year.  I do have a few random things coming up and I'm hoping to pick up a few shows in the near future.  Or not.  We'll just have to see.  Fingers crossed I can get to blogging on a more regular basis soon.

Last night, I went to a preview of Michael John LaChiusa's new musical First Daughter Suite.  You may remember that I'm a big fan of Michael John's.  I find his musical reach and imagination so thrilling.  His body of work is so varied and intriguing, in my opinion.  And the fact that he writes such compelling female characters is just a bonus.  Strong, vigorous, interesting women feature prominently in most of his musicals and First Daughter Suite is no exception.

First Daughter Suite is a companion piece, of sorts, to his early musical First Lady Suite.  I've never seen that one staged, though I do have the cast album and have enjoyed listening to it over the years.  Imagining the lives of women we don't really know all that well, at least for themselves and not through their President husband/father, is so interesting on its face and what Michael John has come up with is simply terrific.  They're still working on the show, and it doesn't open for another week, so I'll only offer a few thoughts.

The evening is made up of four vignettes, each taking place during a different Presidential era - we meet the Nixon women on the day of Tricia's wedding; we see Amy Carter have a dream about becoming friends with Susan Ford; we witness a tense conversation between Patti Davis and Nancy Reagan; and we end with Barbara Bush on a particularly poignant day of her life.  Other characters are included, both famous and not, and how their lives are imagined is quite wonderful.  It was really interesting to me how Michael John used the public's pre-conceived notions about these women in, yet behind, the limelight and made them very real and idiosyncratic.

The music is seriously gorgeous, lush and varied, with the sounds of the eras used to highlight time and place.  Each of the nine women in the cast are given their moments to shine, both with their singing and their acting.  I was continually awestruck at how wonderful it was to see and hear all that fantastic talent of women of a certain age.  They were given a power and a mystique and were both real and fantasy at the same time. 

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Everyone in the cast was amazing, but of course, my favorite had to be Mary Testa as Barbara Bush.  Mary Testa is just a force of nature and put her in a piece where she plays a force of nature - watch out.  She was really heartbreaking, and a ballbreaker, at the same time, just as I've imagined the real Barbara Bush to be.  The piece featuring Bush was my favorite, it was so poignant and moving, yet also quite funny.  Though I was also partial to the Nixon gals as bridezillas (and Barbara Walsh is stunning as Pat Nixon).  But going back to Mary Testa/Barbara Bush, I never thought I'd feel sympathy for George W Bush, but I did!  The way Michael John has written these characters - how they comment on the unseen men of the stories - is so revealing.  I know that all of these situations are totally fictional, but they're so grounded in reality that I can completely imagine things happening in just these ways.  And putting that gorgeous music on top of things was the cherry on top.

I won't say any more.  I don't want to give anything away and since they're still working, it doesn't make sense to comment on things that were a little less satisfying to me.  But it was worth the price of admission, in my opinion, to experience Mary Testa and the beautiful fourth vignette.  There was also a terrific talkback afterwards, that shed a lot of light on the piece and on the performers - I'm so glad I stayed.  I can't wait to go back to First Daughter Suite, should finances permit, and I think you all should check it out, too.