February House
Directed by Davis McCallum
Music and lyrics by Gabriel Kahane
Book by Seth Bockley
At the Long Wharf Theatre,
New Haven, Feb. 15-March 18, 2012
FEBRUARY HOUSE is a wonderful new musical, movingly acted and beautifully sung. Closely based on Sherrill Tippins’ book of the same title, it was first presented at Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater last summer and arrives at the Public Theater in New York on May 8. The book’s subtitle, The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Wartime America, describes the musical, too, give or take a few of those individuals. The book was warmly received and was reviewed in these pages in the July–August 2005 issue.
From mid-1940 until the end of 1941, the boardinghouse at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn was an urban writers’ commune, overseen by bon vivant editor George Davis. Already familiar with the area as a place to find sailors, Davis rented the house, filled it with furniture, cigarettes, and liquor, and opened it up to some of the most important mid-century writers, artists, and bohemians, both American and European. Davis was a close friend of Carson McCullers, who became its first renter, and she was quickly joined by W. H. Auden. Others followed, including Gypsy Rose Lee, who has a very chaste striptease number in the play. She’s also seen writing her 1941 novel, The G-String Murders: The Story of a Burlesque Girl. Former McDowell Colony fellow and Brooklynite Gabriel Kahane was commissioned to write the music and lyrics for the show. Music is supplied by an on-stage piano, guitar, and banjo ensemble, and the songs are tuneful and quite witty, some reminiscent of folk music, all serving to move the story forward. Several of the songs are based on Auden’s poems, and, perhaps in homage to Middagh residents Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten, the music for a few songs is quite dissonant. The introduction of Pears and Britten into the mix is a bit awkwardly handled, but they have some lovely scenes together, especially when they realize, in song, that they can be at least a little open about their relationship, having been forced to pass themselves off as brothers back in England. They also have an amusing but unsettling song about a bedbug infestation, probably brought about by Davis’ love of old furniture of questionable provenance. When in Brooklyn, Britten wrote the music for the modern operetta Paul Bunyan. In February House, Middagh residents are shown trooping off en masse to attend the show, full of high hopes, and then being devastated the next day by the uniformly terrible reviews. A quick look at 1979’s The Operas of Benjamin Britten, though, makes one think that it might be time for a revival. With lyrics by Auden, it is often witty—as in the Lumberjacks’ Chorus (“We rise at dawn of day/ we’re handsome, free, and gay / we’re lumberjacks / with saw and axe / who are melting the forest away”)—and politically pointed. There are several scenes of erotic warmth between McCullers (estranged from her husband Reeves) and Middagh resident Erika Mann. Mann’s arrival allows for an amusing “who’s married to whom?” moment. Auden had married Mann in the 1930’s to give her a British passport. Auden’s young lover Chester Kallman, though not strictly a Middagh resident, was a frequent overnight guest, and Auden—at least in the musical—felt himself married to Kallman. Erika Mann is shown in her role as editor of the short-lived but important magazine Decision: A Review of Free Culture (actually founded by her brother Klaus Mann). Several Middagh residents contributed to it. While the first act introduces the players and is light-hearted, the second act is much more intense as the terrible events of the early war years unfold. London is bombed, and slowly the fabric of the house unravels. In truth, it was more than the war that caused things to come apart: rent went unpaid, food went unpurchased, the heat went out, and the roof leaked. The constant and unpredictable comings and goings of other guests and residents took their toll, too: while the play didn’t mention it, they included Salvador and Gala Dalí, Jane and Paul Bowles, and siblings Klaus and Golo Mann. Time is telescoped in the musical as, one by one, the Middagh residents left: Gypsy, to perform an out-of-town gig; Chester Kallman, to attend graduate school in Michigan; McCullers, to return to her alcoholic husband Reeves, who’s seen as a disruptive dinner guest in one scene. Some music, some lyrics, some scenes or subplots may change in the move from New Haven to New York. Whatever the changes may be, it’s a fairly safe bet that this unique musical will be a hit when it does. Martha E. Stone is the literary editor for this magazine.
