Frankie (George Psomas) is flanked by a couple of lookers at the club Limelight (Austin Colburn, left, and Ryan Alvarado), circa 1987.
Rare is the musical that begins with an undescended testicle. But that’s the opening parry of Fixing Frankie, by Joe Langworth (book and lyrics) and Steve Marzullo (music). More than the troubled hero’s scrotum needs fixing, and Langworth and Marzullo take him down some curious byways, piling on unnecessary details and side stories. Ultimately, though, Frankie’s healing is a touching little story, if one that could use a little touching up.
Margaret (Laura Pavles) and Frankie share a special, if complicated, bond.
It begins in 2016, with Frankie Scordato (George Psomas) feeling guilty over surviving a plague that took most of his community away. Flash back to 1971, with five-year-old Frankie (Greyson Chapman) an exuberant kid coveting dolls and reeling off the lyrics to the “Maude” theme song. It’s clear where he’s headed on the Kinsey Scale, but his doting Mom (Andrea Bianchi) and gruff Dad (Steven Scianti), both devout Catholics, do their best to push that reality aside.
They live in an Italian community somewhere outside New York; Langworth’s script frustratingly never pins it down. Young Frankie, aging from 5 to 15, where older Frankie takes over, is harassed by homophobic classmates and terrifying Sister Agatha (Felicia Finley), his lifelong walking consciousness, tormenting him with tales of hell and demands of repentance. But he has support in his parents’ fun-loving upstairs tenants, Eduardo (Ryan Alvarado) and Patti (Finley), and eventually Margaret (Laura Pavles), a classmate who claims his virginity, becomes his roommate, and proposes that they have a baby. She knows his orientation, but she loves him, and it’s mutual.
She’s also a singing waitress at Rose’s Turn—the script abounds in New York nostalgia—while Frankie becomes a successful food critic. Romantically he’s unfulfilled, balancing his desire for a soulmate vs. his long-simmering feelings of unworthiness vs. a 1980s culture that insists that same-sex couples are moral scumbags. (Langworth overstates here; it wasn’t that bad.) The closest he gets is Lucas (Austin Colburn), a Chicago businessman. They have a several-years relationship, but Frankie remains commitment-phobic.
Young Frankie (Greyson Chapman) acts a little too fey for his dad (Steven Scianti).
His feelings are never unclear, because he keeps narrating them, e.g.: “Youth can fool you into thinking it will never leave you. And that your life will just keep getting better. And mine did, for a while.” Also, the younger and older Frankies, Little Me-style, share the stage and comment on each other’s foibles. It’s a useful device, and it unclouds some of the narrative haze. Fixing Frankie’s score is hard-working and reasonably tuneful, but it makes some curious choices. There are useless digressions: a catalogue of 1970s cultural markers by Eduardo and Patti; Mom’s prayer; a long number, “Brand New You,” meant to signal Frankie’s maturing and moving to Manhattan but going nowhere. And of all things to musicalize, a sung Frankie-Lucas debate about white blood cell counts ranks very low on the list.
But some moments are really moving, too: when Margaret tells the teenage, confused Frankie, “nothing about you needs to change”; Frankie and Dad confronting Mom’s growing dementia; the older Frankie with a younger bedmate, groping toward a catharsis he’s never had and wondering, in “Another Day,” if he’s reaching it. Fixing Frankie is deeply felt, even when it runs down some tangential alleyways.
Pushing 50, has Frankie found love at last with Tye (Colburn)? Photographs by Russ Rowland.
It’s well acted, too. Chapman is a real find, a kid actor who exudes confidence, lands laugh lines, and doesn’t overdo the cuteness. Psomas looks the part, sings well, and makes the audience feel Frankie’s hurt. Scianti, with limited material, creates a fully rounded character, a father whose disappointment in his son fades as he comes to know the human being beneath the stereotype that the elder Scordato’s environment has force-fed him.
Langworth directed, with Michael Blatt, keeping the action lively and the scale modest. Josh Iacovelli’s set, largely a series of boxes that move frequently—and unconvincingly impersonate dining room chairs, a bed, etc.—doesn’t help. But Elizabeth Ektefaei’s costumes illustrate the rapidly progressing decades, and Aiden Bezark’s lighting makes an attractive cast look good.
There’s been a passel of unhappy-young-gay-man musicals lately: the current Beau the Musical, the recent Saturday Church, the excellent All the World’s a Stage last spring. Add Fixing Frankie, and place it pretty high up. But in terms of smoothing out the story, reducing the detours, and correcting some imprecise rhymes, Frankie could still stand a little fixing.
Fixing Frankie plays through Nov. 15 at A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 W 53rd St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets, visit fixingfrankiemusical.com.
Book and Lyrics: Joe Langworth
Music: Steve Marzullo
Direction: Michael Blatt and Joe Langworth
Set Design/Technical Director: Josh Iacovelli
Costume Design: Elizabeth Ektefaei
Lighting Design: Aiden Bezark
Sound Design: San Hee Kil
Projection Design: Andy Evan Cohen
