Susan is in Latvia. Sadie is in New Mexico. Beckett is in Ireland. All three are alone; all three are haunted by their grandparents; all three hear the Big Bad Wolf scratching at the door. This world premiere musical from Dave Malloy brings three strangers together for a post-pandemic open mic night parable about magic, madness, and the end of the world.
Just as experiences of the pandemic are gradually subsiding into the recesses of our collective memories, along comes Dave Malloy's latest work, Three Houses, to remind audiences of the feelings of loneliness, the unrelenting sense of isolation, and the existential terrors associated with the lockdown. The musical, now playing at New York's Signature Theatre and for which Malloy supplied the music, lyrics, book, and orchestrations, is notably ambitious, often unwieldy, and periodically sublime. It also draws from the most unlikely of sources: 'The Three Little Pigs.' Make no mistake, though, this post-pandemic musical may have its share of whimsical puppets and fairy-tale magic, but it is not kids' stuff by any means.
It’s no news that the best composers and lyricists are said to have style, which means that to some extent their work is recognizable for repeated hallmarks. Of lesser composers and lyricists, the assessment is that everything they come up with sounds alike. Maybe Dave Malloy fits his own intriguing category: Everything tends to sound alike and yet everything unmistakably has style.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Signature Theatre Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
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