| The THREE HOUSES in Dave Malloy’s musical are a refuge from Covid. Three people, newly alone when the pandemic begins, are isolated in haunted, basically ancestral places. Malloy’s ambition here is appreciable and the music, when it’s not stuck in a bramble of recitative, is often tender, keening even. But the show feels antic and overstuffed; there’s too much of it. And the thrust staging makes it difficult to follow and sometimes hear. It’s a shame because Malloy is adventurous and talented, and he’s dared to write explicitly about psychic disorientation, particularly the experience and fear of existential loneliness that Covid brought. He knows that separation from others is also a separation from ourselves. THREE HOUSES is haywire, but it’s seriously skewed. |
