Theater Latte Da is one of the only companies in the Twin Cities devoted to musicals, and this alone makes me a long-time fan. So much of our theatre history in America starts and ends with musical theater, but it’s become a really hip genre to hate over the years. For LGBTQ+ people, musicals have historically been a much needed outlet for escapism as well as served as a genre rich in queer coding in times when you couldn’t outright perform queer work for fear of social or legal repercussions. It has always somewhat baffled me then, that in the modern times, we don’t see more LGBTQ+ characters in musicals. That lack of evolution is a betrayal to the original cheerleaders and champions of the genre, which is what makes Theater Latte Da’s work even more outstanding. In spite of being a theatre company most concerned with elevating musical theater as an art form, Latte Da has consistently done a wonderful job of incorporating LGBTQ+ voices into their work and have been very outspoken in their advocacy. In Lullaby those voices get to take center stage.

Lullaby is in many ways a love song to music and musicals themselves. The story focuses on grief and mental illnesses, centering around Cassie, a young mother played by Adelin Phelps, who wants to make sure her child grows up with music even though the child’s father, a musician, took his own life. This really only scratches the surface of a story that unfolds to tell a heartwarming queer-relevant story about healing and chosen family. Elyanow in the Playwright’s notes talks of creating this story as a hypothetical based on his own life — what if he, the musician passed? Who would sing to his child? Who would teach his partner guitar so he could pick up where Elyanow left off? How would they all cope? In what is perhaps a throwback to the earlier days of musical theater and queer coding, the couple is rewritten as a presumably straight couple. Watching a new musical through 2016 eyes, I don’t necessarily love this choice. I do not think much if anything of the story would have been changed or lost by making the main couple gay, but the story also isn’t altered or lost by having them as opposite gender partners, so at least there’s that. Cassie and Craig fight, fall apart, and remain desperately in love even as Craig (played by David Darrow) does so posthumously. Some of the problems people have with musical theater are still present in this production. Most notably banter and dialogue at times seems forced and unnatural. The show shines though in the scenes where music remains the star of the show, especially when Thea, the founder of a “dyke bar” that Cassie strongholds into being her friend and music teacher, get to sing from her gut. Thea is played by Annie Enneking, who’s voice hits you in your gut and serves as a harsh, emotional contrast to Craig’s dulcet lullabies.

In spite of not quite escaping from some of the trappings of musical theater as a genre, Lullaby is so heartbreaking where it needs to be and so uplifting when it should be that I do truly think this is a show even non-musical theater fans will enjoy. Cassie is struggling with not only the loss of her husband and his music, but with the tumultous strained relationship with her mentally ill addict of a mother. We don’t see either Liam (the baby) or Cassie’s mother, but we see the fallout from their existences. They haunt the story and become it’s driving forces, and the choice to not make them seen characters was an ambitious one that completely worked. They drive the story in different ways of course — Liam haunts Cassie’s conscience, serving as the angel on her shoulder encouraging her to pick up music and try to pick herself up in the process. Her mother exists in phone calls and relayed messages from Cassie’s father, and her own sickness reinforces Cassie’s struggle to accept the mental illnesses of people she loves, dragging her deeper into grief with every mention.

By contrast, Craig’s spirit remains as a figment of Cassie’s grief-stricken imagination, or perhaps a sleep-deprived hallucination. He literally haunts the stage—also an ambitious choice that pays off. Cassie’s father Gabriel, played endearingly by James Eckhouse, is trying to keep his daughter safe from herself while remaining hopelessly in love with a woman who’s body is still here but is, in many ways, as lost to the family as Craig. He finds solace in his relationship with Liam and his own unlikely and charming friendship with Thea. Gabriel is a refreshing change of pace. His fights with Cassie are rooted in real fears of losing her and his wife in turn. So often protective fathers are overprotective fathers, doting husbands either dolts or controlling. His friendship with Thea unfolds as naturally as hers does with Cassie, and Eckhouse clearly has great love for and comfort with this character. He’s an academic who loves and misses the free-spirited wife he once knew. He’s completely comfortable around Thea, even when Thea shows up for what she thinks is a hook-up. I think it’s incredibly important that our changing times are reflected, and I would have been taken out of the story or even frustrated if Gabriel had any defenses up with Thea or was in any way weird about her hanging out with Cassie. Of course there are homophobes still, but there are many, many more people who aren’t, especially in the age and social strata of Gabriel. Gabriel shouldn’t be groundbreaking by now, but he is, not only for his lack of pretense and his acceptance of Thea, but because he fathers Cassie with his heart and not his ego.

For the purposes of The Column, we really need to talk (rave!) about Thea. Thea could have been done so poorly. I have sat through so many otherwise great films or plays where the self-proclaimed dyke best friend is a snarky comic relief, secretly pining for the lead character, or remains miserable throughout the show for unsure reasons. Elyanow recognizes these pitfalls of art and subverts them completely. Thea and Cassie originally get together due to a misunderstanding where Thea thinks they are hooking up, but as the play progresses and their friendship deepens, any iota of sexual or romantic tension dissipates fully. Thea is sarcastic and snarky, going through a divorce, living in a U-haul — and that all serves as a part of who she is, and not the entirety of her character. She is eager for non-romantic love as well as romantic, passionate about music, and a fully realized character.

Lullaby is undoubtedly Cassie’s story, but Thea’s does not get lost or play second fiddle to it. Thea is Cassie’s best friend in the world, but Thea does star in Thea’s story — we just don’t necessarily see it. She is no sidekick and I keep harping on this because it is so important and so rare. I see so much of myself in this character. She does not take a toxic ex back, although she is tempted. She is so strong but so human. She feels safer in the in-between stages and who has not hit that stage of life or harbored those fears of truly moving forward? What I see of myself most of all is what I initially brought up—she loves her chosen family deeply and without abandon, but she does not sacrifice herself or her own needs. This is unheard of in lesbian characters, often even in queer art. I am lucky to live in a time where if I want to see queer women in art or media, I have choices, and many of them are very, very good choices. But in spite of what allies and politicians seem to think, we do not live in a post-gay society and I still have to search really hard for characters I relate to outside of their identity. So while I had initial concerns about the main couple being straight, Lullaby does not abandon their queer audience. Thea is not for male consumption like queer women on TV so often are, and she does not walk around brooding like so many on stage do. The love story between her and Cassie is one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever watched unfold on stage and it is not remotely romantic in nature. She is very much a lesbian—she makes jokes at her own expense about living in a U-haul. She processes over and over again with her ex. She calls herself a dyke and has the leather jacket to prove it, but she is so ready for truly unconditional love. She is groundbreaking, and in the hands of a lesser director, performer, or playwright, she still would have been buried, but she isn’t in Lullaby.

Phelps’ Cassie is falling apart at the seams, and rightly so. I’m afraid to say too much because I don’t want to give away her breathtaking character arc, but this is a protagonist worth rooting for. Grief is an universal experience, one of the few we have as humans. Everybody grieves when they lose someone close to them. The fact that Craig was so young, her child’s father, a man she loved—and the guilt she carries around over his death and her anger at it all weighs down on her as she struggles to keep her head above water and keep music in her and Liam’s lives. Cassie is not a groundbreaking character, but she shouldn’t be. She is surrounded by them, however, and the way she navigates this as her own life falls apart and she is charged with keeping it together should be a universal story, and it is one Phelps delivers beautifully, almost as a gift to music lovers and anyone who has grieved.

What we do not see enough of that directly impacts Cassie’s story is men struggling with mental illness. Craig could have died young in so many ways, via physical sickness, accident, manslaughter. Elyanow makes a crucial, deliberate choice to use this platform to talk about the tragic effects of depression, to blame it entirely as a disease and not a weakness, and to force us to revisit how we think about those we ultimately lose to it. Cassie struggles the entire play to admit she is angry, and then to try to overcome that. I suffer from PTSD and pretty severe anxiety, and it is rare that I cross paths with straight, cisgender men in waiting rooms or support groups when I am receiving treatment. Some of this is the nature of my trauma, but most of it is the nature of a society that sees mental health disparities as the problem of the individual, a society that says men must be strong always, a society where all are ridiculed for their depression, and men are too often silenced from speaking out about theirs. Thea is groundbreaking and important for queer women, but Craig’s story is crucial to a society that says it wants to do better. It is even more crucial to a society that doesn’t.

Switching gears completely, Lullaby is a musical and I do want to talk a little more about the music. Craig’s music fits the title to lure us in in the beginning. Even as we see his story of severe depression and see him through a very (understandably) angry Cassie’s eyes, his folk-inspired music sets the tone throughout the show. However, because he sets the tone for the show, Darrow doesn’t get stuck in smooth vocals and quiet strumming, which is great because I love watching performers show us the variety of what they can do. Watching his depression and anger take hold but ultimately give way to our base lullaby is a riveting ride. Thea’s Ani DiFranco-inspired songs will make you nostalgic for a time when we openly called dyke bars what they were, and the raw emotion Enneking can channel into the mic will make you hate every ex you still love regardless of your own sexual identity.

Technically speaking, Lullaby makes great use of lights and set. There are times you don’t notice the lights except as “on” or “off,” but unless done for artistic effect, that SHOULD be the case. When used for artistic effect—such as to give Thea spotlights when performing or flush the stage with red in showdowns between Cassie and Craig’s spirit, Lullaby succeeds. Some of this success is more crucial than other bits of it. The red is a nice touch, but what I really would have missed if it weren’t there is the spotlights, both on Thea in the nightclub setting, and in dramatic moments of dialogue. The set functions well, is very cute (as someone who is apartment hunting, I actually wished the home were real), and sets the bar and the home apart without creating too much work for the performers. Gabriel is a very progressive college professor, and I completely bought the house as an academic’s. Rubyfruit, the “dyke bar” looks like every queer 90’s girl’s dream of what running your own lesbian bar would be like, and yes, that is a compliment. The acting is lovely across the board—it is what I wanted from a show called Lullaby. In spite of some stilted language, these performers find time to really show their skills, and manage to do so without trying to (metaphorically) upstage or take focus from the others. It’s a hard feat to accomplish—standing out via blending in, and this ensemble does a stellar job.

Lullaby is a world premiere, and as such, I suspect some of those problem dialogue spots will get tweaked over time, and I suspect that as these characters grow and flourish for the audience for the first time that the show will only get better. For a world premiere musical, there are surprisingly few rough edges outside of that. The music tells the story but isn’t the story. Each character is fully realized, something so few shows I’ve seen have done. Three of the four characters and completely groundbreaking, and there is really necessary stuff in this play. And that fourth character? She is all of us. She is the part of us that has trouble seeing past our own pain, that doesn’t want to forgive but will, that doesn’t want to love but does, and does so so deeply that she moves through life making it better for everyone she meets without even realizing it.

Lullaby is playing at the Ritz Theater through February 7. Tickets and more information about the production are available via Theater Latte Da.