Monday, May 19, 2025
Do you need to be a Go-Go’s fan to fall head over heels for Constellation Theatre’s Company’s “Head Over Heels,” at Source Theatre through June 1?
Forced to choose between their 1984 hit (Belinda Carlisle: “Been running sooo long/I’ve nearly lost all track of time”) and the following year’s hit of the same name by Tears for Fears (Roland Orzabal: “I wanted to be [next three words falsetto] with you alone/And talk about the weather”), I’d probably go with the British synth-pop guys over the American New Wave gals.
Nonetheless, I’m very familiar with and relatively fond of seven of the nearly 20 numbers in “Head Over Heels,” in order of appearance: “We Got the Beat,” “Mad About You” (a solo hit for Carlisle), “Cool Jerk” (a Motown cover), “Vacation,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Head Over Heels” and “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” (another Carlisle solo hit).
But the music is only half the fun.
“Head Over Heels” — which premiered in 2015 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and played Broadway a few years later — isn’t your standard-issue jukebox musical like “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Jersey Boys” or “Beautiful.”
In one gleefully overstuffed package, you get thwarted young love (“The Fantasticks”), Renaissance Fair hijinks (“Into the Woods”) and colorful gender adventures (“Rocky Horror” and “Kinky Boots”).
Jeff Whitty, author of the book for “Sesame Street” adult parody “Avenue Q,” wrote the original “Head Over Heels” book. James Magruder then adapted it for Broadway, where it was directed by Michael Mayer. It was Whitty’s idea to pull characters and plot elements from “The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia,” a 16th-century romance by Sir Philip Sidney (from which Shakespeare also stole), and set the convoluted tale to a Go-Go’s score.
Here’s the setup. Bossy King Basilius (Oscar Salvador Jr. at Constellation) and independent-minded Queen Gynecia (Fran Tapia) have two unmarried daughters: the plain Philoclea (Ariana Caldwell), who loves dorky shepherd Musidorus (Harrison Smith), and the glamorous Pamela (Julia Link), who mainly loves herself. The king and his somewhat savvy viceroy Dametas (Stephen Russell Murray) visit flamboyant Oracle Pythio (Nico Ochoa), who foretells in riddle form four calamities that will befall the royal family and lead to Arcadia losing its “beat.”
Our initially bewildered hero is Musidorus, who goes from karaoke loser, singing “Mad About You” with three backup sheep, to — disguised at nonbinary Pythio’s direction as blond Amazon Cleophila — the obsession of both the horny king (Musidorus: “My beauty has bewitched thy father”) and sexually reawakening queen.
Gaining access to the sister princesses as a woman — and after saving the day by decapitating an angry lion — Musidorus eventually reveals his identity to a thrilled Philoclea. Fulfilling another prophecy, Pamela’s handmaid Mopsa (Rebecca Ballinger), Dametas’s daughter, confesses her love for her clueless mistress.
Rejected by the horrified Pamela, Mopsa declares, “I shall follow my inclinations and sail on a pleasure cruise to Lesbos,” only to return in a little rolling boat singing “Vacation” (“Vacation, all I ever wanted/Vacation, had to get away/Vacation, meant to be spent all alone/A week without you/Thought I’d forget/Two weeks without you and I/Still haven’t gotten over you yet”).
This, may I say, was perfect. Next, Pamela freaks out big-time to “How Much More” and is flooded with love for Mopsa (Link has more to do than anyone and knocks her role out of the park). Both happy couples and the rest of the cast close out the first act dancing to “Our Lips Are Sealed.”
Like “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” at Signature, “Falsettos” at the Keegan and several other D.C.-area shows, Constellation’s production of “Head Over Heels” is timed to coincide with WorldPride. Program warning: “This production of ‘Head Over Heels’ also includes inferred strong language, brief moments of simulated sex and violence and flashing lights.”
Well, there are a lot of double entendres (mostly groaners) and women kiss and at one point the king and queen make jokey sex-act silhouettes behind a scrim. But the tone —accompanied by the catchy tunes of the (majority hetero, in case you’re wondering) Go-Go’s, belted out with genuine enthusiasm — is light throughout. (There’s one exception, unrelated to “adult content,” near the end.)
It’s so light, in fact, that former New York Times chief theater critic (and gay Boomer) Ben Brantley gave the Broadway production a lukewarm review, calling it “at heart a tamed version of the period spoofs made popular decades earlier by drag artists like Charles Ludlam and, later, in floor shows at the Pyramid Club.” What’s more, Brantley had to apologize for offending the nonbinary and transgender communities.
The Constellation program gets it right, calling the show “an unapologetic celebration of queer joy in all its forms.”
Constellation’s Founding Artistic Director Allison Arkell Stockman directed the production, the company’s last at the 150-seat Source, recently sold by nonprofit CulturalDC. Pianist Walter “Bobby” McCoy conducted the unseen five-member band, which took care of business with flair. The upbeat, often intentionally silly choreography, featuring ensemble members Jordan Essex, Caroline Graham and Cristen Young, was by Maurice Johnson.
Samuel Klass designed the storybook set and Frank Labovitz the fairy-tale (both meanings) costumes. Designer of the puppet sheep, snakes and lion Matthew Pauli deserves a shoutout too.
Head Over Heels
Through June 1
Source Theatre,1835 14th St. NW
constellationtheatre.org