Falsettoland / About Time Lyrics – March Of The Falsettos

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Falsettoland / About Time snaps open Act II of Falsettos like a flashlight in the dark. The house lights are out, Mendel strides onstage, and—with one bright beam—he inventories the tribe we left behind two years earlier. This overture is a cheeky census, a culture-clash parade, and Marvin’s first honest confession that adulthood is overdue. Below, the original margin notes are reshaped into a flowing essay so the Falsettoland / About Time Lyrics breathe, banter, and break our hearts anew.

Spotlights & Roll Call

Homosexuals / Women with children / Short insomniacs / And a teeny tiny band.

Mendel literally hunts these types with his torch, swinging it over the audience—a meta wink at musical-theatre demographics. Each label reunites a character: Marvin and Whizzer under “Homosexuals,” Trina (plus Jason) for “Women with children,” Mendel himself for “Short insomniacs,” and the onstage trio of synth, reeds, and trap kit as that “teeny tiny band.” The gag feels harmless here but will echo, far darker, when AIDS descends in Act II’s finale.

This story needs an ending.

A sly nod to history: Falsettos once lived as three separate one-acts (In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, Falsettoland). Act II is the trilogy’s final panel, the place where every dangling thread—sexuality, fatherhood, bar-mitzvah glee—must tie itself off.

New Neighbors, Same Dysfunction

Spiky lesbians… Woman internist… Shiksa caterer… Who is trying to expand.

Enter Dr. Charlotte, an internist whose white coat will soon double as Whizzer’s lifeline, and Cordelia, her very non-Jewish girlfriend hustling “nouvelle bar-mitzvah cuisine.” The women face front, pitching their services directly to us; it’s comedic foreshadowing that Cordelia’s kugel will flop even as her compassion rises.

Reagan, Cartoons, & Reprise

Nancy Reagan – meanest and thinnest of the First Ladies… Ya-bah-dah-bah… It’s the ’80s.

The calendar flips to 1981. Whizzer inflates a punch-bag Nancy, then decks it—an act both campy and searing when you recall the Reagan administration’s silence on AIDS. The caveman chant (“Ya-bah-dah-bah”) riffs on The Flintstones, a Stone Age sitcom revived on 1980s TV; it underscores how our adults still play at prehistory even as modern crises loom.

Love’s Revolving Door

Lovers come and lovers go / Lovers fight and sing fortissimo.

Three pairings orbit the lyric: Mendel-Trina (now married), Charlotte-Cordelia (freshly introduced), and Marvin-Whizzer (estranged but chemically unfinished). “Lovers go” slips in a death omen for Whizzer, while “fortissimo” reminds us these arguments land loud.

Central Park & Gay Visibility

Congregate in Central Park / Pretty boys are in demand.

Early-’80s Pride parades often ended with rallies on the Great Lawn; the line stamps the show’s queer geography on Manhattan’s green heart. Mendel’s pointed nod to Whizzer under “pretty boys” doubles as commentary on a suddenly scarce dating pool—a scarcity about to worsen under the shadow of AIDS.

Domino Houses & Grown-Up Promises

[Marvin knocks down their homes … domino chain reaction]

Even after two years, Marvin’s petulance tips the set like toy blocks, visually declaring that one childish shove can topple every carefully rebuilt structure—marriage, custody, neighborly trust.

It’s about time, don’t you think? / It’s about time to grow up and face the music.

This is Marvin’s thesis. Act I showcased his tantrums; Act II begins with contrition. “Face the music” quotes Whizzer’s own lament in “The Games I Play,” threading Marvin’s arc to his lover’s earlier insight: reality won’t wait.

Status Report

We called a truce and fitfully we coexist… I still have my son on the weekends… But I don’t have a lover anymore.

A breathless catch-up: Marvin and Trina manage détente for Jason’s sake; Trina still sees psychiatrist-turned-husband Mendel; Marvin sees no shrink except over brisket at Rosh Hashanah. Weekends with Jason soothe him, yet Whizzer’s absence gnaws—When am I gonna get over this? he repeats, proving he hasn’t.

Census, Take Two

Homosexuals… Women with children… Ex-ex lovers… Yiddish Americans… Nervous wrecks!

The whole company stacks descriptors like nesting dolls until everyone onstage shares at least one label. The device underlines interconnectedness: identities overlap, anxieties rhyme, and nobody’s category grants immunity from grief.

Lessons in Love & Law

Learning love is not a crime.

New York decriminalized sodomy in 1980, so Marvin’s line lands with political heft: less than a year separates criminality from legality, shame from potential pride. He’s finally willing to believe affection—whether directed at Whizzer, his ex-wife, or his own son—is lawful in every sense.

The Clock Keeps Ticking

It’s about time… It’s about—

The final cut-off freezes on possibility. Yes, Marvin vows maturity, but the unfinished phrase foreshadows the brutal countdown embedded in Act II. There is, indeed, “about” only so much time left—for reconciliation, for a bar mitzvah, for a life measured in falsettos.