‘Transparent’ ends on musical high note
Left turn for finale to be a musical is in keeping with unorthodox show
Amazon Prime Video announced shortly after the debut of the fourth season of “Transparent” that it would be renewed for a fifth and final season. A few months later, series star Jeffrey Tambor’s run on the show ended following two sexual harassment allegations made against him. The departure was handled with Tambor’s character, Maura, dying.
That’s when the plans for the fifth season changed. Instead of doing a full season, the curtain will come down on the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series with a feature-length finale — with the subtitle “Musicale Finale” — available to subscribers starting Friday.
The Pfeffermans face their life-changing loss with a song in their heart. Series creator Jill Soloway explains that the approach to wrapping up the series as a musical was the best way considering what had transpired. Soloway turned to her older sister, Faith Soloway, to create the music that would be performed by the returning cast of Judith Light, Gaby Hoffmann, Amy Landecker, Jay Duplass, Alexandra Billings, Kathryn Hahn, Shakina Nayfack and Trace Lysette.
“At that time, Faith was workshopping songs. Faith has been writing these songs that come from the heart of the Soloway family saga,” Jill Soloway says. “So it wasn’t just like we stuck some songs onto ‘Transparent.’ We had been dreaming of a Broadway musical one day, and we were starting to kind of imagine the Pfefferman family singing.
“Since the age of 2 or 3, we’ve been sitting around hatching plays together and musicals, and sitting on the floor of our parents’ house dreaming of our own ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ our own ‘Hair,’ our own musical. Now the world will get to see Faith’s musical talent as a composer, as a songwriter, as a lyricist.”
Taking such an unorthodox approach to the finale is keeping with the spirit of the show. Soloway points out that the series was pushing limits from the start when it tackled the topic of being transgender, and this is one last big push. She’s quick to point out the production is meant to come across as a little awkward because that’s how most of her projects feel.
The awkwardness was definitely felt by the cast. Landecker, who plays the oldest Pfefferman sibling, has the first song, and performing it was a terrifying experience.
“I don’t have musical theatre experience. And when we shot it, I was so petulant and angry, and childlike because my fear was so high,” Landecker says. “Talk about risk spaces. This show has always pushed the artists to our limit of expression and creativity, and it’s thrilling and terrifying, always.
“I was laughing looking at the script for the musical going like oh, finally Sarah — I’m not going to have any sex scenes. This is going to be easy. And then it was like, oh, no, now I’m singing, which is way scarier and more vulnerable.”
Jay Duplass, who portrays the middle sibling, was not surprised the show was ending with a musical finale. He has watched during the run of the series how the creative team would push the actors out of their comfort zone every year. The scariness is what Duplass considers a primary factor in “Transparent” being so good. Having to sing gives the cast a new way to express themselves, and that made perfect sense to him.
Having the cast on board doesn’t necessarily translate to fans of the show being happy with such an abrupt turn. The gamble could end up tainting the legacy of the award-winning series. Soloway admits there were numerous pauses along the way to consider such possibilities.
“I remember Jay kind of talking me off the ledge once and saying, ‘Up, up and away.’ I remember my son said, ‘Mom, just swing for the bleachers’ because we could have just kind of said goodbye and backed away and waved and been grateful for the love and the transformation around trans liberation,” Soloway says. “But as storytellers and as artists, I think this was actually not just the finale, but it was our chance to heal together.
“And everything we did, every time we got together and we choreographed or we danced or we sang or we improvised, we were just trying to find our way back to that holy belief that what we were doing mattered and that it was important. I think making it into a musical in some ways just rescued it from being overly serious. We didn’t want to tell a story of Maura’s death that was a complete mourning, that was a sad farewell. We had to come back to joy. We had to find our way back to joy and the musical allowed us to do that.”