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Dear Carson and Matt,
We don’t know each other, like super well? But every time we’ve spoken you’ve both been nothing but kind and generous and gracious. In that spirit, I wanted to tell you congratulations, as your Broadway show closes this weekend. I thought the work was magnificent. Within minutes of its start, I was suddenly and sincerely reminded of a time in my youth when I was first discovering musicals and saving all of my allowance money to buy cast albums. When literally every show I discovered, (no matter how old) was new. I remembered the excitement of tearing plastic off of CDs and tapes, that lavender smell that floated up into my nose off the print when I opened the jewel case, following along the lyric pages (if they were fancy enough to pack those in) and wondering/hoping I might find a song that I’d enjoy playing or singing to. And I openly wept. I wept because I didn’t know I could still feel that way about our art form and because I think your show deserved better in our collective hands.
I knew it. You had me at the opening. I knew I was going to love it. I wept again when the nostalgia goggles faded and the genuine love I had for these characters, the way this story was told, and my god, these amazing performers pierced through. (Pierced through in fact, that remarkable set and next-level lighting design but more on this later.)
I wept because I didn’t know I could still feel that way about our art form and because I think your show deserved better in our collective hands.
It’s not a secret, but you probably don’t know that adapting historical characters is something I rather love to do in my own work. I think back in 2020 when I was writing about the one time I did a show with Maria Irene Fornes, I created a little guide for myself which I was happy to see reflected in your show too. How meaningful that last night I was in a space with like-minded people, sharing in the beauty of your work, but also sharing an aligned value with its writers.
I mean… it might be impolitic, but I kept finding myself thinking “Okay, I can see how this might not be for everyone… but who could dislike it SO much that they would say it shouldn’t be for anyone? Who would look outside a window or turn on their TV or stare at their device and see what’s going on in the world today and ALSO think “this show shouldn’t be a part of that conversation?” It might just be collateral damage from someone who buys ink by the barrel who has also never written a play in their life, but it’s still tragic. That sings to me as institutional failure and I lament that. I’d say I shouldn’t give those people too much power, but I kind of feel like somebody already has. If I was like, super petty? I’d create a blog reviewing reviews. Laying waste to the ignorance or the presumptions or like, the notion that a critic’s job is to see everything from a lay-person’s point of view and not, as I see it, to create a larger context and simply trust that whoever’s reading already knows what they like.
I kept finding myself thinking “Okay, I can see how this might not be for everyone… but who could dislike it SO much that they would say it shouldn’t be for anyone?
It wouldn’t be that much work, would it? The shit ones tend to betray themselves anyways. But I also kind of wouldn’t wish that on anyone, no matter how much they wish it on themselves when they deal in that kind of currency. I don’t really know how else to put it, and I don’t mean to harsh your buzz but I feel like it needed to be said. Some might say if I was a better friend, I’d focus only on the positive: How your piece aches with poetry, irony, wit, heart. How you riffed in 7/4 like it was breakfast cereal. How you put a decade of your life into making something beautiful because you believed firmly that others would share in its beauty. Maybe I’m doing both.
Anyways, the longer I do this, the more futile it seems, the more necessary it feels that I continue to do it. Which is oddly appropriate considering that one song you made, late in Act 2, Just This Way. It really got its hooks into me… it took my breath away. How much of a flex was that, by the way? Usually turns like that are saved for the protagonist, and you sly devils… you flipped the script. You gave it to someone else, and still made it about her. About both of them. About all of us. And you broke my heart. You just ripped it in two, you bastards. What a wonderfully satisfying, humanizing counterpoint to a world that so frequently compared humans to machines. I see what you did there, you sly, sly devils.
the longer I do this, the more futile it seems, the more necessary it feels that I continue to do it
Anyway, I write this the day after I saw your show, (which by some beautiful poetry was also Tamara Lempicka’s birthday) and I’m still thinking about it. And lamenting the conversations we’ll have lost due to it’s too-soon closing. Which is the second highest praise I can give any show next to wanting to write about it- that I’m still thinking about it. So thanks for both of those things. And for reminding me that new musicals can be fucking awesome.
I spend a huge amount of time these days reading and “evaluating” new musicals, more so than I do writing them, regrettably. This was never my ambition, but whenever I’m asked to evaluate, I don’t feel I have any choice because “what if the guy they wind up getting doesn’t know when he doesn’t know? What if his response to a show that is entirely out of his experience (or heaven forbid was not even made for him) is to downvote it?” It’s happened before. It’s happened to me before. I can’t have it happen again any more than I can’t not jump to my feet and cheer when the curtain goes down on one that has made it to the Great [and very] White Way. Which is where you’d have found me last night at 9:45pm. On my feet, cheering my god damn face off for the two of you and your incredibly gifted cast and creative team. Yes, your run was pre-maturely cut short. But you ran. And that is everything. I won’t forget that. So congratulations again, and thank you.
Love,
Post Script:
You must tell me someday how your lighting designer made that gorgeous blue happen at the end of Act 1. It was mesmerizing and magical and I can’t believe more people aren’t talking about it. I thought I’d imagined it until Laura and I talked about it at intermission. It was like I blinked, and then it was just happening. And then it was happened and I was left feeling vaguely blessed that I’d even seen it at all in the first place. Astounding and appropriate.