Halfway Through the Woods
I love Musical Theatre.
I can live in the music and words of musicals for hours upon hours. You can find every emotion, music and lyrics that relate to almost any situation, often within the same show. Les Miserables, for example, brings us despair and hopeless, faith in God, belief in humanity and ourselves and how life-changing that can be. It shows us loneliness and unrequited love, the sacrificial love of a mother for her child, redemption, fighting for something you believe in enough to die for the cause. It explores survivor’s guilt, prejudice, greed. All in the words and music of its songs.
Examples are everywhere and almost endless. Man of La Mancha teaches us to Dream the Impossible Dream. Avenue Q gives us a slice of reality, sprinkled among its Sesame-Street-like neighborhood complete with monsters. We find that some people don’t ever really find their purpose in life and that is okay, that everything in life is Only For Now, both good and bad. Rogers and Hammerstein have a way of teaching us about love and loss and sacrifice in a largely wholesome and innocent sort of way. West Side Story shows the cost of racism, hatred, and prejudice. Fiddler on the Roof explores family, tradition, and change. Dear Evan Hanson assures us that no matter how alone you feel, some is there ready and willing to reach out a hand to help
Even without the messages, the music can move us. It is difficult to resist marching, or at least keeping the beat, to 76 Trombones. I feel along with the characters: the yearning confusion of I Don’t Know How To Love Him; the strength of Maria singing I Have Confidence; the pure cheek of The Cellblock Tango; the joy and hope and romance of Shall We Dance.
There is a Beetlejuice musical, one about Henry VIII’s wives call Six that is a lot of fun, a Heather’s musical, a Mean Girls musical (One lyric says “I’d rather be me than be with you”—isn’t that perfect?) There is a musical song for every mood. I love it.
Which is why Stephen Sondheim’s death recently hit me so hard. Sondheim ‘s surrogate father was Oscar Hammerstein, I learned from an NPR news story about him. Sondheim wanted to be just like him. Not to denigrate Mr. Hammerstein, but I believe Sondheim surpassed him. Sondheim brought truth and complexity to musical theatre that wasn’t there before. From West Side Story to Sweeny Todd, A Little Night Music to Assassins, Company and Follies and Merrily We Roll Along, Sondheim gives us the honesty and rawness of life, dramatized and set to music.
Into The Woods is my favorite Sondheim musical. It follows the story of Cinderella, the Baker and His Wife, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel. It tells their stories up to “Happily Ever After”….and then tells us what happens next. We hear that “wishes my bring problems, such that you regret them”. He tells us that witches can be right, giants can be good, we ourselves must decide ourselves. And that we need to be careful of seeing our side so exclusively that we forget to see things from the other point of view. We learn that you need to “take extra care with strangers, even flowers have their dangers, and though scary is exciting, nice is different than good.” Or this lyric, one of my favorites:
“Oh if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one--!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.”
There is so much more, but I have to stop before I quote the whole musical.
As odd as it is to say at this point, I just can’t seem to find the words to honor him, how he has enchanted and enriched my life. So I guess I will leave you with words of his, from Into The Woods:
“Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may deceive you
You decide what's good
You decide alone
But no one is alone”
Tra La La,
Kat