All the World's a Stage

There's something about the theater that's been a big part of my life since I was in high school, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is that draws me in. I remember listening to my first cast recordings when we lived in Spain, so when I was about 12 or so, because my brother had gotten interested in theater. I don't remember what the first show I heard was, but I know Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis were among the first - being a girl child of the '80s and '90s meant Phantom and Les Mis were required obsessions. I know the first shows I ever saw were put on by the base's community theater, followed by the school theater, and that my brother had gotten involved in the tech side of things. Naturally, if it was something my big brother was doing, then I needed to do it, too, and so I started out on stage and doing stage makeup. I ended up studying theater in college, even knowing that I would never make a living at it, because as much as I enjoyed it, I wasn't particularly good at it.

This is all coming up because I've been incredibly fortunate to have extremely generous in-laws with season tickets to the touring theater productions that come to Seattle. Last month they had extra tickets to Les Mis and asked if my husband and I would be interested in going. My husband is also a fan of musicals, particularly the more established, traditional musicals like Rodgers and Hammerstein's works and Andrew Lloyd Webber, so we were happy to take them up on their offer. It's been a little bit since I've seen live theater, and it's been even longer since I've seen one of the two core musicals of my teenage years. That went well, so when they had extra tickets to Phantom this month, they invited us and we happily went with them.

I'm happy to say that both Les Mis and Phantom have held up remarkably well over the years. I find myself watching the side characters more than the leads these days, and watching the ways in which an actor can take a part with few lines and turn it into a whole, three-dimensional person on stage. It's not easy (she says from her days in the background) - frequently, Spear Carrier #3 is meant to be human furniture and that's it. But when someone is given the room to make a character their own, that's when you can see magic on a stage. Les Mis had some fantastic actors in some of the "smaller" roles that really helped the show be more than just a series of solos with a bit of plot in between.

As for Phantom? One of the things I've come to realize as I've gotten older is that the Phantom himself is a little over the top. The man is a bit extra, you could say. This production leaned into this beautifully. The fact that the Phantom had an entire writing robe and hat that he wore when he was working on Don Juan Triumphant? Beautiful. He played the character like the undersocialized, immature man-child that he can be, and it makes him that much more sympathetic. The best stories make you feel something for all of the characters and keep them from being two-dimensional caricatures, which this production did wonderfully.

If I could go back and tell 16-year-old me that I would be able to see these shows I obsessed over, live in a theater, multiple times and with a partner who loved them, too, I don't think she'd believe me. I'm very happy that I can surprise young me like this - it's nice to have some good news for her now and then.

Go see live theater if you can! It's an experience well worth having at least once.

The musical Rent 20+ years later

Surprising absolutely no one, I was a theater kid growing up. I think I heard my first musical when I was about 11 or 12, and I never looked back. In 1996, the musical that all the theater kids fell in love with was Jonathan Larson's Rent.

As a kid growing up on military bases for the US and passing for white, I admit that I didn't really get a lot of the themes of the musical when I first heard it. It didn't keep me from listening to it over and over, memorizing the lyrics of "La Vie Boheme" even though I didn't understand all of the references. It was the show everyone was talking about.

This past weekend, I came across the movie of the musical that was released in 2005. I'd seen the show performed once in a theater, but never watched the movie, and so I decided to take a look.

The first thing that hit me was how many of the lyrics I still remembered - it's probably been at least 15 years since I've listened to the cast recording, but there it all was again. The second thing I noticed was how much of a jerk Roger is, holy hell. How that character didn't get just clocked, I'll never know.

Finally, the songs were a little different this time around. I always found the melody of "Will I?" haunting, and listening to it this time was no exception. But the first time I heard it, I was 15 - reasonably healthy, if a little out of shape; starting to feel the first signs of depression and anxiety, but not to the point that they were taking over my life. The idea of wondering if I would die without my dignity was incredibly far off to me.

Now? I'm 36. There are days when the depression and anxiety work together in their efforts to destroy me. My physical health is full of chronic problems that flare whenever they want to, meaning a "good" day could mean only needing a cane, or having a headache that doesn't leave me longing for the dark and the quiet. I've watched parts of my family come apart, and worked on creating a family of my own. The questions of that song are a lot more relevant to my interests these days.

Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?