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My Favorite Album

My desert-island cast album is "Red," by Taylor Swift.

This isn't actually a cast album--it isn't paired with a musical--but, then, wait. "Red" is sneaky; it does work as a musical.

When she met Jake Gyllenhaal, Taylor met the nemesis of a lifetime; I'd argue no one else, in Ms. Swift's vast galaxy of characters, seems quite as interesting. Gyllenhaal is the Joker, or Lex Luthor. Yes--the Penguin is out there, as well--but no one can really compete with the Joker.

Who wants to hear about love? We're all here to get the details on the breakup. Young Taylor Swift knew this instinctively; she wastes very little time on the happy period. We move very quickly toward the pain.

Take "All Too Well," Taylor's most celebrated number, and a kind of thesis statement for the album. The very first line: "I walked through the door with you; the air was cold; but something about it felt like home somehow...." THE AIR IS ALREADY COLD! It's cold in THE FIRST LINE! Taylor knows we don't really need to dwell on the "meet cute."

At the same time, Jake is a trickster; he isn't all bad, not right away. He "feels like home." He has that "sweet disposition." He sings in the car; he dances around the kitchen in the refrigerator light. He has erotic talents. ("I'll do anything you say.....if you say it with your hands....") If Jake were obviously, fully evil right from the get-go, then we'd lose some suspense. (People have made this criticism of J.K. Rowling's Voldemort, in the Harry Potter books.)

Everything goes to hell--and Taylor uses mesmerizing specificity. Jake is a closeted sadist. He mocks his girlfriend's albums! His girlfriend's albums aren't cool enough! Jake disappears for a month, then claims he "needs space." The most damning thing--and I'll always love this, because it feels very true--is that Jake can't commit to a breakup. He keeps calling and calling and calling! A twist so perverse, Taylor writes not one, but two, songs about it. "Ugh.....so he called me up again last night...and I'm just like....This is exhausting. We are never getting back together." Also: "Every time you reach out....there's no reply...."

Eventually, Taylor meets a new man, and all's well, because this guy knows a great deal about James Taylor, and he stands up when Taylor Swift enters a restaurant. "I thought all love does is break and burn and end....But on a Wednesday...in a cafe...I watched it begin again...." Simple and inevitable, and it just called out to be paired with a short film of Taylor looking wistful in Paris, and then Taylor gave us that short film.

I think "Red" is riveting. It is the one work of musical theater that I'd really, really like to see on Broadway. I write without irony. I just needed to get that off my chest.
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