Skip to main content

Broadway Guy

"The Bridges of Madison County" was a critically-reviled bestseller, then it was a weirdly-dignified Clint Eastwood movie, then it was an ill-fated musical.

You can say many things about Jason Robert Brown. One thing you could say is that lazy cliches fill his writing: Love-lorn searchers are always wandering in deserts, stopping in diners, living their lives out on the road.

A more charitable thing you could say: JRB writes simply and directly about love, he "risks sentimentality," and he "connects" with many people, with apparent ease, on a regular basis.

"It All Fades Away" is a standard JRB ballad. A troubled lover describes how all of life's diversions fade away in the company of love. "It all fades away with you." Like Sondheim, JRB manufactures a neat twist at the end, involving one small word. At the end, "It all fades away BUT you." (*Correction below.) In old age, the Clint Eastwood character will remember only Meryl Streep. He'll remember nothing else.

Broadway sometimes struggles to find a handsome man with a big voice who can plausibly inhabit the skin of a heterosexual male character. This is why Steven Pasquale is like a unicorn on Broadway. There is no possible "market correction" for Steven Pasquale. The guy can do whatever he wants. Why isn't he a bigger star?

Here's your Broadway for the morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVEkCujOHkg

*On closer look, Pasquale only says, "It all fades away but you." He never says, "It all fades away with you." Well, I did some re-writing in my head, I guess. I prefer my version.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...
2 comments
Read more

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...
Post a Comment
Read more