Skip to main content

Broadway

 As my kids get older, I think about words; the work of parenting seems to be centered on words. Attaching nouns to verbs. Giving explanations, but also modeling how a sentence is built--so that a child can build her own sentences, with ease, sooner rather than later.


The musical "Fun Home" looks at words--how they can be weapons or tools. In one scene, young Alison pulls out a sketch for her father. She clearly has talent, and she wants some recognition. Her father is mentally ill, and he tends to destroy anything in his path. He begins to lecture Alison on shading and scale; eventually, he becomes flustered, and he suggests that the current draft will be a source of embarrassment. Alison will take the draft to school, and the other kids will laugh at her. It's a brutal scene.

Later in the evening, Alison confronts her mother. She wants to know how Mom has survived decades of emotional terrorism. There is a complicated accusation within this question: "You have been complicit."

In the extraordinary climax of this show, Mom admits that she has been foolish:

Days and days and days--
That's how it happens.
Days, and days, and days--
Made of lunches and car rides
And shirts and socks
And grades and piano--
And no one clocks the day you disappear.

The run-on syntax makes a point: Mom's despair was inconspicuous. It was lost among the dirty socks.

Mom looks more closely at her passivity; she understands that she has wasted her years with a gay, angry man who doesn't love her. 

Days...
Made of bargains I made because I thought, as a wife, I was meant to--
And now my life is....
Shattered and laid bare.

In the beautiful, painful ending of this song, Mom makes clear why she is (bravely) telling her story. She turns to her daughter and says, "Don't you come back here. I didn't raise you--to give away your days--like me."

Judy Kuhn lost the Tony Award--I think because two of her own co-stars were crowded into her category with her. The prize went to Ruthie Ann Miles. It was great fun to see Kuhn, in her fifties, taking control of a Broadway stage; I think she stole the show.



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

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more