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My Favorite Broadway Ending

 Great writing sometimes seems prophetic; "Caroline, or Change" described New Orleans's "sea level issues." These descriptions arrived on Broadway *before* Hurricane Katrina. "Caroline" also imagined the toppling of Confederate monuments--imagined this long before the George Floyd years.


Tony Kushner's extraordinary creation, Caroline Thibodeaux, is damaged by war, racial injustice, and domestic abuse. She has a working heart and mind--but it's simply too costly to show her heart to the world. She says this explicitly to the audience: "Some folks go to school at night--some folks march for civil rights. And I don't....I can't hardly read...."

Caroline's nervous breakdown seems to be a tip of the hat to "Gypsy." The title of the song even echoes "Rose's Turn"; Kushner uses the tag "Lot's Wife." But "Caroline" takes a step beyond "Gypsy," because it adds a musical Epilogue. Kushner--a friend of Maurice Sendak--understands that inanimate objects can talk and that people can *become* talking objects. ("In December I will be....a baubled, bangled Christmas tree...with soup bowls draped all over me....") So Kushner sends Emmie Thibodeaux, his "Gypsy Rose" character, to a debate--a chat with a talking Confederate statue.

I say: Evil, you've got to go.
Evil answer: Who says so?
I say: Emmie. Emmie Thibodeaux.
I'm the daughter of a maid--
In her uniform, crisp and clean.
Nothing can ever make me afraid.
You can't hold on, you Nightmare Man.
Your time has passed--now on your way.
Get gone and never come again--
For change come fast and change come slow--
But everything changes.
You've got to go.

What gives me goosebumps is the idea that Emmie is defining herself. She is deploying language. When the statue asks, "Who says so?" ...the statue does not expect an answer. But Emmie is ready with her intellect.

Emmie then softens her voice. ("Don't wake Mama. Let her sleep. Let her dream.") In a last act of compassion, Emmie sings to (and for) her mother:

I'm the daughter of a maid.
She stands alone where the harsh winds blow--
Salting the Earth so nothing grow too close.
But--still--her strong blood flow--
Underground, through hidden veins--
Down from storm clouds when it rains...
Down to Larry and Emmie and Jackie and Joe--
The children of Caroline Thibodeaux.

In the final minute, we see that this entire evening has been Emmie's story. She has moved beyond her anger to a sense of clarity. And this has been achieved through the help of Caroline (despite Caroline's role in generating *new* anger). The sound from the orchestra swells--and Emmie leaves the stage.

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