I cry at musicals

Hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I sat in the dark theater. I tried not to make a sound, not to move or even blink. Not a sniffle, not a swallow, nothing that might give me away. As the song ended and the audience applauded, I surreptitiously wiped at my cheeks, hoping to destroy evidence of my shame before the friend seated next to me noticed.

The house lights came up and Sarah turned to me. “Well, that was fun!” she said. I pretended to be busy gathering my things for a moment but eventually had to look at her. I knew I had been found out, clearly still glassy-eyed and sort of destroyed, wrung out with emotion. “I don’t know why I do this,” I confessed as I blew my nose into a tissue.

Sarah tilted her head a bit and smiled in understanding. “I think it’s the earnestness of the performances,” she said. “Something about the actors’ honesty and bravery.”

I nodded.

“Kids, are you ready to go?” Sarah asked our children, who were seated around us.

“Yes! Yes,” they said, and we exited the aisle.

The show we had just seen was a random local theater group’s performance of High School Musical 2.

The actors were middle schoolers that we didn’t know, in a town that we didn’t hang out in. It had just been Something To Do With The Kids on a Saturday, but it didn’t matter. I had lost it anyway.

In other words: I have a problem.

Often, I cry at totally appropriate moments, like when the cast lines up at the front of the stage and simple piano notes play as the performers sing about five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes. That one is sanctioned by the Broadway Gods, like, yes, this is a moving song, so have at it and weep.

But still, I overdo it at Rent. Like, sure, I cry for the beauty of the sentiment, of time fleeting. But also I cry for Jonathan Larson, who didn’t get to see the success of his musical, while here I am, a schlub sobbing in the seventh row, and it isn’t fair, it just isn’t, that I get to see this creative exuberance that is so life-affirming and he doesn’t, and, while I’m at it, I cry for a favorite English teacher, Lois Van Epps, who died aboard takeoff on TWA flight 800 headed to Paris in 1996, a few weeks before I saw Rent on Broadway with the original cast. I still felt so raw and so shocked about Lois, who was one of the reasons that I became an English teacher sitting in that theater at the age of 26, and so I let the waterworks out.

Earlier this month, my 20-year-old, Z, and I went to see Operation Mincemeat on Broadway. It was incredible, and we were lucky enough to see the original cast (who will be playing their final performance on February 22, so try to see it before then if you haven’t yet!). When Jak Malone began his Tony-award-winning performance of “Dear Bill,” the tears started to trickle. That was fine. I was fine. Z looked over and smiled at me sadly, much as Sarah had done all of those years ago. But, as the song continued, I just couldn’t stop. I sobbed. Like, it was bad, people.

“Oh, so you’re not just crying about the show. I see,” Z said, as they rubbed my shoulder sympathetically but also like, okay, my mom is a little bit of an unhinged freak right now. This moment will pass. Z is a psychology major who gets it.

You see, I’m sad about a lot of things and worried about many others. And Broadway is how I cope.

In a theater, we are alone together in the darkness, simultaneously experiencing an artistic creation that is intended to move us. And I think it’s something about that sense of community that really overwhelms me. I let my guard down in front of live theater in a way I do not do when watching film or TV because the show is being done right then and there and for me, for us. We are breathing the same air and hearing the same person unwrap a hard candy. When someone’s cell phone goes off at a dramatic moment, we all get pissed off at them as one. And when someone holds a perfect note, we applaud together and literally stand up for them.

Last week, I went to see Suffs at the Providence Performing Arts Center because I had missed it on Broadway. The show is about the long and complex battle for American women’s suffrage and feels particularly timely and particularly me-ish. I went by myself, because I couldn’t find anyone to go with and I didn’t actually try all that hard to do so.

And did I cry, dear reader?

You betcha. Was the actor playing Inez Milholand riding a horse with fist raised while wearing a golden crown at the moment I snapped this photo? I’ll never know. Talk about putting the “rage” in suffrage! My anger gave me a whole new reason to sob. (And then find a new seat for Act II.)

The world is in turmoil right now. So protest, write to your state’s leadership, donate, call, start a singing resistance like this one, and be outraged. And then support the arts and go see a musical. Let the beauty and creativity of humanity overwhelm you in the very best way possible. I dare you not to cry.

xo

Julie

Oh — and here’s what I’ve been reading!

And Deep Cuts, which is being made into a film by A24! All of these were great.