THE STORY OF MY LIFE - Final Performance - 02.22.09

It is no secret that I was a huge fan of this show and I just wanted to write a review to express my love for THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

This afternoon was my fourth time seeing the show. I was fortunate enough to see the show three times in previews ( Feb 3, Feb 11 and Feb 18 ) and a final time today.

The score was absolutely brilliant, with standouts for me of "Mrs. Remington," "1876," "Normal," "The Butterfly," "Independence Day," and "Angels in the Snow." I also loved the format of the book, with Thomas trying to write a eulogy for his best friend Alvin by taking ideas from different stories about their lives. There was also one portion of the show that was repeated three times - the scene right before Alvin's father's funeral - each time that scene was repeated, more information was given and more dialogue was said, revealing more about both characters. I also wanted to mention that at the very beginning of the show, the children's voices say "people say nice things when you die..." and the rest of those lines. Then, during the Mrs. Remington's funeral scene, we get to see Thomas and Alvin say those lines live, and it allows the audience to see/hear where those lines came from in the first place and how their friendship continued to evolve.

I loved the performances of both Will Chase and Malcolm Gets at the first preview on February 3rd, but throughout the preview period, their characterization evolved even more and their performances today were brilliant - absolute perfection. Will Chase completely inhabited the character of Thomas Weaver. He was the successful writer, whose life eventually grew apart from his best friend Alvin, and while they will always have a connection deep down inside, the friendship was never going to be the same as it was when they were kids. Will was enough of a jerk to Malcolm's character for us to scowl at him, but also not enough of a jerk so the audience still cared about him...and he did it brilliantly. Malcolm's portrayal of Alvin Kelby allowed the character to have so many layers and the audience was always on his side. We all felt bad for him when his sticks would get trapped in the mud instead of going over the falls and we all felt for him when we thought his feelings for Thomas were more than just friends, even though we knew they would never be reciprocated by Thomas. Malcolm had the perfect amount of wackiness in his characterization for us to laugh at him and the perfect amount of humanity for us to love him...and he was outstanding!

Thank you to Brian Hill and Neil Bartram for giving us this piece. Both of you are incredibly talented and I sincerely hope to see more works of yours on Broadway again soon. I would also like to send a heartfelt thank you to Richard Maltby Jr., whose brilliant direction of this piece helped move it along and make it such a wonderful night out.

For those of you on this board who got to see THE STORY OF MY LIFE, even if you didn't care for it, I hope you were able to find something good about it that you will take away with you for the rest of your lives. I, for one, will cherish this work forever and I am so sorry that it was so short-lived on Broadway. For those of you who did not get to see it, I am truly sorry that you missed out on this heartfelt emotional journey that the cast and creative team took us on every night.

I feel privileged and honored to have seen THE STORY OF MY LIFE four times and I look forward to more seeing shows that have this much heart and this much love on stage.

WAT: were you the young man with the poster who waited at stagedoor?

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nice! i was the girl standing near you with the black hat and blue scarf.

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I believe the final count was 19 previews and 5 performances. This show deserved so much better than that.

pretty sure that's right... i saw it 8 times, including final dress, opening night and today, plus a bunch during it's CT run. i will truly miss this show.

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Updated On: 2/22/09 at 10:50 PM

LOL. I fell in love during the out of town run. :)

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Here, here. We're all sad to see it go. I did not deserve to leave us so quickly. Please let there be a CD!!!

Thanks for that wonderful post, WAT. I agree with every single word you said. I'm sad that the show closed so soon (I'll feel depressed when I pass the Booth next week), but at the same time, I'm delighted that I at least got a chance to see it during previews. I'll cherish that experience for a long time to come.

Do any of the Broadway souvenir shops sell the windowcard? I checked Triton Gallery, but they don't have it (yet)...

Can't stop thinking about this show...I miss it so much.

For a final word on STORY OF MY LIFE, this from today's Peter Filichia's Diary.

It offers a tribute to a show that (at least when I saw it) played as intelligently written, and layered with genuine emotion. Other shows may have closed prematurely, but the failure of STORY OF MY LIFE is particularly grievous.

I could not get the link to work so here is Peter's article in full:


Peter Filichia's Diary
February 23, 2009
My Story on The Story of My Life

It was last Saturday afternoon, 1:50 p.m. at the Booth Theatre, where I was sitting in my fourth row on the aisle seat. Suddenly a man came down that aisle and crouched next to me: Jack M. Dalgleish, one of the producers of The Story of My Life.

“Peter, thank you for coming,” he said solemnly, before adding that, yes, he and his co-producers were closing the new musical after a few performances. They felt that the money they hadn’t spent could be put to better use by making a cast album that could spur further productions; that would give the investors some return. I nodded in understanding, and said few sympathetic things before Dalgleish went on his way. Soon
after, though, Richard Maltby, Jr., the show’s director, came down that same aisle to say, “Peter, I really want to thank you for coming.”

That’s what happens with a box-office failure, doesn’t it? The people involved “thank you for coming,” the way relatives at a wake show their gratitude when you’ve made the effort to travel to the funeral home.

When a show is a hit, though, it’s the theatergoer who thanks the creators for giving him such a wonderful experience.

But I’d like to thank Dalgleish, Maltby, and everyone else connected with The Story of My Life. It was a smart show that never once mocked musicals or winked at us at how clever it was.

“People say nice things when you die” was its first line, and that’s true of musicals, too. We read or hear of bad reviews and then later attend the panned show and inevitably say, “Well, that wasn’t so bad” – because our expectations were greatly lowered. And that could be why I responded to so much of The Story of My Life.

But I don’t think so. There’s that famous expression that God is in the details, and, God, this story had them, thanks to bookwriter Brian Hill and songwriter Neil Bartram. They spun the tale of Thomas and Alvin, best-friends since childhood – but not now and forever.

Early on, Thomas told us that he went away to college while “Alvin stayed behind.” That expression says a great deal, because it’s a value judgment that shows Thomas believes he made a superior decision by leaving town – which started him feeling superior to Alvin, too.

But why must staying in the town in which you were born immediately imply inferiority? Alvin always loved books and inherited a bookstore from his father. That’s a fine way to spend a life. I’ve lived exactly half my life in the suburbs, and half in the Big City, and I can say with assurance that there are charms to be had in each place and lifestyle. Instead of judging one to be better than the other, each should be cherished for the wonderful things it offers its citizens.

(City-dwellers: Ever shopped in a suburban supermarket with its wide
aisles and wider choices? Heaven.)

From the ages of actors Will Chase (an excellent Thomas) and Malcolm Gets (a wonderfully quirky Alvin), we could tell in what era they grew up, but Bartram gave us a detail that grounded us: “Back then, a teacher hugged you when she wanted you to feel good.” Nice, and a fine tribute to “Mrs. Remington,” the score’s loveliest song. And where did they grow up? “Every single year, we made angels in the snow” was Bartram’s clever way of letting us know it was the northeast, perhaps somewhere near Bedford Falls, New York.

Why mention there? Because even at their young ages, both Thomas and Alvin had enjoyed Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life before they met. How’s this for a charming detail? Thomas showed up at a Halloween party dressed as Clarence, which thrilled Alvin to no end. And how was Alvin dressed? As his mother – who’d recently died. What a poignant way of telling us how much she meant to him, and how he needs to keep her alive in any way he can. Another fine detailed lyric underlined this: “When
you’re a kid, your world is your parents.” True enough.

Are you having a hard time swallowing that contemporary men would be so enamored of It’s a Wonderful Life? After all, many of today’s thirysomethings grew up utterly refusing to watch any black-and-white movie. I doubt that the answer is that they saw the colorized version, but that Alvin and Thomas were old souls. Such people do exist, and
though we rarely encounter them in art, we should applaud Bartram and Hill for giving these atypical people to us.

The lads were greatly affected by good literature, too. Made sense; Alvin’s father owned that bookstore, and (here was another nice detail) he was famous for sizing up a customer and guessing what book would influence or even change his life. Alvin did the same with Thomas, introducing him to Tom Sawyer, which Thomas loved. When assigned a book
report, Thomas chose this book that was originally published in 1876, saying that, “Because that writer wrote this one amazing story, 1876 was so much better than 1875.” Think of the lyrics you’ve heard in recent years. Tell me you’ve heard many as creative or as interesting as that.

Some criticized the story for not having enough drama. I found plenty of pockets of conflict, including the scene where Thomas wanted Alvin’s opinion on the essay he was sending to colleges in hopes of getting accepted. Alvin knew that approving the essay would set Thomas on the road of leaving town – and Alvin wanted him to stay. But the essay was wonderful, and Alvin knew it. “Send it,” he said – because he wanted for
Thomas what Thomas wants for himself, because he had that much love for him.

Yes, love. Many critics mentioned that the show skirted around the issue of whether or not the boys – and the men they became – were gay. Aren’t there many male friendships – indeed, the vast majority -- where this never is an issue, because the guys simply don’t feel sexually drawn to the other? To deride the friendship for not going to the so-called “next level” isn’t fair. What Thomas and Alvin once had was, as Ed Kleban once
wisely pointed out in one of his best songs, “the next best thing to love” – which, when you come right down to it, is love as well.

Some mentioned that while Thomas was established as straight, there was no statement on Alvin’s sexuality. I could be wrong here, but I saw him as asexual. Such people exist. But, you’re asking, don’t best friends discuss that between themselves? Not necessarily. I’ve known plenty of people for years, even decades, and I still know nothing about their sex lives. Who knows what they’re doing in the privacy of their bedrooms – or what Alvin did in his. But the words “asexual” and “circumspect” were coined for a reason.

So Thomas went away to college and a writing career in the Big City. “Nothing was changing for Alvin,” he said, which was immediately followed by Alvin’s doleful, “Everything changed” – meaning that his life was lessened by not having the chance to share with his best friend. Thomas, though, was too myopic to see that his leaving town
shattered Alvin. That doesn’t mean he should have stayed home, of course, but he should have been more sensitive to what his buddy was feeling.

He certainly didn’t, and that made for an audience-gasping moment at Saturday’s matinee. Thomas invited Alvin to come to New York and visit him for a while, and the homebody was so thrilled with the invitation that he sang in joy for quite some time. Then Thomas asked him – no, told him – not to come, which crushed Alvin.

Granted, there were some good reasons for it; by that point, Thomas was living with Anne, and he never told her that he invited Alvin. (Many women aren’t thrilled at the prospect of some man crashing on the couch.) But more to the point, Thomas and Anne were going through their own problems that would result in a break-up. This sequence, though, was a smart way of showing that destiny sometimes takes a hand in ruining
friendships. Here, Alvin and Thomas needed a break – but didn’t get it.

So how heartbreaking to hear Alvin state some time later, “Another Christmas, another card.” When you think of what this friendship was – and how it devolved into this. But the worst slap in the face was yet to come. Alvin’s father died, and Alvin asked Thomas to write a eulogy. Thomas used a quotation from John Donne rather than putting in the time and energy to write something himself. Don’t forget, too, that Alvin’s father and his bookstore were quite responsible for Thomas’ initially becoming interested in literature, and they provided a stepping stone to his career. Alvin’s father deserved more.

Many criticized Bartram’s score for sounding Sondheimian. In the opening
minutes, to be sure, it did -- and I suspect that’s what got everyone to knee-jerk react with the Sondheim clone charge all night long. I won’t say that Bartram has a unique theater voice, but I would state that the rest of his score didn’t remind me enough of Sondheim to belittle him with that criticism. Yet the lesson is here for all composers to learn: Be careful what you offer in your opening moments; the critics and even the public may make an inference early on with which they’ll be loathe to part, no matter what else you put before them. As for the lyrics, such specifics as “carrot sticks in bunches,” “quilted squares,” and “lamb with the mint marinade” showed me that Bartram didn’t settle for
the first words or rhyme that entered his head.

It’s a Wonderful Life said that every time a bell rang, an angel got his wings. But 36 years ago when Seesaw was dying on the road, producer Joseph Kipness said to Michael Bennett, “Every time a Broadway show dies, Broadway dies a little more.” I felt it here. With the town’s recent rash of campy so-bad-it’s-good musicals, glorified children’s
musicals, and so-called hip musicals, there seems to be no room at all for an intelligent show that wanted to deal with emotions. “Not good enough,” many said. But plenty of the shows they’ve embraced have had many flaws, too – yet these same people greeted any criticisms of these musicals with smiles and dismissive waves.

The Story of My Life might have had a hard time finding an audience under any circumstances, and, sure, it would have been more at home in an off-Broadway house. (That its orchestration included a cello – the ultimate 21st century off-Broadway instrument – would suggest so, too.) But it deserved far more respect than it got.

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