Why do I connect with stories the way I do? They can affect me at a deep emotional level, eliciting constant, dwelling thoughts, giggles, and tears. (I don’t get people who’ve never cried at a movie or a book. Don’t you have any empathy for the characters? Yeesh. )
And yea, I even feel this way about musicals. Some people really don’t connect with these, their viewpoint being - who, in the real world, just breaks into song?? (Me. I just break into song.)
But music is yet another vehicle to drive the emotions, and so sometimes, a musical can touch deeper notes than a story sans music.
Such was the case when last Saturday night we watched tick tick… Boom! The movie, a semi-autobiographical musical about the life of Jonathan Larson, left me breathless. It also left me singing “Come to your senses, defenses are not the way to go” as I lie awake mulling the themes of the piece over at 3am the morning after the viewing. Jonathan Larson composed 1996’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning musical Rent, a retelling of the opera La Boheme set in 1980s New York rather than 1830s Paris, and largely focusing on America’s AIDS epidemic. In the kind of tragic irony that only true life can deliver, Larson passed away in the early hours of the morning that Rent opened off-Broadway. tick tick…Boom! began as a one man show Larson started performing in 1990. Posthumously, the show was rewritten for a cast if 3 and received an off-Broadway run in 2001.
And at the end of 2021, Netflix released a film version of the show (incidentally directed by Hamilton genius Lin-Manuel Miranda), and it was on my to-watch list for a few months. A coworker friend insisted I watch it, and Jon and I have been watching unseen movies on Saturday nights for the last few weeks, so watch it we did.
It’s hard for me to put into words the deep connection I felt with this movie. Despite being a musical theater major, I didn’t realize until about a week ago the subject of the movie. A piece of art about a writer who’s been struggling to write his magnum opus and has been working on it for 8 years? Yeah. Not sure why that would speak to my soul.
It's even hard for me to write about how drawn to this story I still am, five days later. I can't stop listening to three songs in particular, singing them, turning the words over and over in my head. In the end, I suppose that's what it is about this show/movie. It speaks to my artist's soul, as well as my human one. It poses big questions about life in minor key melodies that tickle my brain and envelope my heart.
A big part of Larson’s story is the pressure he feels to get his big break before he turns 30, which at the beginning of the story is just weeks away. He compares himself constantly to Stephen Sondheim, who had his first big Broadway hit at 27. Countless times as a teacher, I’ve both heard and given the advice of not comparing yourself to others, only to yourself. But in the case of Larson, though this comparison does cause swim feelings of depression, it also drives him. The title of the movie (show, whatever) refers to this ticking clock Larson feels counting down until he’s old and washed up. Though looking vack on 29 from 36, it’s like, nah kid, 30 does not make you old and washed up.
Although in Larson’s case, he wouldn’t live to see 36. This eventual tragedy is another puzzle piece that broke my heart throughout. How strongly did Larson feel this sense of running out of time? Was this some kind of cosmic hint to him that he had such a limited amount of mortality? In true dramatic irony, it colored my viewing of the film all the way through, sometimes threatening to draw tears even at happy moments.
As did the beauty of the music. Perhaps this is another layer of the intricacies of why I love this so much. This is a man who, though he struggled, he persevered, and when he wasn’t much younger than I am wrote a musical that defined musical theater in the late 90s and won not just a Tony but a Pulitzer for it (although he was dead at the time).
I discussed with my friend - what would the theatrical world be like if Larson was still alive? If he wrote “Seasons of Love,” “One Song Glory,” and “La Vie Boheme“ at 34 (and my new favorites, “Johnny Can’t Decide,” “Come to Your Senses,” and “Louder Than Words” in his 20s), what would the rest of his career have been like?
I’m willing to bet that Larson would have written the kind of songs that speak to humanity at the soul level, making statements that continued to speak to generations past and present.
So if you've been at all inclined, give the movie a watch. Visit the short life Johnny had trouble deciding about. Live in the mind of this too-soon-deceased musical genius, and award his brilliance with two hours of resurrecting his soul.
"I want to write music
I want to sit down
Right now at the piano
And write a song that
People will listen to and remember
And do the same thing every morning
For the rest of my life" (from Johnny Can't Decide, the theatrical version)
Don't you worry, Johnny. I am listening. And so are many, many others.
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