The Music Man

Last weekend we presented The Music Man. Three sold-out performances, standing ovations. The kids were radiant. Here's what I wrote about it all:




The Music Man

it can often feel that a play exists in performance:
those few minutes on stage,
the dream at the top after you climb the mountain,
and those minutes there are joyously right,
yet we spend much more time on the journey than we have at the end,
and the process is more of us than the product,

during the show I am easily moved to tears
just as when I consider the flower
I feel the spirit who infuses it
and I touch upon seed, root, shoot,
the waiting for the rain,
the reaching for the sun,
the integrity of the self that works hard to manifest sure,

so I consider the show in its entirety:
the choosing of the vehicle,
the auditions as risk is ventured,
the choosing of the cast, making one with many,
the rehearsals, the memorizing,
all the fights to stay focused,
all the vision given from without
and given from within,
the personal and the social as self enlarges,
in character, in line, in song, in movement, in costume, in relationship,
within the womb of lights, of sets and props,
of an audience who believes,
and we come out of a closed individuality
into an openness which lets each light shine bright
and pulls each to join the others until a grandness builds,
as the spectrum complicates, simplifies, and then kaleidoscopes,


the show opens, the lights come up,
and all are dazzled,
laughs and applause bubble out of the audience,
a complete immersion,
and we believe the story real,
the bubble holds us,

when the lights accidentally go down in one scene,
each of us just suspends time and reality till they come back up
and we eagerly believe again,
the audience both appreciates the virtuosity of performance
and lets the virtuosity suspend disbelief
and we lose ourselves in the story,
as the partial works to be whole, as doubt works to believe,
as the cynical finds a connection
and then can choose to be together
and thus resist being alone, forgotten,

after the last show something is over:
we leave the mountain top,
but we remember and are so much better
for the wholeness of the journey,
we are not just of the present:
we are of every moment we have lived,
each moment makes us who we are.

by Henry Walker
February, ‘09