The Melody Lingers On

I am the first to admit that the plotlines for most Broadway Musicals are usually a little thin and that not a few are just not that memorable. But for me, there are a few that rise to the top and which stand the test of time. Surprisingly, none of these four shows have much plot at all. In fact, Barnum, Wicked, Chicago and Cabaret are really very episodic in nature. But for each show, there is something elusive that holds everything together and makes being there in the theater in the darkness of the audience a thrilling experience.

Of course, there is the music and the memorable lyrics. Great Broadway songs create these wonderfully memorable moments. Long after the final curtain has fallen, the melody and the words stay with us, because we can still picture the characters and the setting and the moment we first heard their song. I remember especially the scene near the end of Wicked, in which Elphaba tells her friend that she had left "...a handprint on her heart..." and that her life had been irrevocably changed... that "... [Elphaba] ha[d] been changed for the better... ha[d] been changed for good." Phineas T. Barnum is a delightfully drawn character and he is able to express the wonderful sentiment that so many men feel about their spouses.

"We're out of step
We disagree.
What's right for you, is wrong for me.
I wonder how we made it down the aisle.
But I like your style.
I like your style."

Sometimes all the elements come together is a delicious blend of dance, music, scenery and storytelling. Wicked does exactly that. The scenery is imaginative. The major characters evolve and change and come to terms with the world. Fiyero, Glinda and Elphaba come from different directions but find out that in our lives, very few things that we want are exactly what we originally believe them to be. And when Elphaba finds her own voice as an individual at the end of the first act, in the song "Defying Gravity" the theatrical moment is simply exhilerating, as she rises above the stage in her moment of defiance against the Wizard.

Of course, Chicago and Cabaret have a flavor all their own. In Chicago, the good guys are few and far between. Roxie, Velma... hell, all of the characters except for Amos, possess less than sterling qualities. But they are the folks you have to love as much as you have to dislike them. There is something deliciously wicked about them. We are enthralled by people like that. Like them, even we sometimes get caught up in "...all that jazz.."

I especially love the moment in Chicago when Roxie sings "Me and My Baby." Out in the audience, all of us knew she was lying through her teeth, playing to the press... selling her personna like a performer on the stage. And I loved it and I loved seeing her pull it off. Nothing is quite so entertaining as to watch a Roxie pull off a really huge scam really successfully. It is awful and wonderful in the same moment.

I probably should have included such shows as A Chorus Line and Cats in my list of most memorable shows. In A Chorus Line, three of the dancers perform the hauntingly sad song, "What I did for Love" and force us to reach into our own memories.

"What I did for love,
The sweetness and the sorrow,
I did what I had to do.
But I won't regret
What I did for love, What I did for love.

Look, my eyes are dry.
The gift was ours to borrow.
Wish me luck, the same to you.
Won't regret, can't forget,
What I did for love.
What I did for love.
What I did for love."

The final production number in A Chorus Line certainly ranks as one of the must see moments in Broadway musicals. The dancing and the constumes in Cats are unforgetable. Anyone who has ever heard Elaine Paige perform "Memories", the signature song from Cats, knows that from the first hearing, the song is hauntingly embedded in one's own memory.

I like to say that I have learned a lot about what I know about life from Broadway show tunes. And I must also say that I have enjoyed some of my most supreme moments of pleasure when I have had the privilege of sitting out there in the audience at performances of these shows. Believe me folks, it doesn't get much better than that.