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Emily Dickinson Museum, Hozier’s new EP, Amherst

The Emily Dickinson Museum is inside the two houses where her family used to live. The buildings are wooden Victorian mansions, sourrounded by gardens, and within a short walk of each other.

I went with my older sister last week. We took the scenic drive up to Massachusetts listening to the new Hozier EP, which is very good. I love Hozier’s music like, a lot, so it was a promising way to start the day. Especially surprising since his last album came out four years ago.

Listening to these songs made me contemplative. The lyrics are a little melancholic and intense, but they are sung with chilling harmonies and a powerful confidence. I have heard Hozier described as the Edgar Allan Poe of our generation... which really makes me want to read Poe. Hozier is a rockin’ babe and I adore him. His music is so spiritual and cathartic and perfect for driving through New England on a rainy day in September.

Anyway, we got to the museum and a cat who greets all the visitors trotted near us on the driveway. We took the self-guided audio tour around the gardens, which explained how the town used to look, which flowers would have been where, and included some poems by Emily. I learned she was extremely fond of gardening. There always had to be flowers in the house.

We caught the last guided tour of the day inside the houses. Our tour guide recited Dickinson’s poems and walked us through her parents’ house and then her brother’s next door. Emily lived her whole life there.

The tour didn’t go into the lesbian conspiracy theories explicitly, but it did touch on how her brother had a long affair with another woman. His wife was most likely not too concerned because she was preoccupied in a relationship with Emily.

Our guide did debunk specific myths about the poet. For example, people think she only wore white, but this is because later in life it was easier for her to bleach a white robe after gardening. And she wasn’t a miserable hermit, she was a very important socialite at the time.

Something that struck me was how good she was at so many things. Especially writing, gardening, baking, and music. Maybe it’s true that’s all upperclass women were supposed to be adept in these skill sets, but nowadays I feel it’s so customary to get pigeonholed into being « one » singular thing.

I am someone who likes to do a bit of everything. I like writing and gardening and painting and music and art and technology and sports and teaching and learning. At my best, I am infinitely curious.

After the tour, we went to eat noodles and browse a bookshop. We saw the sunset behind the Berkshires and bought flowers from a farmstand. We drove to my grandma’s house and watched Cake Wars. And I felt confident in the multitudes of which I am capable.

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Spongebob Squarepants the Musical

When you walk into the Palace Theatre, you are immediately immersed in the world of Bikini Bottom. There’s multi-colored Christmas lights coiled around the Spongebob merch booth, aquablue steamers decorating the walls, and neon flowers hanging from the ceiling. Even the real lightbulbs in the chandeliers have been swapped out for blue, pink, and green ones. It’s sooooo fun. And that’s just the lobby.

As you find your seat, you realize that attention to detail extends throughout the entire theatre. All the walls are covered in streamers, every lightbulb has been replaced, the speakers are doodled over in marine colors. You’re not just immersed, you’re submerged. Which is probably why David Zinn won the 2018 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design (he did the costumes, too!!!). There is a band playing island ukulele music featuring a large kazoo. On center stage sits a doll-sized pineapple, with the world exploding around it, as if it were just chilling at the bottom of the ocean floor.

Then Patchy the Pirate runs onstage, and the show begins.

I have to admit, I was not much of a believer when I first learned they were bringing the Spongebob franchise to Broadway. In fact, I was disappointed. Like... It felt somehow undignified.

But I was wrong. It’s so good! Ethan Slater uses all of his energy to bring the lovable, relentlessly optimistic, rhombus-slacked sea creature to life. The score is written by a variety of artists, including Cyndi Lauper and David Bowie.

The story follows the Bikini Bottom citizens as a volcano threatens to destroy their home. Chaos ensues. Spongebob and his friends must face their fears and triumph in order to save the day. There’s lots of lessons for both children and adults to listen to about overcoming obstacles, finding inner strength, and showing up for your friends.

Spongebob convinces the town that even though they might only have a short while left together before the volcano erupts, they should try to make the best of their last moments together instead of fighting. After all, any day could be the best day ever.

There were moments during the show when I was smiling so much, I thought to myself, “this is what it feels like to be happy.” These days, that can be a difficult feeling to achieve. When it feels like the world could end and the human species is tearing itself apart, Spongebob reminds us that we all have what it takes to make things a little better.

And, by the way, the show doesn’t end in natural disaster. It ends in bubbles. Sweet, gentle bubbles.

Thank you, Spongebob the Musical, for a spectacular and unforgettable show.

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Carousel

Rogers and Hammerstein pioneered a new formula which revolutionized the stage forever by combining storytelling, songwriting, and choreography with their first smash hit, Oklahoma!, in 1943. Previously, audiences would go to the opera, the ballet, or the theatre. Now, it was possible to do all at once, and the result was the Golden Age of Broadway.

Carousel came two years after Oklahoma! in April, 1945. A new revival production came to Broadway’s Imperial Theatre in December 2017 for a limited 9-month engagement. It has earned several Drama Desk and two Tony awards, including best choreography, and many nominations for all design and performance areas of the production.

The story was adapted from a play called Liliom (1909) by acclaimed playwright Ferenc Molnár, the so-called Oscar Wilde of Hungary. His production was not well-met with original audiences and the otherwise successful writer became depressed. Liliom was his most ambitious work, reaching to the very heights of his spirituality, compassion, and imagination. Molnár was supposedly too sensitive to criticism to write anything quite that grand after that.

“What did he mean by killing his hero in the fifth scene, taking him into Heaven in the sixth and bringing him back to earth in the seventh? Was this prosaic Heaven of his seriously or satirically intended? Was Liliom a saint or a common tough? And was his abortive redemption a symbol or merely a jibe? These were some of the questions Budapest debated while the play languished through thirty or forty performances and was withdrawn.” — Benjamin F. Glazer, 1921.

The play did, however, receive a lot of press and eventually audiences warmed up to the unusual structure. The Rogers and Hammerstein version keeps that same structure, only brings the story from Budapest to New England, and softens the ending to make it more “hopeful” to American audiences some decades later.

And that message of hope in uncertain times, when boundaries between life and death are gossamer thin, is a necessary and beautiful one today. For context, Hitler would die 15 days after the opening of Carousel on Broadway and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be deployed a few months after.

The show, under the direction of Jack O’Brien, features a cast of classically-trained ballet dancers, soaring soprano voices, warm baritone vibrato, and a full orchestra. The choreography by Justin Peck is stunning. The three starring roles, played by Joshua Henry, Jessie Mueller, and Renée Flemming are godlike in their ability, strength, and joy.

From a design perspective, I loved the simplicity of the set and the way Heaven was represented as a thin tulle curtain covered in stars. Nothing was overdone or distracted from the action. The show moved swiftly and never seemed to drag.

This is a story about childhood. Life in the play is depicted as a carousel ride— sweet, and wild, and fun. Until it gets out of our control. The play speaks to the grief that follows when we are faced with decisions that force us to grow up and dissolve our sense of innocence.

The main character, Billy, works at the local carousel until he starts a relationship with Julie, which puts them both out of work. Julie gets pregnant and Billy is frustrated because he has no disposable income. So he is abusive towards her. He even hits her. Then, he comes up with a plan to rob someone in order to provide a decent life for his family, but it goes horribly wrong. Billy commits suicide in order to escape persecution. He goes to purgatory and gets one last chance to redeem himself, fifteen years later.

He meets his daughter and offers her a star from Heaven. When she bewilderedly refuses the strange man’s offer, he hits her. He has failed again. We see that his daughter’s life is not easy without a father. People judge her and her mother. Although her heart is thoroughly broken, the show ends with her graduating from school, where the iconic song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” ends the show.

O’Brian’s choice to cast Billy as a black man and Julie as a white woman, I think, is one that historically defines Rogers and Hammerstein's works. The majority of their shows investigate questions about racism and other social prejudices which prevent love.

This is a dark show. It was scary at times. The themes include domestic abuse and suicide. But the heaviness was balanced sincerely with moments of beauty, love, warmth, tenderness, and forgiveness.

Maybe it is typically American to end with a message of hope. But maybe, that’s also exactly what’s needed.

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm

There's a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on, through the wind

Walk on, through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone

You'll never walk alone