When I was a kid growing up in the ’50’s, my parents had a huge piece of furniture parked in the living room that we called the Hi-Fi (High Fidelity). What I remember most was the fabulous sound it produced when we played LP vinyl records on its turntable.
My parents had a good-sized collection of Broadway musical records and so I grew up listening to the likes of “South Pacific,” “Oklahoma,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Carousel” and so much more. I remember standing on my father’s feet as he danced me around the living room to the beat of a song from one those unforgettable musicals. It is one of my best childhood memories.
Unfortunately I never got to see one of those hit shows live on Broadway, but luckily for me, many were made into big box-office movies that were easily available at our neighborhood movie theaters, and I went to them all.
It wasn’t until I was 16 or 17 that my mother took me into New York City to see the real thing. I have such a vivid memory of taking the Long Island Rail Road with her to see “Fiddler on the Roof.” I cried through it all and then all the way back on the train. As a Jewish kid whose parents had lived through World War II with the knowledge of the Holocaust and what had happened to the Jews in that war, I was deeply touched by the story and the music in that show. I saw myself somewhere inside it.
I went on to see many other Broadway shows throughout my life and I can honestly say, every time was a thrill. It’s always an opportunity to leave the present world and submerge myself in a story performed in real time by people live and on stage. But not just that, it’s the music, the songs, the voices, the dancing, and the band playing somewhere hidden behind the stage.
I bring all this up because I just attended a production of “A Chorus Line” at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. Now, I’ve had my ear out for years, waiting for a local enough production of “A Chorus Line” to arrive and when this one appeared, I jumped right on it and bought tickets. But, really, Pittsfield? So at first I had low expectations regarding how Broadway-ish this production could be.
“A Chorus Line” is a very special show. It is the story of mostly young singers and dancers whose greatest ambition is to make it through an audition to be selected for a part in a Broadway musical. It’s their greatest dream and desire, but they know they must compete with so many other talented people for the very few openings available in the chorus. The story is about the characters’ lives leading up to this moment of opportunity and how they came to be in this particular audition.
They tell their stories through beautiful song and dance numbers that tear at your heart as they pull you into their lives. The music and lyrics are genius — some funny, some heartbreaking, all gorgeous. At some point you come to see that the actors are actually playing themselves, that they too had to compete to get the roles they’re playing on stage.
So, back to Pittsfield and the Chorus Line production there. Sometimes, you experience something that is so profound, so all encompassing, that you end up at the edge of your seat with tears running down your face. This was one of those moments for me. The cast of about 16 actors, the band, the directing, the staging, were all so close to the perfection of real Broadway, that I found myself in a state of absolute bliss.
I think what I also felt beside the joy of the music, was an enormous sense of gratitude that this small company, the Barrington Stage Co., and this extremely professional group of talented people not only chose to put on one of the best productions of this award-winning Broadway show, but they did it close enough for me to attend. And twice!
Life these days is difficult, we all know that. There’s a costly and unnecessary war that has no foreseeable end, a law-breaking president who is enriching himself off our backs, one who is cruelly ending programs that feed the hungry and provide healthcare to millions, and a midterm election coming up shortly that he has promised to rig in his favor.
Many of us are engaged in efforts to save our democracy from this recurrent guy’s onslaught. But we must take time for self-care as well. So when you get a chance to jump into an experience like I just described, I highly recommend that you take the leap.
Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.