When Our Hearts Remember
The Author in a Mellow September Long Ago
Blog 82 - Another moment when the theatre reminds me why it has always been my life.
The Fantasticks, a high school reunion, and the mellow wisdom of look back on our youth
Like some of my blogs, this piece of writing comes from my book, Theatre Is My Life for September 1. I have altered it slightly for today!
[For today’s piece, I highly recommend that you listen to some version of “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks, as El Gallo sings about thinking back to a certain sort of dulcet divine September.]
The Fantasticks has Music by Harvey Schmidt and Book and Lyrics by Tom Jones, and is loosely based on the play The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by Edmond Rostand.
Eventually running for over 42 years, The Fantasticks premiered Off-Broadway on Tuesday, May 3, 1960. Right up my theatrical alley, the allegorical musical combines conventions of commedia dell’arte, romantic fables, and Noh drama with a sparse set and simple costumes — all of which beg audience members to use their imaginations. The plot entwines neighboring fathers who pretend to feud so their children, Luisa and Matt, will fall in love. As young folks do, they fall in love—but become disenchanted with each other until they discover that going through pain and sorrow creates a richer and stronger relationship between them.
To get ready to write this piece, I sat down to listen to a YouTube version of “Try to Remember” by The Brothers Four, and I broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. I have designed the show two or three times (once creating a dress for the future Broadway star Rebecca Luker), and I immensely enjoyed the experience each time.
But my closest tie to the tune is singing it with friends at Camp Winnataska in the mid-1960s, just a mere half-decade after the play debuted. The lovely rendition I just experienced brought the same emotions to my heart and thoughts to my head that I had when I was 15, 16, 17.
“Try to Remember.” When I first wrote this piece, I had just attended my 50th high school reunion, so remembering back to that slower and more mellow era in my life had been a major part of the days leading up to the event. Our Algebra teacher attended the event — it was his junior high math class I was in the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But other memories are happier: creating banners for the football games, getting called to the office for mini skirt measurements, participating in Beatlemania, painting wonderful projects in art class, being escorted to the senior prom with someone I really liked.
“Try to Remember.” Some of the lyrics of the song talk about only a willow weeping way back in this memory, but in high school, so did I—I am a weeper. And looking back on that era, I cry. Not because I want to relive it or be back there; but because my high school friends and I were all such fragile and naive fellows, so innocently unpolished, so caught up in our budding egos, so often phony. We pigeon-holed each other: cheerleader, brain, football captain, student governor, beauty, wallflower, stud. Classmates called me “hippie,” not because I really was one, but because I was artsy, I was different, I was unique. I had dreams of great things for my life in that little dream box beside my pillow.
“Try to Remember.” Fifty years later, we’re all like Matt and Luisa. We’ve gone through suffering and loss. Our hearts are full. One high school leader has had three failed marriages. My date to the prom has died. Many have knee replacements, substitute hips, stents, hearing aids, glasses. Some of my dreams have come true, and some never will.
“Try to Remember.” But, when classmates spoke, they were genuine, soulful, authentic. By then, much of the old ego armor had been shed. Much love was shared. We all remembered. Our hearts remembered those high school days and followed where those memories led. And we looked back with softer eyes.
“Try to Remember.” And now another September has arrived. I am farther still from those high school days, and even farther from the girl who sang this song with friends at Camp Winnataska. Yet somehow, as September begins and those memories float back to me, a few tears roll down my cheek. Now I can look back at my brash young self with something none of us could possibly have possessed in our high school days: the wisdom that age and experience bring, and a large dash of mellow compassion.