Young Love

1. I work as a stage manager at BYU; and therefore have been somewhat involved in the preparations for the upcoming production of the Phantom of the Opera. Most of what I have helped with has had more to do with orchestra chairs and hanging curtains, but I have been in the space while the cast and crew have worked through flight rehearsals and so forth. Suffice it to say that it has been in my peripheral for the last month and a half or so.

2. Zeffirelli's 1968 "Romeo & Juliet" is on Netflix. It's actually quite well done. (FYI although it says PG, there is a brief moment of nudity. I still think it is worth watching.) I'm a hopeless Shakespeare fanboy, so even though it is Romeo and Juliet I was pretty excited to watch it. It makes the 1998 version everyone watched in High School look overdone and kitschy (not that it needed any help.)

Two very popular love stories. In fact they are so popular that the hipster bibliophile in me doesn't want to like them. They both showcase highly malleable female characters and relatively weak plot lines. They also sell out theaters time and time and time again. BYU has poured enough time and money into Phantom to do at least two Shakespeare plays at a very high level. (Not that we don't do Shakespeare, I absolutely loved Stephanie Brinholt's adaptation and directing of last season's "Love's Labors Lost") What is the magic of these works? Phantom is a deeply experiential work, lots of rich visuals and vocals. In a way it somehow manages to encapsulate and replicate the deeply moving experience of love. Romeo and Juliet is all about the conflict of love. Conflicting identities, conflicting obligations, conflicting emotions, and at the very last the conviction of love and the converting power of love.

Now don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of other plays/operas/stories out there that hit these same concepts. In fact there are many that do a better job of it. But I think that is why these stories are told time and time again. Why we want to hear them time and time again.

For the first time in my life I am both young, and in love. I've been infatuated before, but I always knew that it was infatuation. There are other works that cover that ground (Midsummer Night's dream anyone?) In a way that I never fully realized, these stories tell some pretty timeless truth. Love is deeply experiential and sensational. A quiet moment together with that special someone can really be like listening to a symphony. (The experience is made manifold when you happen to be listening to a symphony together, but I digress.) Your heart sings songs that only the angels can hear. Love becomes the Phantom and the Opera.

And yet there is terrible conflict. Talk about an identity shift for everyone. In my case I don't have to worry about my girlfriend's family wanting to kill me (at least I hope not) but I have to worry about my own sensibilities driving me away from faith in the future and into fear of the unknown. There are days that my logical self drives my amorous self away to Mantua. But there is also conviction in old Will's story. Courage to face whatever odds because of how you feel. Is there any scene more courageous than Juliet facing the Friars tincture in the name of love? I can't think of one. Eventually love has the power to heal old divisions, and redefine us.

BUT WAAAAIIIIT! You mean to tell me that your fine with all of the silly plot problems? The teenagers who kill themselves, the girl who is in love with one guy when he is with her and the other guy when she is around him? You mean to tell me that Romeo and Juliet were really in "love" after 2 minutes?

No, I didn't say that. I think that people looking at these sorts of things microscopically are bound to find lots of problems. I usually find myself in this pickle. I almost can't help but snicker at the rather large leaps that authors and directors and actors make in these stories.

What I am saying is that when you look at these things macroscopically and conceptually, some powerful things show up. Powerful things that help to justify the masses and the theaters that give them what they want so that they can afford other projects throughout the year.

Young love is powerful, and it doesn't always make sense and we don't really care. It embodies some of the things that we most seek after as humans. We want for someone to love us as deeply as did Romeo and Juliet love eachother. We want love to make us sing like Raul and Christine (even if the song is only in our hearts). We want to be young at heart, and full of life and strength. We want to remember that when love and her courage are lined up toe to toe with circumstance and all its fears, in the end love wins.

So even though part of me would prefer to have BYU pull off "A Doll's House" by Ibsen.
Which is story about love from a whole different side of things, but a powerful one nonetheless, I am excited for Phantom.