Those that know me are aware that I'm not one of those movie buffs that can go around quoting most lines from the latest cult hits, and I don't have two dozen show tunes at my fingertips, ready to sing for karaoke. So, I'm not one that spends a lot of time watching those types of things.
This weekend, though, I had the very unusual opportunity to see two movies and two theatre productions.
The first came on Saturday night, when two friends called saying they had an extra ticket to go see Camelot over at Gammage. The show was going to start in an hour, so I didn't have time to think about it much, but a new opportunity is, of course, better than no opportunity.
Upon arriving at the theatre, I saw large banners hanging outside advertising the show, featuring a concerned Lou Diamond Phillips dressed up in royal regalia. I saw then that the musical was done by Lerner & Lowe, and I thought, "Ah, how old school." It'd been forever since I'd see one of those old Broadway shows. Shortly after taking our seats, a couple sat down just to my right, and the man asked his girlfriend/wife/mistress/etc., "Camelot? What is this show, play, musical thingy about?" I resisted my temptation to give him a pitiful glance and quietly rolled my eyes instead.
Not having seen the musical, and having seen the serious poster, I was expecting something dramatic, but the show was most funny, with lots of typically cheesy songs, a few silly dances, and some type of romantic trouble between the main characters. But as generally light as it was, it didn't really have much of a happy ending. Perhaps, then, one would not classify it as a comedy, although I should say that one of my companions said that he'd seen other much darker productions of the show.
On Sunday, I went with a group from the church I sing at on Sunday morning to see a local theatre production about an Episcopal priest and her 26 year old son that can't seem to let go of his adolescent wanderings. The theatre company promoting the show spent a lot of time trying to hype it to a lot of the churches in town, and they seemed to play up the fact that the son in the show was gay, thinking that this, perhaps, would make it fit in well with their edgy plays they usually do there.
I was the only person in the group that didn't much care for the show. The acting was adequate, although feeling a bit like watching people pantomime through their parts, but the cast did a fair enough job of conveying a sense of the characters and their stories. The writing itself, though, was simply not good. The play seemed mostly about preaching a particular, very liberal, theological message, and therefore was lacking in subtlety, although the core idea was intriguing - although perhaps a bit too complicated a situation to be believable. None of the characters were truly likable in the show, as they felt very much like opportunists who were entangled in their own sophistry. There was an audience discussion that followed, and none spoke much about the theological agenda that the playwright seemed to be pushing, even though some in my group found this to be pretty glaring - but many in the audience were interested in the fact that the gay relationship in the show was treated as such an everyday, normal occurrence and not at all the center of the show's drama. In fact, the show wasn't about this controversy at all, although it did address it indirectly through a few sideswipes at evangelicals (who seemed to be quickly dismissed as not grappling with the whole truth of the historical Jesus). To its credit, the show asked a lot of questions, but didn't provide a lot of answers.
On Sunday night, I got another call from my Camelot-watching friends to go see a movie. They both were pulling for some chick flick about more than several dozen bridesmaids dresses, which I thought would be an interminably saccharin, even if I could assuage my revulsion with several happy doses of milk duds. Instead, I pressed for the teenage-angst filled Juno, which I knew nothing about, but I'd rather see a teenage girl in crisis over her surrounding drama than watch grown adults get worked up over wedding costumes. (Plus, Jason Bateman is just dang hot.) One of my friends warned me that if the movie were depressing that I'd have to pay for his tickets to see the bridal show.
Thankfully, the film was really wonderfully done. Ellen Page and Michael Cera were especially adorable in their very different roles, with Page doing an especially fine job as the brilliantly flippant, but multifaceted, young woman. The movie was quite sensitive in its forthright presentation of the controversy surrounding a teenage pregnancy, and it didn't seem to rely on hackneyed plotlines for its dramatic motion. It was a hopeful presentation without offering a deus ex machina solution to a complicated issue.
One friend I've been spending a little more time with lately seems to think that I haven't seen a lot of movies, and seems determined to help me with this. He was scandalized that I hadn't seen Brokeback Mountain yet. (I couldn't bring myself to do that without a proper boyfriend to see it with - or at least a cherished fruit fly). I think he's determined to have me see a few more gay-themed films out there, so he happened by a copy of "Mambo Italiano" at BigLots on sale for $2. What 30-something queen couldn't pass up a deal like that? (Of course, one wonders why a 30-something queen is in BigLots - but I'm sure that's another story for another time.)
This is an older movie, one that I hadn't heard of - perhaps because it's Canadian. It was cute, but mostly repeated the formulaic ethnic family trying to adjust to what is painted as the less traditional culture of the New World. Sure, the twist was that the son was gay and in love with a boyhood friend, and the whole show was about all of that controversy. It was funny, and also didn't offer any easy answers, but also didn't have any type of twisted or maudlin overtones, perhaps like a David Leavitt novel.
The one thing I most took away from each of these shows was a lack of happy endings. I don't think any of them solved any of the problems that were initially presented - which isn't to say that the characters didn't make progress.
In this way, I think each of these commentaries on the human condition did a decent job of it, because I don't think there are ever times where any situation can be easily solved through several easy steps. Making a choice to do one thing often eliminates the possibility of doing something else: the romantic involvement with one person means that you close yourself off to other opportunities, the choice of college profoundly shapes one's world view, leaving a career path for something you love more makes for a lot of short term pain and stress that may not be worth it in the end. Most of all, we don't have any type of magic letter that arrives on our doorstep each morning, telling us what we need to be doing for the day - or for our lives.
I wonder about people who may celebrate success without taking a count of the possibilities that had been lost along the way. I ask, too, if people realize in their everyday moments of humanity that they will not pass by these junctures again - even simple forks in the road where they make a seemingly simple choice of walking along the path to the left instead of the right. Is it a fair question to ask ourselves if any good can happen in the world without a concomitant measure of pain, at least felt by someone, somewhere. Is life like some type of chemical equation where the karma must balance out somehow?
The lack of happy endings brings to my mind this great sort of agnosticism about our choices and their consequences for us, and whether there really is any comfort we can, or should, give ourselves about the situations we find ourselves in through those choices. I actively doubt, although am not convinced, that the joy and good feelings we experience in our lives actually redeem all of the great pain we have - either corporately or individually. Sometimes, all we can say is that our lives are profoundly messed up, and they are not going to be "fixed" - return to where they were before, and even if deep good comes out of a bad situation, is there sufficient good that you would wish the bad situation on others so that they could feel the goodness that you feel?
When I ask myself this in my own life, I have to say that I can't wish my experiences of pain on others, no matter how much I've been shaped by them. I'd instead wish that people would learn the lessons I've had to learn in easier ways than I did - if that is even possible.
Conflict and doubt at the root of ourselves isn't an appealing and catchy idea that can be spread around through evangelical zeal, but I find it more true for me than other alternatives that seem to ultimately offer a rich and pleasant hope without any admixture of hurt or judgment.
Happy endings may not be classically (or typically) beautiful, but they do allow us to appreciate dissonance without needing it to be resolved.
