Are you a fan of Broadway musicals? I cheerfully admit that I am. Thanks to my parents, I’ve been an enthusiastic fan since my early childhood. I must have been only 5 or 6 when our family began heading to “summer stock” in the suburbs north of Chicago. Where a shopping mall now sits, musical productions introduced me to the excitement of live performances combining music, lyrics, and dialogue. The most memorable was a production of “Song of Norway,” a musical that opened on Broadway in 1944. It features songs with lyrics set to the haunting music of Edvard Grieg. Those songs have stayed with me my whole life, and as a bonus, I became a great admirer of Grieg’s music.
My parents first introduced me to a genuine theater experience when we watched “South Pacific” at the Shubert Theater in downtown Chicago when I was only 9. In the leading role of Nellie Forbush, starring Mary Martin on Broadway, was Janet Blair, an American actress and singer who played this part for three years in a touring production that popped up in venues all across the country. Chicago was one of the first. We bought the album and played the songs over and over. Rodgers and Hammerstein won my heart right then and there.
Around the time I turned 12, while my family was still living in Chicago, my parents treated us to a production of “Oklahoma!” that I’ve never forgotten. Guess who played Laurey? Relative unknown Florence Henderson, later of TV fame, who was so good that I made a point of remembering her name. We also saw a memorable performance by the revered D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, featuring energetic Brits in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “Trial by Jury.”
When our family moved to LA, and my father died later that year, my attendance at musicals stopped short. But after I returned to Chicago as a teenager, my fascination with Broadway shows revived. Touring companies kept coming to Chicago, and I discovered that I could either attend them with a paid ticket or attend free by becoming an usher.
At that time, ushering was a very casual affair. I could just show up, usually with a friend, and volunteer to usher. I’d be directed to the woman in charge, who would always say “Yes” and find a spot for me somewhere in the theater, where I would check tickets and seat patrons before finding a seat for myself. In this way I saw a lot of Broadway shows, both musical and purely dramatic, during the late 1950s and throughout the ‘60s.
I could of course sometimes pay my own way with my babysitting earnings, and buying tickets became a gift sometimes bestowed by my mother. In this way, I saw “West Side Story” on stage at the Erlanger Theater (later demolished to make way for the Daley Center), and, to use current parlance, I was blown away by its drama, music, and choreography. I’d already attended quite a few Broadway shows by that time, but I’d never seen anything like it.
Other memorable musicals I saw during those years included “My Fair Lady,” “The Pajama Game,” “The Music Man,” and “The Most Happy Fella.” Film actor Forrest Tucker was formidable as music man Professor Harold Hill in his touring production (it ran for 58 weeks at the Shubert Theater). I bought the LP recordings of all of them and played them over and over on my small Webcor phonograph, trying to learn the lyrics. (I saw many dramas during these years as well, but those aren’t within the scope of this post.)
During a brief visit to New York City in 1967, my mother and I saw an exciting performance of the original production of “Mame,” starring Angela Lansbury as Mame and Bea Arthur as Vera Charles. I’ll never forget watching these two phenomenal women dancing together, arm in arm, while they sang “Bosom Buddies.”
Before I changed my life and moved to LA in 1970, I saw a few more Broadway hits in Chicago, including “Man of La Mancha,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Camelot,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”
I met and married my marvelous husband (I’ll call him Marv) in LA in 1971. We shared a great deal, including a love of the theater. During the year we lived in LA, we saw a lot (including a play featuring screen-legend Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln). Remarkable productions of Broadway musicals were, notably, “Company” with an exciting cast and “Knickerbocker Holiday” starring Burt Lancaster. Lancaster, not known for his singing, wrote in his playbill blurb that he’d learned how to sing from his friend Frank Sinatra.
Fast-forward 15 years. Marv and I saw countless plays and musicals while we lived in Ann Arbor, La Jolla, and Chicago. (We also saw the original production of “Grease” during a brief stay in NYC in 1973. That’s a story for another day.)
But I’ll zoom ahead to London in March 1986. My sister had visited London shortly before Marv and I decided to travel there that March. Although I didn’t always take my sister’s advice, this telephone call was different. She enthusiastically praised a new musical production in London called “Les Misérables.” Based on the Victor Hugo novel, the story is set in 19th-century France, where Jean Valjean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. It follows him after he’s released from prison and goes on to lead an admirable life while at the same time he’s relentlessly pursued by a ruthless police inspector, Javert.
Sis had seen this new musical, and she couldn’t praise it enough. “I know it’s expensive,” she said, “but it’s worth it!” Marv was earning peanuts as a math professor, I was “between [my poorly-paid part-time] jobs,” and when I checked, the tickets were $75 each, a real stretch for us. But because of our love of the theater, and because we’d already seen many plays and musicals in London (beginning in 1972) and never been disappointed, we plunged ahead and ordered those pricey tickets.
You’ve probably guessed what happened next. We witnessed the original production of “Les Misérables,” transplanted from a smaller theater to the enormous Palace Theatre because of its gigantic success. Once we heard the very first notes of the overture, introducing the astounding performance we were about to watch, we were enthralled by the phenomenon that has become “Les Mis.”
We were especially enthralled by the astonishing performance of one man: Colm Wilkinson, inhabiting the leading role of Jean Valjean. Wilkinson, a 42-year-old Irish tenor and actor, gained worldwide fame when he originated this powerful role, first in London and later in New York. His rendering of the song “Bring Him Home” made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I’d never heard a performance like his in any Broadway musical I’d seen.
The entire production, including songs like “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” and “Master of the House,” was memorable enough to last a lifetime, and it still thrills me today. My love affair with “Les Mis” led me to see it twice more back in Chicago, taking my young daughters to witness it with me.
Fast-forward one more time: San Francisco in 2023. After moving to SF in 2005, I saw great Broadway hits like “Wicked,” ‘In the Heights,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Something Rotten!” and “Hamilton.” My younger daughter (another theater-lover) and I joyously went to most of these together. A year before the pandemic hit, my older daughter (M) asked me to join her to see “Cats” in San Jose in 2019. Please don’t laugh. It was incredibly good! (It’s unfortunate that the ill-conceived film version has besmirched a great musical that, if done well, should be seen and heard live.)
But the pandemic sadly put a halt to my attending live theater performances.
M has a love of “Les Mis” much like mine, and she knows the history embedded in it (she earned a summa cum laude in French literature and history at Harvard). When a touring company announced that it would appear in San Francisco this year, M knew she wanted to see it again.
Soon I was invited to join M, her husband, and her daughters at a performance in late July, and I jumped at the chance. The pandemic had lessened its grip, and I promised my younger daughter I’d wear a mask throughout the performance.
So I was thrilled last month to see “Les Mis” for the fourth time, about two decades after the second time in Chicago. The production was exciting, and all five of us loved it. Midway through, I began thinking about the man who had inhabited the role of Jean Valjean in my first go-round and searched my memory for his name. “Colm,” was it? During intermission, I glanced at my phone and searched for both Colm and “Les Misérables” in 1986, and I came up with it: Colm Wilkinson.
As we left the theater, I began to tell my family how I’d seen the original Jean Valjean in London, Colm Wilkinson, and just how wonderful he was. As we approached our parking structure, a woman walking near me must have overheard and looked at me in disbelief. Clearly a knowledgeable fan of “Les Mis,” she skeptically asked, “You saw Colm Wilkinson in London?” “Yes,” I replied, nodding. “My husband and I saw Colm Wilkinson in London in 1986.” This woman (I’ll call her W) repeated, with emphasis, “You saw Colm Wilkinson in London in 1986?” I nodded again. Startled and amazed, W felt the need to say something. She blurted out: “Congratulations on your life!” I smiled and nodded again, thanking her for her stunning turn of phrase.
I was indeed stunned by this phrase, one spoken by a complete stranger. On reflection, I want to thank W for saying that I should be congratulated for my life. In many ways, I have indeed had a remarkable life. Watching Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean in London in 1986 constitutes just a tiny part of it. It was an astounding performance, and I’ll always remember it. I was extremely lucky to see him that night. But all that Marv and I did was buy our tickets and sit in the audience, thrilled by his performance.
I honestly hope that the whole scope of my life—what I’ve done to effect positive change for our planet, to sponsor worthy political outcomes, to help people in need, to work for equal rights for all Americans, to be a good wife, mother, and grandmother–in short, to live the kind of life I’ve always tried to live–is what truly deserves, on balance, a small measure of congratulations.
susanjustwrites
Susan Just Writes 