WaLTZiNG THRoUGH LIFe
​
It is 1900 in Sweden, approaching midsummer. Does a 50-year-old show based on a 70-year-old movie, which is set 125 years ago have anything to say to us today? What can a waltz score in ¾ time, with soldiers and servants and a Greek chorus of singers have to do with our own modern lives?
I think three things (which is an appropriate number for a waltz musical) - Folly, Age and Grace.
Folly: The theme of Folly appears throughout the show. A young girl impulsively decides to rescue an uncle figure - a middle aged lawyer and widower - from sadness. Sweet, but not perhaps smart. The middle aged lawyer agrees - again perhaps understandable, but none too wise. They persist in their mismatched, unconsummated marriage out of a combination of real tenderness and inertia. Meanwhile a narcissistic, jealous and duel-prone soldier pursues serial extramarital affairs in full view of his compliant wife, who while seething with resentment nonetheless loves and desires him. A vivacious actress has relationships with both men while barnstorming the country in a touring French sex comedy, while her own bedroom farce plays out in real life, leaving her tween daughter to be raised by the grandmother. One might rightly ask “Why?” Well, humans are complicated. People can love each other but also be mismatched. Passion is often transient. Humans can have self insight and still not act on it. Narcissists don’t always lose. We don’t use the word folly much in our modern lives, but the rampant lack of good judgement and behavior in this play feels pretty eternal. Shakespeare, Bergman and Sondheim all know that humans are– pretty regularly– foolish.
Age: Passion and perspective at different ages in life is also a theme. Our young lovers Anne, Henrik, Petra and Frid are seized by passions. Henrik has an intense love of sad music and deep philosophy. Anne gushes with upbeat enthusiasm and wonder for whatever is happening around her. Petra may be a servant, but she moves through the world with a knowing open mindedness, seizing opportunities for pleasure and experience wherever she can. This youthful zest is in contrast with the middle-aged characters’ ambivalence. The lawyer has trouble making up his mind, or the Countess who would like to leave her philandering husband, but feels she can’t. Meanwhile the aged dowager Madame Armfeldt has no real decisions to make, but rather looks back on her long life with a mix of fondness for her past adventures and confusion about what it all means in the end, trying to make sense of her life mostly by distilling it into maxims for her grand-daughter (“Never marry or even dally with a Scandinavian. They are all insane.”) Old age comes for us all, and prompts a reckoning with how we have lived. We start out as wide-eyed Juliets, and end up playing the old Nurse, all too soon.
Grace: Do humans deserve a happy ending, a reshuffling of the mismatched deck so that it all works out right by the finale? Not really. But sometimes things work out - at least for awhile - not because we deserve them to, but because of Grace. We get lucky. Something - maybe the smell of a midsummer night, a chance encounter, or a weekend in the country - will knock us out of the inertia of habit and fear of the unknown that has kept us chugging an unsuccessful path.
So, as the play waltzes on its foolish and witty way, see if you recognize these eternal themes in your own life, and if Sondheim’s brilliant lyrics rhyme with your own human journey. I bet they will. And may the summer night smile on us all when we need it most.
