stage notes: the outsiders
Last weekend, when we arrived home from our hotel weekend, it was off for a quick dinner in a little bar tucked under the L tracks and a production of The Outsiders, a musical I had opted not to get tickets for last time it was in town, but which I spring for this time, even with a much more limited budget for Broadway shows that are usually 2-3 times more pricey than local productions. This one was definitely worth it, and perhaps one of the most awesome stagings in one of the big musicals I have seen in a while. The previous week, we had seen The Notebook, which had impressed with its famous kissing-in-the-rain scene, and at the time, seemed impressive. However, The Outsiders had a rain scene that not only created real rain on stage, but also featured fight choreography that made me realize why it had won the Tony. Not to mention the church fire scene, which was amazingly staged as well. I always gush over the pendulum lights choreography in Hadestown, but this upped the ante considerably even on that, all along with great performances and a style of music I tend to like anyway.
I first read the novel in English class when I was an impressionable 13, and remember my 7th grade teacher rolled the VCR TV into the room to show us the early 80s movie version, complete with a roster of who's who in hot young actors of the 80s. Strangely, I had never come back to it, but what stood out encountering it as an adult is the sociological themes that seem as relevant now as they were when the novel was written (impressively by a very young, wise beyond her years, SE Hinton.) It's novel for the young person who feels like an outsider to every group, the ones who never quite fit in. The young writer who observes the world but is never really a part of it.
Even on the stage, it's a common figure, often because these stories were written by the writers themselves. They're not always writers by trade, but they tell the story, like when we saw The Great Gatsby's Nick Carroway onstage in the spring. Or Chekhov and Ibsen's rather unfavorable view of writers as somewhat ridiculous, scribbling from the sidelines. I have some writers in my own plays. Eleanor in The Yellow Wallpaper. The main character, Claire, in all the best love songs are cheatin songs. One of the characters amid the melee of Indiana is for Lovers is a romance novelist. This distance is something that I usually comment on, or work in some way. That feeling of watching from afar and keeping notes. I have tried to not be the writer in social situations, but it's like trying to change your whole personality. To once be the main character and not watching even yourself from a requisite distance.
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