To my fellow travelers who all watched me silently (or not so silently) weep during the entirety of act two… thank you for standing with me in solidarity.
I mean this in the most dramatic way possible… I think this show drastically changed my life. We had read the short story for class prior to seeing the show and I can confirm that the musical is incredibly different from its source material… in the best way possible. From a storytelling standpoint, the only things that were in line with the source material was the main character (Benjamin Button) and his love interest (Elowen Keene), as well as the Benjamin’s inner need to live a normal life. Everything else had at least a small variation to them. For example, the short story is set in Baltimore, whereas the musical is set in Cornwall, UK.
While so many things were different about this show, I am pleased to report that every single one of these changes worked magnificently. It is extremely hard to take a thirty-page short story and turn it into a two and a half hour long musical. The musical expanded on characters that were barely even mentioned in the short story (for example Benjamin’s mother), while also making sure that this story was not just about a man who ages backwards, but a story about humanity at large. Which is what good art is: hyper specific and yet infinitely broad. From start to finish, I was engrossed. Having a director’s brain, I was obsessed with the many metaphors and musical motifs that had a throughline in the piece. The motif of “what if the moon and the sea were in love” as well as the constant reminder of time and how time waits for no man were particularly striking.
I’ll be honest, I did not expect for this piece to affect me the way that it did. But it was the impeccable set design, which featured many trap doors and versatile set pieces that collided with an innovative direction and ensemble that truly struck a chord with me. As a queer person who relies very heavily on found family, a story about a man who has to form his own family, when the one he was born with has disregarded his very existence, hit me in a place I did not expect. Yes, this is a story about a man who ages backwards. But it is also a story about community and belonging. Both of which are values that I hold very near and dear to my heart. This was a shorter blog post that my previous ones. I still think that I am searching for the words to truly describe just how much of an impact this story had on me. I feel so blessed to be able to have witnessed this story, told in this way, in this exact moment in time.
Forever Present in the Moment,
– R
Theatre in London U of A 