If you see the wonder

We — the rapt, expectant audience in too-tight auditorium seats on a Friday night — thought we knew what we were about to witness: a bunch of high school kids dancing and singing their hearts out to ABBA’s greatest hits. Oh, we were ready to be proud. We were ready to sing along to these indelibly-etched pop songs set to story. We might have even been prepared to suffer a wee bit through the vocalizations of someone untrained (much like Pierce Brosnan, so sorry), to flinch and giggle maybe, and we most certainly had already picked out who we were excited to cheer for the loudest (my kid backstage).

I was wholly unprepared to weep.

I shouldn’t have been. I’m prone to this sort of reaction whenever people do surprisingly wonderful things. Yet I entered this imagining the bar low, my daughter’s latest reports of support crew escapades echoing in my head: “It was so stressful getting Tonya zipped up — I don’t know how we’re going to do it in time!” and “We hardly messed up at all tonight!”

Nancy, the theater instructor and director of the show — an extremely kind mentor who recognizes aptitude in my daughter and draws out the best in her — announced before the show that while the set was largely built by parents (and was gorgeous), “everything else we are about to see is student-generated.”

And then, as the prologue softened and the curtains drew back, Sophie’s voice silkily slipped out across the stage and wrapped itself around our hearts.

“I have a dream, a song to sing,
to help me cope with anything.
If you see the wonder, of a fairy tale,
you can take the future, even if you fail…”

Our high school offers music and theater classes, and there are a few productions a year, but we are not well-known for these. If a student in our city really has their hopes set on performance art, they are likely to choose a different school. A truer strength of our school is diversity: of color, culture, language, gender expression, sexual orientation, talent, academic acuity, and economic status. We’ve got it all, and it was all up on stage during “Mamma Mia”.

Theater is meant to transport us somewhere beyond the stage for a little while. Musical theater in particular can make this harder to achieve, since in real life people generally don’t launch into self-narrative melodies as they go about their daily business. One forgotten line or off-key note is all it takes to get temporarily disconnected from the story. In any high school production, the likelihood of this is admittedly colossal. In this one, there were plenty of awkward moments: singing out of sync with the pit orchestra, flailing arms that were meant to be floating, a misplaced box, ungainly stomping.

And yet…the COURAGE, and the earnestness…these exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds. The choreography for the whole ensemble, well-placed lighting and so, so much excellent singing. Weeks and weeks of hard work and tapped-into talent on display. Gamely picking up the right pitch after a missed cue, without screwing up their face. Persistence, patience, energy all the way to the end. They were silly and landed their funniest lines. They were sad and angry, and we felt it. We were impressed, and indeed transported.

We suspended disbelief in service to the story: Who is Sophie’s father? Could our Latina Sophie be the progeny of the Ethiopian-American mother, Donna, and the pale redheaded Bill? Yes! She could be. Or possibly the young Harry testing out his British accent, or the Ethiopian-American Sam. Broadway-smash “Hamilton” hastened our evolution of understanding that actors don’t have to match our expectations in terms of race or gender; people can just be people in character.

In the moment I found myself swiping at my cheeks during “Thank You for the Music”, I couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening to my heart. Why was I so ridiculously emotional??

Eventually it came to me: the story these students were telling and the story I beheld were different.

The incongruity of reality and staged illusion improbably worked together to reveal a version of “the beloved community”. This is a concept coined by Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and broadened by Martin Luther King, Jr. There are probably different interpretations, but my understanding is that within “the beloved community”, the balance of power evens out, there is mutual respect and care, each member receives what they need to survive and thrive, resources are shared, racism disappears, and unjust hierarchies collapse. “The beloved community” takes shape when love is applied to every aspect of a group or society.

I believe that’s what I saw, why I reacted so. It connected with my own experiences of living within a “beloved community” bubble at different points in my life. The yearning I carry in my bones for this to be true everywhere, all the time, was brazenly displayed right in front of me, and it wasn’t a fairy tale. “The beloved community” became not just a concept to strive for in some future utopia, but something that was embodied right in that moment for two hours on a high school theater stage. The actors were seen for who they are and who they could be. They were given space to shine. They held each other up. They were cohesive and encouraged one another to make this huge thing happen, and beautifully so.

Behind the scenes — who knows? — there could have been in-fighting and jealousy, tears of frustration, and graceless interactions that toppled friendships over the edge; no theater production is without it’s bumps and bruises. But I’m not convinced there was so much heartache back there, because while on stage, fifty plus people invited us to see the best of themselves and the vision this cast to the world.

“I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through, reality
And my destination, makes it worth the while
Pushin’ through the darkness, still another mile”

While waiting for my daughter in the congested lobby after the show, every cast member who passed me received a “Good job!” or “Great work!” When the crowd had dwindled, I spied the lead who played the incredibly daunting role of Donna. She was immersed in bubbly chatter among a circle of friends, and I cautiously approached. “Excuse me, I just wanted to say ‘Great job!’ It was so wonderful — you did so well!” The girl immediately to my right, in hijab and sparkly purple lipstick, startled me. “I KNOW!” she joyfully shrieked as she sprang back and pointed furiously at Donna. “She KILLED IT!! Wasn’t she SOOO awesome?!” I doubled over, guffawing in shock and admiration for this young woman who so violently boasted about her friend. My eyes misted once again.