It was more than 50 years ago that M and I went to see Anthony Newley and Cyril Richard do their magic on Broadway. I can't recall whether we ever saw Stop the World or whether "Who can I Turn To" is in Stop the World or Smell of the Greasepaint; Roar of the Crowd. With my memory as it is, these days? it could be in neither.
Any case ... Stop the World? ... Story of Littlechap, from birth to his death. Poor fella has one reaction to more or less everything: 'Stop the world!' I sometimes think I know what he means. For him? Being born, going off to school, working as a tea-boy, and marrying the boss's daughter, after getting her pregnant ... each time screaming: 'Stop the World.' Not quite so common in the Sixties as today, this out-of-wedlock pregnancy thing ... not sure the expression still exists in the Oxford English Dictionary ... I think it went the way of carburetors. Littlechap works for her Dad taking care of wife and two daughters. He keeps looking for a woman, tho, that will make him happy. He does becomes rich and famous ... runs for public office. When he's old, he gets it ... what Ecclesiastes said ... that most of life is bullshit except for relationship (Ecclesiastes' 'love of a woman') what he always had—the love of his wife— was more than enough to sustain him. The writer of Ecclesiastes added: Fear of God! After Littlechap's wife dies, he is watching his daughter give birth to the son he never had and gives himself over to Death to save the little guy. Sad story. Sadder than Walter Mitty and ... with great music!
The play I'm certain we did sometime in early 1965 was "Roar of the Greasepaint." Maybe "who can I turn to" was there. In any case, Anthony Newley's stuff was on my mind in the middle of the night listening to M struggle with the pain from the knee replacement. I think I've been averaging a couple of hours each night of sleep ... enough to sustain me. Maybe I'm learning to appreciate what is ... like Littlechap or Cockey, in the later play. Sleeplessness does give me time to remember songs ... I do a lot of songs in the middle of the night and have most often over the past several quarters arisen with "A Song in My Heart." I have, I suppose, my own little i-Pod of songs recorded ... religious ones, silly ones, Broadway tunes and crooning Croons. I think I must have them on some special kind of unconscious Shuffle that picks an appropriate melody to match the latest events ... residue from the day's madness (if you follow Freud).
It's been more than a month since I sat here writing about "gittin' on in the Last Quarter" ... last time was day after M's first post-surgical trip .... 6+ hours in the car followed by considerable pain. Progress is slow with these surgeries and my nursing duties continue. To paraphrase Delmore Schwartz, With Last Quarter Comes Responsibility. Maybe Achebe Chinua had it right: Things Fall Apart!
Any case ... "I will be back."
