What's real

So on Friday I went to see my son Spencer as Winthrop in the Ottoson Middle School production of The Music Man: Junior! which is essentially the Music Man with half the songs and half the plot cut out. He did great, no question about it. The kid is a regular chip off the old block and knows in his gut how to sell a song. It was a thrill to see him, and I swelled with fatherly pride to behold it.

But something really interesting actually happened at this little event. The girl playing Marian was a little 6th grader - I mean a LITTLE 6th grader - she must have been 4 foot 2 - and she had a cold. She croaked her way through "Goodnight My Someone". Now somebody had been teaching this little girl about acting, and it wasn't a good thing. Maybe it was someone who thought that acting was an important skill in junior beauty pageants, because she would put her hand on her hip, give the audience a patent leather smirk, then toss off a line, and then prance around like a show cat. It was everything scary about child acting you can imagine.

But the girl had a cold, and she couldn't sing. At intermission, there was long pause, and then the director, a hyper-intense woman, the kind who are the only ones to be able to stand directing 90 kids in The Music Man: Junior! - which is both a good thing and a bad thing for the kids as far as their mental health is concerned. Anyway, she came out to tell us that the little girl was in tears because she didn't have a voice - and normally she had an AMAZING voice - but really wanted to finish the show - it was her only chance, after all. So she was going to finish the show, but we all had to know that she was sick and give her whatever support she needed.

So the little girl came out for "Till There Was You" in the second act. And she tried to sing, and her voice was Gone. Nothing there. And then, suddenly, an amazing thing happened. Truly beautiful and amazing. This little girl, who could have melted, or tried hell or high water to sing even though she had nothing but a croak, did something really special. She started to speak the song. And she spoke the lyrics, and she did it simply, and clearly, and with feeling, clarity and passion. Suddenly, in the midst of all this other wonderful silly stuff, she was really acting. Real. It was magical. And moving. So so simple.

And she finished, and the audience went wild, and she went right back to prancing up and down the stage like a crazy performing cat trying to win a beauty pageant, and the moment was gone. But it was Real. Funny when it shows up.