when we met for the day, the group decided the best thing for us to do was to work. to attempt to have as normal a day as possible. so we continued with a scheduled technical rehearsal.
after the opening night performance, a reporter from the las vegas review journal found me and asked, "how can you sing those words? how can you not become emotional and break down while you sing that song?"
it seems silly now, but at the time i honestly didn't know what she meant.
for me, the song "try to remember" had become something personal, something about my own life. prior to september 11th, throughout rehearsal, i had discovered what those lyrics meant to me. and they continued to mean that to me throughout the run of the show.
"well, they meant something completely different to all of us in the audience tonight, after what happened on september 11th," the reporter said.
(jerry orbach, from the original off-broadway cast recording of the fantasticks)
I listened to Try to Remember countless times in my youth, and I produced the show twice when I was in show biz. Why is it that I didn't remember how important the harp is? My mother is a harpist. I should have remembered. Now I will.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. I've always loved this song, especially Jerry Orbach singing it. I'll never forget 9/11/2001. My friend's husband worked in the 2nd tower, he was called early that day to go to Brooklyn to take a deposition, then go to work. That delay kept him from being in that tower when it collapsed. We visited Ground Zero and the little church this past July. I wept the whole time. A senseless tragedy.
ReplyDeleteOh. Jerry Ohrbach! The theater misses him. Thanks for this, Tony.
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