PASSION w/ Ali Gordon

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: PASSION with Ali Gordon – Detailed Summary

Episode Release Date: November 28, 2024
Hosts: Matt Koplik and Guest Ali Gordon

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Broadway Breakdown, host Matt Koplik welcomes theater enthusiast Ali Gordon to delve into the intricate world of Stephen Sondheim’s musical "Passion". Known for his candid and fiery commentary, Matt sets the stage for an engaging discussion about the show's history, characters, and its place within the Broadway canon.

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2. Ali Gordon’s Journey with "Passion"

Timestamp: [05:08]

Ali Gordon shares her initial encounter with "Passion" during her teenage years. At 15, she became enamored with the character Fosca after watching the DVD box set of Sondheim’s works. Despite the complexity and her young age, Ali found a deep connection with Fosca's character, describing her fascination as “culture is for me” and an obsession that defied her teenage understanding.

Quote:
Ali Gordon: “I was like, this is the culture that makes me say culture is for me. I like identified with it and was obsessed with it in a way that makes absolutely no sense because I was 15 years old.”
[05:08]

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3. Exploring the Characters: Giorgio, Fosca, and Clara

Timestamp: [27:38]

The conversation pivots to an in-depth analysis of the three central characters:

• Giorgio: A soldier engaged in the Risorgimento era of Italy, embodying both strength and sensitivity.
• Fosca: The colonel’s cousin, whose obsession with Giorgio drives the narrative. Ali discusses Fosca’s manipulative tendencies and her projection of genuine qualities that may not be entirely authentic.
• Clara: Giorgio’s lover back home, representing a more conventional and conditional form of love.

Quote:
Matt Koplik: “Giorgio needs somebody who will give him what he's giving. He has to be the center of it.”
[27:38]

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4. Themes of Love vs. Passion

Timestamp: [33:41]

Ali and Matt delve into the core themes of "Passion," distinguishing between love and passion. They explore how the musical portrays love as multifaceted and conditional, contrasting Giorgio’s intense and somewhat unhealthy obsession with Fosca against his more stable relationship with Clara.

Quote:
Ali Gordon: “I think what the show is trying to say is, love is very multifaceted and complicated. It’s never easy all the time.”
[33:41]

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5. Performance Highlights and Critical Reception

Timestamp: [49:36]

The discussion shifts to the performances, particularly highlighting Donna Murphy's iconic portrayal of Fosca. Ali compares different interpretations of Fosca, praising Jan Maxwell and Rebecca Luker for bringing depth and vulnerability to the role, unlike Murphy's more domineering performance.

Quote:
Ali Gordon: “She sounds like a dream. And I think Fosca's a hard role to sing because you think of her sort of being an alto.”
[78:47]

Matt critiques the original Broadway production's casting choices, suggesting that physical appearances sometimes overshadow character depth, particularly Giorgio’s portrayal.

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6. Legacy and Impact of "Passion"

Timestamp: [93:00]

Ali and Matt reflect on "Passion’s" legacy within Sondheim’s body of work. They acknowledge that while it may not be as universally acclaimed as other Sondheim musicals, its complexity and unconventional approach to storytelling have cemented its status as a cult favorite among theater aficionados.

Quote:
Matt Koplik: “The legacy of Passion is still kind of growing. It is still the esoteric Sondheim fans' musical. It's still not universally accepted as one of his great works, which is why I don't think it's fair.”
[93:00]

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7. Personal Anecdotes and Insights

Timestamp: [106:00]

Ali shares personal stories, including her interactions with Donna Murphy and her experiences in theater school. These anecdotes illustrate the challenges and triumphs of engaging deeply with complex characters like Fosca and navigating the demanding world of Broadway productions.

Quote:
Ali Gordon: “I just think I'm obsessed with her performance. It’s so borderline. Too much, but that's why I like it.”
[117:04]

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8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: [172:34]

As the episode wraps up, Ali and Matt emphasize the importance of understanding and appreciating the nuanced portrayals within "Passion." They encourage listeners to embrace the show's complexities and engage in conversations that explore its themes beyond surface-level interpretations.

Quote:
Ali Gordon: “Someone can either go be like, okay, well, I still don't like it. Or they can be like, oh, cool. I do see that and I do see how that song is, like, wow.”
[175:32]

Matt concludes by inviting listeners to join the Broadway Breakdown community on Discord for further discussions and to stay tuned for future episodes exploring more aspects of Broadway history and productions.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Ali Gordon on Fosca's Obsession:
  “It's about passion, yes. And passion should never be conditional.”
  [07:47]

• Matt Koplik on Love's Complexity:
  “Love is the seed of the show, and everything that sprouts from it is what it's actually about.”
  [33:38]

• Ali Gordon on Representation in "Passion":
  “It's about getting swept up in the story and the authorial intent doesn't matter.”
  [57:30]

• Matt Koplik on Critical Reception:
  “In previews, Passion was a disaster. They talk about that in the commentary as well.”
  [63:15]

• Ali Gordon on "Passion’s" Inclusivity:
  “It's so good when people can create things that are just really not for everyone.”
  [175:32]

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Final Notes

This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of Stephen Sondheim’s "Passion," enriched by Ali Gordon’s personal connection and Matt Koplik’s insightful commentary. From character analyses to discussions on love and passion, listeners gain a deeper appreciation for the musical’s intricate narrative and its enduring legacy on Broadway.

For more engaging discussions on Broadway history and productions, tune into Broadway Breakdown each week.

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Disclaimer: This summary is based on the provided transcript and aims to capture the essence of the podcast episode. For the full experience, listening to the actual episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Ali Gordon]

Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit BPN FM to discover more. This episode is brought to you by Skinny Pop Popcorn. Perfectly popped, endlessly delicious. Oh so light and crunchy. Skinny Pop Original Popcorn is the snack you've been searching for. Made with just three simple ingredients. Popcorn kernel, sunflower oil, and salt. Snacking never felt or tasted so good. Perfectly popped, endlessly delicious. Give yourself permission to snack and pick up Skinny Pop Original Popcorn today.

[Matt Koplik]

Being a marketer is no sweat. You just have to manage dozens of channels, launch hundreds of campaigns, score thousands of leads and. Okay, fine, it's a lot of sweat. Unless you have HubSpot's AI powered marketing tools to help you do all that and more.

[Ali Gordon]

Get [e-mail] marketers. I don't know how I met you.

[Matt Koplik]

So far inside my mind.

[Ali Gordon]

But there you are and there you will stay how could I ever miss you away I see now I was and should you die tomorrow Another thing I see your love will live in me. Okay, I was responding to the robot voice.

[Matt Koplik]

Can you be professional for once in your goddamn stupid life? Hello, all you theater lovers both out now. You've made me fuck up. Hello, all lovers, both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. Their series is called Grab Bag, and it's covering shows that you submitted and I picked out of a bowl. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is Pod, mother of the Pod.

[Ali Gordon]

Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

You know her. You love her. I immediately regret asking her to come on. Ali Gordon.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you want to get a clean one? Like, are you going to lose, like, sponsorship if that's the first thing that's on the podcast.

[Matt Koplik]

Sponsorship for. For calling you a stupid bitch. You are a stupid bitch.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, what about, like, your. All your sponsorships with the. Like, the Family's for First women Last.

[Matt Koplik]

Bill has Family First Bill. No, I. I honestly don't know what my ads are these days. People will sometimes message me and be like, you got an advertisement for lay's potato chips? Or like, this truck company in Canada or like, this beer company in England. And I'm like, cool off, sis.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, cool.

[Matt Koplik]

I look forward to.

[Ali Gordon]

They should send you beer or trucks.

[Matt Koplik]

They should send me some stuff. I look forward to my eventual paycheck. I'm hoping by the time this episode comes out, BPN will have paid me for my revenue since August.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, look at.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Theater people are not very good at numbers and scheduling and timing. Would you agree?

[Ali Gordon]

We scheduled this fantastically.

[Matt Koplik]

We did. We did a good job.

[Ali Gordon]

This was like a. This was like a three text done. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

We. It did take us about 15 minutes to hit the record button because we were just for. Too busy.

[Ali Gordon]

We had a lot of important things to say.

[Matt Koplik]

We did. We had a lot of important life things to say off mic and opinions about things off mic. We needed to get out of the way.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Off the record.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Can you believe that Donna Murphy's an anti vaxxer?

[Ali Gordon]

Stop.

[Matt Koplik]

It's not true.

[Ali Gordon]

You're gonna lose your funding for the family's first bill.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, Donna Murphy in a musical of Veep. Now that I would go to see.

[Ali Gordon]

Fantastic.

[Matt Koplik]

She'd be an amazing Selena Meyer. I also just wanna say Donna Murphy is not an anti vaxxer. She believes in science, baby.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Do you know what's fun? I'm not gonna. We're not gonna go down this path. I'm just asking you one singular question about it. Are you watching this season of Drag Race uk?

[Matt Koplik]

No.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay. There's a girl on it. A girl, like, she's eight. Just kidding. There's a drag, a professional adult drag queen on it whose name is Marmalade, who, when she wigs with black hair, looks exactly like Julia Lou Dreyfus. I'm just putting that out there. Somebody is going to be listening to this and be like, oh, my God.

[Matt Koplik]

Good. Good for her. I've taken a long break from Drag Race because it got to be too much and I wasn't enjoying it anymore.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I'm taking some time, and then I'm going to dive back into all the seasons that I've missed.

[Ali Gordon]

Some might be worth it, some might not.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I'll get a curated list from you and Joel about what seasons I should get back into.

[Ali Gordon]

I always find UK to be really fun.

[Matt Koplik]

Speaking of getting into drag, what musical are we talking about today?

[Ali Gordon]

We're talking about the drag queen's dream passion. Wait. I would love to see a lip sync performance to Iread.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, if there's ever a. If ever there was a female role in Sondheim that I think drag queens would go for, it is kind of Foska. More so than Lovett or Joanne and company.

[Ali Gordon]

I will say. I was going to say this later, but I feel like this is like the in to this. So I watched Passion because I got the DVD box set of all the Sondheim things that were filmed as like a birthday gift probably when I was like 14 or 15. And when I watched Passion, the role of Foska, I was like, this is the culture that makes me say culture is for me. I like identified with it and was obsessed with it in a way that makes absolutely no sense because I was 15 years old.

[Matt Koplik]

But you were you.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, exactly. I mean, it does actually make sense, but it's still kind of like sick.

[Matt Koplik]

On paper to say a 15 year old falling in love with passion does sound weird, but when you say Ali Gordon fell in love with passion at 15, it's like, of course she.

[Ali Gordon]

And also like, I was like, Fosco became like a dream role for like 15 year old me to the point where I was like, do you think they'll ever do it at stage door manner? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, sick and sad thoughts. And I mean, I rewatch it and I'm still like, this role is amazing. But you saying this is the drag queen's. This is the drag queen's role in a Sondheim show really sort of unlocked a bit of an understanding about my attraction to it. It's just so intense. And she's such a little bitch and you get to feel so many emotions and like, you know, when you're 15, you think you were the ugliest person in the entire world.

[Matt Koplik]

Speak.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I mean? No. Come on.

[Matt Koplik]

I walked down the street and I said, eat it, eat it, eat it.

[Ali Gordon]

It wasn't until I think you were the first person in my whole life whoever was like, you've got great tits. And I was like, oh my God, I have great tits. Like, do you have to say, I.

[Matt Koplik]

Came into your life for a reason and it was to what's going for? Objectify you and make you feel like a sexual being without ever doing in a safe space.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, in a safe way. Yeah. And like, you know, also like when, you know, spoiler alert, she has sex and then dies. I was like, that's so romantic.

[Matt Koplik]

Also, like, how hot to come so hard that you die.

[Ali Gordon]

That's what I'm saying. Like, especially when you are young and sex is still a weird, scary concept that like you, you maybe want, but also maybe repulses you. Do you know what I mean? Like, when you're still like on the CR cusp of like understanding what it really means, that thing of like, this passion is so great that I do it once and then I fucking die. Do you know what I mean? Like, as an adult, you're like, wow, that's crazy. But, like, when you're, like, young and you're dreaming about, like, what. What adulthood and life means, you're like, that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

[Matt Koplik]

Also, like, why do you think so many teenagers masturbate all the time? It's to hope.

[Ali Gordon]

Just because they're hoping to die.

[Matt Koplik]

No, no. In terms of their. Their hormones, like, you are at a turning point in your life, in your maturity, where you are. Your hormones are all out of whack and you are all the time. Inexplicably, sometimes, but sometimes very explicably. And sex, for a lot of us as teenagers was scary. Especially, like, in the age before Internet porn. And even with Internet porn, I was like, I can only watch it. I don't know what. How to do it. And so it's just like, well, I'm not going to. And no one's going to want to touch me. As you said, we all thought we were ugly. So for a lot of us as early teenagers, I'm talking, like, 13, 14, 15. It's like, well, I'm just. I have all this energy and this horniness and I'm not going to do it with anybody. So, like, going to go to my room and get this out and then. And die and die a little bit and then go be a person for, like, three hours and then go do it again. Yeah, yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Also, sickness is as normal to me as health is to you.

[Matt Koplik]

I've been in a peer. Is it. I've been in a brief state of melancholy or something like that.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, it's like. It's like, my God, like, you are 15. Do you know what I mean? Like, saying that at the breakfast table and everyone's like, shut up.

[Matt Koplik]

There is. There's so much fosca that we will be discussing and different foscas that are out there. But, yeah, I'm glad that you said how it got into your life, how it entered your chat is my new way of saying it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, it entered my chat.

[Matt Koplik]

How it entered your chat? I remember that box set in your bedroom.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, my God, it was like, the best present I'd ever got because it was passion.

[Matt Koplik]

Sweeney Todd with Angela and Len Sunday.

[Ali Gordon]

I don't know, a Sweeney Todd concert, the one that had, like, Neil Patrick.

[Matt Koplik]

Harris Candide concert was in there with Chapter.

[Ali Gordon]

No, that was a different thing.

[Matt Koplik]

Are you sure.

[Ali Gordon]

That came separately, but I definitely owned that as well. Because you watched together.

[Matt Koplik]

I could have sworn it was part of that box.

[Ali Gordon]

I think it was also the Follies concert and oh, it was Sunday. And into the Woods. We're both in there.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay. I figured into the woods would be in there, but I didn't have a visual of it in that box. So maybe my memory is just faulty, but I could have sworn I had a great memory. But no, I also remember that Candide.

[Ali Gordon]

DVD in also my other passion Donna Murphy story is that when I was like. It's like probably like that same year when I was like 15 or maybe the next year, like 16, I like sort of. I was sort of like Army Reserve for Broadway kids. Do you remember Broadway Kids?

[Matt Koplik]

The. We are the Broadway kids.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, they do like albums and they'd perform at like events and stuff. So like I wasn't on Broadway so I could not technically be a Broadway kid. But like every so often they'd do an event and they needed like 50 children and they like would call in the Army Reserve. I was like, Army Reserve. So I did like three or four different concerts or like, you know, like a Good Morning America or whatever. And we did one for something. Don't even remember what it was. But Donna Murphy sang Children Will Listen with Us. And at the end, many of the kids knew her because they had done King and I with her and they were like, what's up, Donna? And then some other people were like, hi, nice to meet you. And I went up to her and was like, I am a huge fan of you and passion. And she laughed in my face because she thought I was joking and then noticed that I didn't say anything else. And she went, oh, you're serious? And I went, I'm serious. And she was like, well, thank you very much. And that was our one and only interaction.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I don't think Donna Murphy. I think that's. She might remember that because I don't know of any children who ever have come up to Donna Murphy, other than you to say I love passion.

[Ali Gordon]

She laughed, which I would have too. Do you know what I mean? Like, like that wasn't mean. She genuinely thought I was like being put up, like put up to tell, to, to around with her.

[Matt Koplik]

It's Audra meeting someone at the stage door, a child, a 9 year old, and going, marie Christine means so much to me.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. And you know what? That nine year old's right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, if I were Audra or Donna, I would have been like, okay, who paid you to say that to me?

[Ali Gordon]

That's exactly what she said. She. Like, she laughed. Then she noticed that, like, did not say or do anything else and just sort of was making eye contact. And she was like, oh, you're serious?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, that's. Listen. So I had only heard of Passion as a child through the grapevine of my family, which is to say my grandmother, grandmama, my nanny, she has worked in theater for a very long time. Worked in mostly PR and events. Worked with Lincoln center for a very long time. And she was working at Lincoln center when Passion was on Broadway and she went to go see it. She actually had met Stephen Sondheim a few times. I have a poster of some random New York production of Night Music that he signed for her.

[Ali Gordon]

Cool.

[Matt Koplik]

And.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And there's a photo of them together talking. And I was like, I want your life.

[Ali Gordon]

That's so cool.

[Matt Koplik]

Isn't it? She's. She's fucking baller. But she saw Passion and hated it, like many people did.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Like, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So to the extent that it took her the rest of the 90s to warm up to Marin Mazie, and she never warmed up to Donna Murphy.

[Ali Gordon]

Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

Because she just. It. She was so angry about it and just disliked it so much that everyone associated with that show was like Patient zero to her. That was like, she. She would have nothing to do with them.

[Ali Gordon]

I do understand that. I've had a couple times where I've seen somebody in something and been like, that performance was so bad. I'll never forgive you. And then over years and years, have had to be like, you're. You're actually good in that. You were actually good in that. You were actually good in that. And then be like, maybe I saw Fluke, but it takes a while of winning you back to, like, get you back on the train, you know, for sure.

[Matt Koplik]

But I think with Passion, it wasn't just, like, the performances she had issues with. She just had an issue with everything. She thought it was dull and dire and painful to sit through again, as many people did. We'll talk about that as we get to some of the response at the time. But because of that, I never. I always sort of put it at arm's length. I also got into Sondheim. I say late, but it wasn't late. I got it. Sondheim. Like, 12 and 13.

[Ali Gordon]

I was going to say we were absolutely. We were co conspirators in this. This was not like I discovered at.

[Matt Koplik]

First, but considering that you and I became theater nerds, so young and got immersed in it so young. In my mind, I'm like, it was like seven years till I got into Sondheim. But, like, my starting point was at 4.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I will actually say I don't. I think probably you had a longer Runway. I only really got into theater at, like, 12.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, really?

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

That's brand new information.

[Ali Gordon]

I like. Well, I think one thing that you do know about me is that, like, when I was a kid, I was like, a really weirdly serious child. I was like a very. I was like, not like a class cat clown. I was not like a kid who, like. But people when. When my parents or my grandparents would, like, tell stories about me as a kid, they'd be like, you were such a star. You'd sing at dinner, you'd sing at the piano. That is fabrication. That is like the warm glow of memory, sort of like painting a picture. And the only person who really remembers what I was like as a kid is my little brother who, when I'm like, evan, was I funny? And he's like, no, you were not funny. You were never funn. And I was like, thank you. Like, he's telling the truth. Like, that is true. Like, I was very. I was, like, kind of inward, and I was, like, kind of serious. And I did just the second act of the King and I at school because we had too many girls. And so not only one person could play Anna, so I only was anna in Act 2 and kind of discovered I could sing and went into voice lessons with a great. With the guy who was the music director for Broadway Kids, which is how I got into that world. And he was really cool and would give me challenging material. Like, he wasn't like, here's Edelweiss. He was. We sang Another Hundred People and the song, like, cracked my skull open.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And I was like, what is this? And he was like, it's Sondheim. And I was like. And like, that was it. Do you know what I mean? Like, that. That was like my. Yeah, it all sort of started from there.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm confused, though. Are you telling me that you're funny now?

[Ali Gordon]

Thank you so much. Well, women aren't funny, but compared to other women.

[Matt Koplik]

Wait, what are women? Women who. Name for a dollar. Name a woman.

[Ali Gordon]

I say that a lot when I see movies with, like, no women in it.

[Matt Koplik]

I.

[Ali Gordon]

That's sort of become my shorthand for that as being like that. That movie was very, like, name a woman.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, absolutely. That's most Christopher Nolan movies.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, you're just like, yeah, I was sort of like, you know, it was good, but it was sort of like, name a woman.

[Matt Koplik]

I won't see. Any time that I see anything with more than two women. I think of the meme from Greta Gerber's Little Women where it's like every Greta Gerwig movie. Women and women. So it's just I think that all the time when I see a show with more than two women, I'm like, bechtel test who women? But so with passion. To get back to the topic, I. I don't know when I first watched it. Maybe high school once the dam was broken with Sunny Sunday in the park, because that took me a while to finally get into, but when I got into Sunday, I fell very hard for it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And when the revival came to Broadway in 08, I was like, oh, maybe I should finally get into the rest of the Sondheim stuff. Because that's. I know that I've gotten into Assassins, like right before college and fell in love with that roundabout recording. And I feel like I listened to Passion senior year as well. Because I don't think you and I left for college without both of us having some level ground about Passion.

[Ali Gordon]

Definitely. I, I like remember having conversations, like, I like when I was saying, like, do you think they'll ever do it at Stage Door Manor? Like, who would I have said that to but you.

[Matt Koplik]

It's true.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I'm saying? Who in my life would I have turned to? And earnestly even, like, do you think they would do this at the Manor? Like, that was you, like, obviously. I think we used to like sort of like fantasize about shows that they would never do. Yeah, but like, but what if they did? Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

I think that's sort of the beauty of Stage Door Manor, though. At least I don't know what it's like now. But when we were there, they would do super inappropriate shows for kids.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And that was, that was what made it so amazing and so in our minds where we thought we were older than we were and more talented than we were and more advanced than we.

[Ali Gordon]

Were able to learn the score of Passion.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. In this, in this safe space where I get to play five different ethnicities and you get to play like a grown ass woman with babies. Yeah. I like, we're like. But of course they would do Passion. Why wouldn't.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

We don't have. They don't have to be naked on stage. Put them, you know, in a bed and everything's fine. And we were doing, like, the Lippa Wild Party, which was already a sanitized version of the sanitized Wild Party. So. But. But in our minds, we're going. We're doing Wild Party, we're doing Les Mis, we're doing Company. Why can't we do Passion, right?

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, I really did. I was like, gee, I wonder.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. But I never. Passion has always been a blind spot for me in the Sondheim canon because I got to know it, but I never fell in love with it, so I never came back to it over and over again. There were certain things that I learned decently, mostly because if I was going to still be your friend, we needed to have that shorthand. So I did need to know about Irene. I did need to know about happiness and a little bit of loving you, and I wish I could forget you. And just things like that I remember.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, you are naming the capital S songs. Those are the bangers. And I will say, like, even with a love for passion sort of in my back pocket, like, people love to talk about Sondheim being hard to remember or not very catchy or whatever. And, like, this is as close to opera operetta as he ever tiptoed to, I feel, because there are a lot of parts that are, like, sort of transitionary, that have, like, recit. Do what I mean. And they're not. They're not super memorable. I'm not even saying that in a way that. To say, like, the song is bad for that reason, but that's just not the intention of that song. Like, there are a couple little arias throughout that are the things you remember. That's the Donia y nobile. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's like the big thing at Land of La Traviata. And then the things in between are just kind of like.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, yeah, exactly. There are motifs and passion that are used throughout. Throughout different songs and different moments. So there is repetition in that respect. But, yeah, all the recitative, it is sort of intentionally not hummable. You're not supposed to. It's there kind of by what's worth. What's the word? I'm looking for it. It needs to be there. It's there because it has to be.

[Ali Gordon]

It's storytelling.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. Like, no one is singing Soldier Gossip, you know? No, no one's singing that. Who's. Who's even singing, like, any of Clara's Letters to Georgia? Like, oh, no. Even though they're beautiful, with every flower in bloom, like, no one's humming that down the street.

[Ali Gordon]

We. I have. I have a joke about that that I've had for years about talking about Floyd Collins, which is a show I love. We've never talked about Floyd Collins.

[Matt Koplik]

I haven't had it on this. You mean on the podcast or in general?

[Ali Gordon]

Kind of either. I don't know if we've ever talked about it, like, in life, but we certainly haven't talked about on the podcast. And I don't think you've had a Floyd Collins episode.

[Matt Koplik]

Definitely haven't had a Floyd Collins episode. I did the Riddle Song in college. I was Floyd, and my friend Mike was. What's his face? Homer.

[Ali Gordon]

Homer. Well, that's what I was talking about. I love to be, like, you know that really catchy part that's like the. Then I open up for my swan dive. Like that. Like, that part that, like, is unsingable.

[Matt Koplik]

Always unsingable.

[Ali Gordon]

And that's why, like, I love that thing of, like, this. This part isn't catchy. But, like, when you're, like, making a joke about being like, that's like. That's like my 16. That's like, my audition cut from that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I'm gonna be singing the Riddle Song instead of the Think it up now. Homer. You're going.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. You're doing my spread eagle, My Jesus on the.

[Matt Koplik]

Curling through the passage.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. Okay, well, I'm inviting. I'm inviting myself back for when we do Inevitably phenomenal. When it's on Broadway, coming on in.

[Matt Koplik]

Broadway in the spring. Yeah. I know a few people who went in for it, and I'll just say they all could not have been more different for the role of Floyd. And it made me go. I wonder what their vision is for it, other than you have to have a Tony nomination to come into the room.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. Wait, do you know who it is?

[Matt Koplik]

Who the Floyd is?

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, I do.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, me too.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

Everyone knows. This is such a funny and bad podcast.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. We're doing, like, do you know. Do. Are you aware.

[Ali Gordon]

Can we say this is this. Repeat this.

[Matt Koplik]

Everybody knows. And it's. It's. Because it's not public yet.

[Ali Gordon]

It's not.

[Matt Koplik]

You don't want to be the one who, like, comes out and says it, and then God forbid, something happens, because what if, you know, that person books a movie and then they can't do it anymore? These things happen all the time. But I'll say it. In this moment right now, Floyd is Jeremy Jordan.

[Ali Gordon]

Wait, what if you lose your sponsorship? For what if you're allowed to say. I don't know. What if you're not allowed to say that?

[Matt Koplik]

I wasn't told by someone. By production. I was. No one in. No one at Lincoln center is getting fired. I did not speak to Tina Landau or Jeremy Jordan. It's just. It's a. Everyone knows. Everyone knows that Jeremy is going to be Floyd. Everyone knows that Skylar Astin is replacing him in Great Gatsby. Like, it's okay. Oh, wait. Unless that was. Was that.

[Ali Gordon]

No, no, it was all. It's all. I. I know what you're talking about.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay. Fantastic fan fucking Tastic. We will do a Floyd Collins episode probably when that revival happens. You can come on for that, please.

[Ali Gordon]

Thank you.

[Matt Koplik]

Of course, I also thanks to everybody.

[Ali Gordon]

Who said to Matt, who then said to me that you were psyched about me coming back because there was a small part of me that was like, do people.

[Matt Koplik]

Are people saying, oh, okay, how about this? I've got. I've got a couple of things that I gotta say from the Discord Channel that people had to say for this episode. Both things they want us to talk about with passion, but also about you. Before we do that, let's take a quick break.

[Ali Gordon]

Billy, I beg to differ with you.

[Matt Koplik]

How do you mean?

[Ali Gordon]

You're the top.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet afraid of.

[Matt Koplik]

This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. So, fun fact. I've talked about the issues I went through a while ago. Personal, emotional, mental. And at the time, I was afraid to take the dive back into therapy. But I actually gave BetterHelp a try, and I could not have been more thankful that I did. I got paired with my therapist, and let me tell you, that man helped me so much during a time of great turbulence and guided me to the point where I was actually able to use my fears and pain and channel them into productive measures like art. Therapy is a wonderful resource in general that gives you the tools to better yourself. And BetterHelp is an incredible way to access therapy that's entirely online, built to be accommodating, flexible, and convenient. So really, check out BetterHelp. You fill out a quick questionnaire with no additional charge, and it will help pair you with a licensed therapist. I know it can seem scary, but honestly, sometimes the really important things are let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com broadwaypod today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H E L P.

[Ali Gordon]

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[Matt Koplik]

Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com campaign. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be. To be. And we're back. So as many of you know, we have a Discord Channel for the Broadway Breakdown where I will tell listeners when we're recording an episode and say, hey, if you got anything you want to submit for us to talk about, let me know. I'll take a glance at it. Hopefully we'll be able to cover some of it. We also have a sub sect about. Just like about the podcast in general, whenever we drop episodes, people can talk about it. There's theater gossip, there's ticket advice. There's also places for you to promote shows you're working on and any ideas you have for merchandise for Broadway Breakdown. We're still not making any, but like we're brainstorming. We. I've told listeners if there's ever quotes from episodes that they're like, I want that on a T shirt to write it in on this discord and I'll come back to it.

[Ali Gordon]

I'll buy a shirt.

[Matt Koplik]

All right, well, the current. One of the current ones that people really like is from the Miss I Gone episode where I say the only person who can kill Kim is Kim. Right. It's just, it's true. No one that that girl goes through so much and isn't knocked down. The only one who defeats her is her.

[Ali Gordon]

I like that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ali Gordon]

I kind of want one that says the least famous and most opinionated Broadway podcast host.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure, why not?

[Ali Gordon]

I would.

[Matt Koplik]

I'd rep that people want also proud, uncultured fuck on a T shirt.

[Ali Gordon]

I'd like that. I'd wear that.

[Matt Koplik]

Because we're gonna have to. We don't. Because we're gonna have to mention what passion is actually about to be uncultured. Facts. First of all. Okay, so the Discord Channel. I'll get into some of the questions that people had. One person said, oh, I love the timing of this. I'm actually relistening to the Sondheim series and I just started the Frogs episode with Ali. There's one other thing that somebody said about you. I'll get to their questions about the show in just a second. Here it is. Okay, please just tell her that we love her. She's one of my absolute favorite Broadway Breakdown guests ever. And I re listen to her episodes all the time. And that has been liked or retweeted or whatever by like 15 members of the disc.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, that's really nice.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, out of 190, but.15.

[Ali Gordon]

The percentage is bad, but you know What?

[Matt Koplik]

Just under 10% of the members I'd rather be.

[Ali Gordon]

Would you say 15?

[Matt Koplik]

I'd rather. Yeah, 15.

[Ali Gordon]

I'd rather be 15 Broadway podcast network's favorite guests than 100 people's 15th favorite broadcast network podcast nest. Neb guest.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's still not funny.

[Ali Gordon]

Fucking nailed it.

[Matt Koplik]

You've never. You've never been funny. You never will be funny. You still aren't funny. But I'm funny, right?

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So I'll get into some of the specific things about Passion, but before all the uncultured fucks, Ms. Allie Gordon. What is Passion about?

[Ali Gordon]

Passion is about a soldier named Giorgio in. I looked this up. Risorgimento era Italy, which was early 19th century. Yeah. It was a political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of various states of the Italian peninsula into a single state, the Kingdom of Italy. I didn't know that.

[Matt Koplik]

There you go.

[Ali Gordon]

So now you know that, you uncultured swine. Anyway, so he is. That's what he's doing. And he goes to his colonel's home, where he meets Foska, who is the colonel's cousin. She is immediately enamored with him because he engages with her in conversation and they talk about books and imagination. And she's taken by him as both in his, like, handsomeness, but also she says she sees in him, like, his real soul, his poeticism and, you know, things like that.

[Matt Koplik]

He's hot and he's sensitive and he's wearing a uniform. And Casca has been with a bunch of bros in a home in, like, the deadest of countrysides of Italy. And so, yes, she's. She's obsessed with him.

[Ali Gordon]

She becomes obsessed with him. Meanwhile, Giorgio has a lover back home named Clara who. They're in an affair. And he's clearly more obsessed with her than she is with him, because throughout, we learned that she just keeps sort of kicking him further down the road and then eventually says, look, I cannot be with you. I have a kid. Maybe when my kid's adults, we can talk about what that would mean. But, like, until. Until then, we're. We're just a fling. We're not. You're. I'm not leaving my husband for you. Meanwhile, Foska becomes more and more obsessed with Giorgio. He becomes sort of repulsed by her. She does do some whack shit. She follows him around, you know what I mean? Like, he's not just like, ew, you're ugly. I'm repulsed by you. Like, she is a stalker, essentially. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

It's not cute what she does.

[Ali Gordon]

No, she does some really wild stuff. And she's very manipulative. Like, at one point, she's like, please write a letter for me. And he thinks he's just doing a nice thing by taking dictation, but really she's writing an imaginary letter from him to her about how much he loves her and respects all the obsession. She's not. Not well, necessarily. But over time, he starts to become more enamored with her because her love is so straightforward and her love is so intense. And the only love he's really experienced is one that he has to keep secret and one that has sort of shame around it where he doesn't feel as important as others. This sort of culminates in his Colonel saying, hey, you gotta stop seeing Foska. She's not well. She's making you not well. You gotta stop. But he has already kind of gone to the deep end, and he's like, no, I fucking love her. And he's like, okay, we're gonna have to duel. So the night before they duel, Giorgio and Foska finally consummate their passion of the. Of the titular passion. He does his duel with the Colonel, he shoots him. We then flash to the end. Giorgio is like. Had basically a mental breakdown because Foska died because their fucking was so good. And the Colonel's fine, but he's got a lot of guilt and trauma about the fact that he had to, like, you know, shoot someone who he saw as, like, an important figure in his life. And then they have a bit of, like, a dream, like, sequence where everybody from the show comes back and they sing this beautiful finale where he reads Foska's last letter. And it's all about how love. Love is intense and love is crazy and love is real. And that's passion.

[Matt Koplik]

And that's. And that's what you missed on.

[Ali Gordon]

And that's what you miss on passion.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. People were asking about sort of what the musical has to say or what its point of view is about love and specifically the dynamics of Giorgio and Fosca and Giorgio and Clara. Because I do think you're ultimately getting to the root of what Clara's response is at the end of the show. But it's not outwardly that what she says. The show begins with Clara and Giorgio in bed, like post coital, which is. That is in the script. It's exactly what you have to do, because Sondheim literally wrote the opening notes to be Clara's orgasm. He said he wanted to bookend the show with. With coming and which. God bless that man. But so. And it's also the root of their love is the sex that they have. They are bound by their sexual passion for each other. They are compatible in that they are horny for each other all the time. And the sex is so good, it makes. It probably makes the emotions that they're feeling all the higher because sex already complicates things. No matter what people say, we are animals. And this, the act of sex and the endorphins that you get from it and the chemistry your brain makes of it, of the. Of the physical connection with another person can trick some people into thinking that they are having deeper feelings than they actually are. And it's entirely possible that Clara and Giorgio do care for each other and love each other, but it's more that the sex that heightens everything and the fact that it's forbidden makes it all the more sexy and makes them yearning because they don't ever get to experience just being with each other. It's always.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, it's always like, in secret or, you know, and then it's like, oh, my God, I'm leaving. So we have to have even more crazy sex because we have to make the most of this. And when I come back from my journey, I have to, you know, like, you know, it's all about, like, anticipation. And what is that line? Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul, but it's bad for the heart.

[Matt Koplik]

That's exactly what the line is. Different show. But yeah, it's great line.

[Ali Gordon]

I know, but we wrote it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, so. And like that show also says, I shall marry the Miller son.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It. We're. We've already been talking about the. And the horniness of our youth. And I think as we're adults and have had more experience with other quote unquote adults in this world, you and I have come to understand a bit more of the messiness of the human experience and the heart. Would you say that's accurate?

[Ali Gordon]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

You were also like, what?

[Ali Gordon]

Wait, go ahead.

[Matt Koplik]

No, I Was gonna say, you're also the only person I know of who, like, you're. I always reference you when talking about love at first sight in shows. And people go, that's unrealistic. And I go, well, Ali Gordon had.

[Ali Gordon]

It, and I really did.

[Matt Koplik]

You really did.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, like. And it's only. I only really believe in it. Because if you had asked me the day before if it was real, I would have been like, I don't know. I don't think so. Seems like that's not real. It seems kind of complicated. Do you mean. There you go.

[Matt Koplik]

I've always described it in musicals like something in, say, west side Story, the Dance of the Gem. It's less that Maria and Tony fall in love in the sense of they understand each other and more it's that animal antenna going up, going of going, who are you? There's something about, like, I am so drawn to you. It's not just that I find you attractive. I do. But there's something else that is connecting us. Magnets in. In a certain kind of way. And that is. And. And when you can spend time with someone and find out that you are compatible in so many other ways, then it just becomes all right. My instinct was correct. And it blossoms into a very lovely thing, I think, with Giorgio and Clara, the way they talk about their romance. You know, they met in the park. He looked so sad, and they just sort of saw each other and were like, hello. And if you look like Jerry Shea and Marin Mazie circa 1994, who wouldn't stop in the park.

[Ali Gordon]

Hello. Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Jerry. Like I say, Jerry Shea in the original cast is so fucking hot. And he's like six years younger in that video than I am now.

[Ali Gordon]

What?

[Matt Koplik]

I think he's 28. When they. When they did Passion on Broadway, I'm pretty sure he has sort of.

[Ali Gordon]

This is sort of. I say this as a strength. He has sort of like a timeless look, like he could be any age and he could be from any decade, which I think actually like, really works for him in this.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, he's got very classic Roman features and a bit of a Jew fro, but they have.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, but he's sort of like. He's sort of boyish, but also very mature. Yeah, I think that's kind of like the hair sort of boyish and messy, but his face is sort of like ageless and mature.

[Matt Koplik]

I was watching the Broadway video with the commentary on. Because it's with Sondheim, Lapine, Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy, Jerry Shea and Then Ira Weitzman. They talked about how they spent all of rehearsals and previews messing with Jerry's look. They wanted him to be, like, a strapping man, but they also needed Giorgio to come off as more sensitive. So he started it with a beard and, like, fully growing out his chest hair, his whole body. He makes a joke of, like, you. Like, you basically wanted me, like, bushy everywhere. And especially because he and Marin were naked in the first scene. He was like, you want to be very au naturel? Hey, yeah, nothing wrong with it. But eventually, I think they compromised, and it was. He grew out the chest hair. He might have trimmed down below, but they ended up having him shave his face and being the only man in the show without facial hair.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, interesting.

[Matt Koplik]

Because he's so strapping already. And when you see him with the chest hair, you understand that, like, this is a man, but with the clean, shaved face. It's that dichotomy. Like, it's a grown man, but he is also like, a sensitive little boy deep inside. Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, like. And that is the thing where it's like, obviously, Foska is not. Not quite well, do you know what I'm saying? Like. Like, the obsession that she forms is not, like, rational, but they do a good job in their first meeting of planting enough seeds of being, like, I understand why, where her projections of him come from. Like, she's obviously, like, assuming things about and projecting things onto him, blah, blah, blah. But, like, they've done a good job showing him be sensitive, showing him be intellectual, showing him be open to the world and curious. You know what I mean? Like, all the things that she sees in him are true. Do you know what I mean? They're not just, like, you opened a door for me once, and now I assume you're an intellectual. It's like they have an intellectual conversation, and she becomes obsessed with, like, his brain. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

He lends her a book without ever having met her. That is. That's sort of the thing. She sees him, she says, eventually, when they're in the garden in the castle, the. The ruined castle. She says she relates to it, probably because it's ruined. And she says to me, I saw you from my window. I saw you on the day that you arrived. And she said there was something about the way he looked and the way he spoke to his men. And it's the line, they. They hear drums and we hear music. And so it's first. It's her first instinct of, who is this man? He is Already very handsome. But there's something about how he's treating everyone that shows that he's different from the other lieutenants here or the other soldiers captains because he's a captain and. But she's confined to her room because she's going through a major spell of illness. She's been ill for many, many years and is having a really bad bout. And without having met her, only having heard about her, he lend. He lends her some books that he had because he's hearing that she loves to read, but she's basically only reading like brochures at this point.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. She's read like a real book. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. He gives her a real book and then she ends up coming back. That ends up sort of motivating her to get out of bed and meet him. Because it's not by happenstance that they are in that dining room alone. She's definitely.

[Ali Gordon]

She's waiting.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. She's spent a couple of days in her room, most likely eavesdropping on the soldiers and hearing sort of how their morning routine goes and is locked down. That Giorgio tends to lag behind for a few minutes, usually reading whatever new letter he's gotten from Clara. And that is when she comes in. Not. And doesn't necessarily pounce. But it's the. When you, like in high school, when you know what your crush's school schedule is.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. And you're like, oh, my God, I didn't know you'd be at your locker right now.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Oh, my God. What a crazy situation.

[Ali Gordon]

What a crazy situation.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I definitely. Once I was. I was sort of semi dating somebody and he was in rehearsal for a show and I knew where the rehearsals were and I had a lunch break. That was. I was. I was working four blocks away and I had a lunch break. I was like, I'm going to walk near the rehearsal space, sort of back and forth for a couple of minutes and if we see each other, so be it.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And it. And it happened and it works. And we went and got lunch together. Relationship didn't work out. We only, I think, went on three or four more dates. But I was very intimate that moment. And I was like, I want him to have a chance and a reason to see me right now. So I did it. Yeah. Haven't done that since, though. I have more of a self respect. But that is definitely what Foska is doing in that moment. And Foska does not have self respect.

[Ali Gordon]

No, but it's like there are, there are pieces of media about people who are obsessive and, like, quote, unquote, stalkers, where everything that they see in the person who is there, their target of obsession is purely projection. Like, did you watch Baby Reindeer? Yeah, that's. Do you know what I mean? That's a really good example of one simple, tiny, little act of kindness, which for anybody else would just be like, thanks. Becomes an act of obsession. And it's like projection. Do you know what I mean? It's like all the things that she believes about him to be true are projection. Yeah, the things that she says are true about Giorgio are true. She's going about it in really intense, unhealthy ways. But, like, she does recognize in him a quality that she goes out of her way to talk about, where she's talking about them being different from others and needing a friendship. And she also even kind of recognizes in him a bit of, like, a romantic, obsessive person, which he is too. Do you know what I mean? Like, he is, like, got the hearts in his eyes, baby love. For Clara, It's.

[Matt Koplik]

I can only relate it to back in the day, like, the 50s and 60s, when some gay men could just sort of recognize in each other that another man was gay. I feel like in this wasteland where it's pretty much broy soldiers and servants, Vaska recognizes a kindred spirit in some kind of way. And so she is projecting because there's a lot about him that she doesn't actually know. She's just saying I. A lot of it is accurate because it's stemming from her instincts about him, from what she's recognizing in herself. Where it gets intense is she says it to herself much later on. No one ever taught me how to love. And in addition to being unwell and very lonely and having had a very sad life, she is also Italian. So she feels very deeply and acts very loudly. And what separates her from most people in the show is she genuinely has no pride or confidence, so she has nothing to lose and everything to gain, which is why she acts so. To overuse a troubling word, but crazy half the time because she has no ground to stand on and. And basically has now harbored all of her hopes onto Georgia. The other. The other thing also is she falls for him deeply. She never says, you will fall for me, or like, I believe that you could love me. It's the very end of the show where you realize the turn that she makes, the very. A very positive one, which is that in the letter she sends him and we find out, like, in her last two days, she turned like she had a giant 180 of who she. How we always knew her to be. And her last few days, like, she became, like, skipping down the street, sunny optimism, bitch. And it's not just because he had sex with her and the sex was good, but it's the line, I am someone to be loved. Which she never thought she could be. She's.

[Ali Gordon]

There is one thing I didn't say, or I sort of forgot to say in my summary of passion, which is that she was engaged before she was married. Ooh, married. I thought I was just engaged. Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

She was married. Which. Which also means it's. It's not outwardly said, but it means she's not a virgin. She's had sex before, but it's.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you think so?

[Matt Koplik]

According to James Lapine. Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, interesting, because in that comment, in.

[Matt Koplik]

The commentary, when they're doing the flashback sequence and Giorgio is talking to her cousin and he goes, or Signora Fosca has been married. And they go, yeah. And then everyone in the commentary starts chuckling, and James the pine goes, that's right, Giorgio. She's not a virgin.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, interesting. See, I mean, like, not that I'm like, oh, my God, that blew my mind, but there was, like, a part of me that also. That sort of thought, like, so essentially, for. What'd you guys say? The uncultured fucks.

[Matt Koplik]

The uncultured fox.

[Ali Gordon]

For the uncultured fucks. She was married and her cousin, the Colonel, actually had introduced him to this guy. He's like a count. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

From Austria, supposedly. But not really.

[Ali Gordon]

But not really. He's a shyster. He steals all the family money, he breaks her heart, he abandons her. And so there was like a part of me that was like, oh, yeah, that happened basically the minute that he signed those papers. He was gone before the sunrise came. You know what I mean? Like, money gone.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah, it was. They got.

[Ali Gordon]

And so, like, in my mind, they hadn't even, like, fucked in my mind. They were like. This was like just basically a business transaction and he was out the door. Well, but I actually like it better that they. That. That she's not a virgin. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Matt Koplik]

It's not. Well, because it's unclear exactly how soon out the door he was or what the out the door meant, because she got her dowry, he spent it all. But they have a confrontation because that's how she finds out that he's basically a Harold Hill is. They get married, he Goes through her entire diary. She has to ask money from her parents and like, basically ruins her parents in. In the prospect. And then she's at the market and his mistress comes up to. Up to her and is like, oh, you're married to what's his face? Well, just so you know, he's not a count. He doesn't have a castle. He has a wife, a kid, and two Dalmatians. And. And you know, he ruined my life, he's ruined his wife's life, and now he's ruined your life.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

She. And she confronts him about it and he's like, yeah, pretty much. But, hey, we had some laughs, right? And.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. That is too much time.

[Matt Koplik]

It's too much time.

[Ali Gordon]

They would have had to, like, be intimate and everything.

[Matt Koplik]

And for the shit to hit the fan for them to still be in contact. They would have had to have. He would have had to have been around, which means that they got married because the only way that he can get that dowry and spend that dowry is for them to go through with a wedding.

[Ali Gordon]

Right? Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I guess I'd like, never put those two, like, sort of like made that timeline coalesce in my mind with.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, it could have been very intimacy. Yeah, it could have been very.

[Ali Gordon]

Even if it was fast, it's still too fast for them not to be like, let's have our wedding night. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

No.

[Ali Gordon]

But anyway, so there's another added layer with this, with Foska, that she has a wariness of men and rightfully so.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, already a weak constitution that has been made all the weaker from this emotional, mental. It's a trauma that she was. That she allowed herself to be vulnerable with someone to believe that, no, she was loved. And not only was it not true, it was not true in the absolute worst case scenario, outside of, like, being murdered, like, in terms of what it does to your psychosis, it's abs. Like, yes, I'm sure a lot of Fosca's illness comes from actual ailments and like, immune disorders that she has. But there's. They talk a lot about how your constitution can affect your health and.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. And she's like, potentially epileptic. She has like, quote unquote fits. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

She faints a lot.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah. Which. So, like, you know, there's something like neurological there. But again, things like stress that can really. That can really fuck with you if you have, you know, predisposition to things like that.

[Matt Koplik]

But it also does give her that what she calls her state of melancholy all the time. And why she makes these derogatory comments about herself and why she's so negative about the world because. So this is something that actually I do remember saying on the last time I. I covered Passion was because it's not just the musical, it's based off of a movie and a book. Or rather, you know, Sondheim saw the movie in the 80s, always wanted to make it a musical. And then Lapine decided he really wanted to use the novel as his source material. But Foska is not the like manic pixie dream girl, whereas most rom coms that would have like ugly duckling that the handsome quarterback falls for. Either she has to get a makeover or there's gotta be like a beautiful soul inside that makes him see the world in a great way. And she's just so helpful and quirky. Like, yeah, she's poor. Yes, she has the unibrow, but pluck the unibrow. And she's actually goes from a four to a nine.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And by the way, like, she goes to Meals on Wheels. And by the way she tells.

[Ali Gordon]

And she's rich or whatever.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, really rich. She teaches blind orphans to read, like, things like that. Foska is none of those things. Foska has a terrible attitude towards the world. And the line that I always quote because it's what I love about Kunzi's version of the role, because Kunzi did it at Kennedy center and then she also did it at Classic Stage Company. And Kunzy leans into Fosca kind of being a bitch, or rather, you know, being leans into more how dry and insufferable she can be, which actually makes her Fosca very funny in a way that Donna Murphy's Fosca is not.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And in the Classic Stage Company recording with Ryan Silverman and Rebecca Luker, they're doing the dialogue in the ruins of the castle. And he's like, well, there's so much you could do with your life and your time. She's like, like what? He goes, you know, give to others. And Kinsey just goes, give to others. It's such like our, like, it's the domaney. You want me to do what? It's that kind of attitude. And she says, no, I've worked in poor houses, Captain. I felt nothing. And yeah, it's, it's. It's sort of like any little bit of give you might want to give her. Sondheim and Lepine. Come in and go. No, no, it's. She's not a saint. No. She's not secretly rich. No. She's not secretly beautiful. No. She doesn't have this gorgeous perspective on life. Like, she's a miserable human being.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

All she really has is she loves him.

[Ali Gordon]

The. I can't. I can't remember if you talked about this in the last Passion episode.

[Matt Koplik]

So forget that you listened to it.

[Ali Gordon]

I listened to it three years ago. You were with your friend Noor, who did. Was at the gay man's care with gay men's cares with you.

[Matt Koplik]

He lives in California now.

[Ali Gordon]

Look at me.

[Matt Koplik]

You should go meet him.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, my God. Look at us on the West Coast. See, look at me remembering all the details.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I forgot you were like.

[Ali Gordon]

And he was, like, really big into, like, classical music.

[Matt Koplik]

And he said he's a composer and conductor.

[Ali Gordon]

And he was saying. Actually, one part that I thought was really smart was that he was saying, it's a lot like Salome. It has a lot of, like, similar, like, musical themes, like the Ricard Strauss, but also like kind of like the central character, esque. Anyway, thought that was a really smart point. Reiterating smart point. But anyway, Sondheim's obsession. Sondheim's passion with passion wasn't that we were going to convince the audience that these two people are destined for each other because they're really good people. Whatever it is, his quote was that when he saw the film, I'm going to say the exact quote as it was. As Foska started to speak and the camera cut back to her, I had my epiphany. I realized that the story was not about how she's going to fall in love with him, but about how he is going to fall in love with her. And at the same time thinking, they're never going to convince me of that. They're never going to pull that off. All the while knowing they would. That Scola wouldn't have taken such on a ripely melodramatic story unless he was convinced that he could make it plausible. And like, that is it. That is 100% it. Like, that's why they slap away those instincts to be like, see, she's sweet. See, she's smart. Whatever. It's like the magic is in you going, this will never work. This is insane. This is not gonna happen. All the while in the back of your head going, it's gonna work. Like, they're at the end of this. Someone's gonna convince me that they should have been. They should be Together. And that was like, the greatest love story ever told. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, I. I wonder if it is truly a love story, because. So they recorded the commentary for the original Broadway filming. It was right after the 2002 Kennedy center production, which was the first time that Giorgio had felt like the center of the story, when it was Michael Cerberus Kunzi and Rebecca Luker. But Sondheim has said that the production of Passion, that really made the whole thing work for him in a way that he didn't know was the Donmar production. And I think 2010, maybe 2014, something around that time. It was the one directed by Jamie Lloyd, starring Elena Roger and David Thaxton, who's currently playing Max in Sunset Boulevard. And he said. When he said, first of all, it was so focused on Giorgio, and it was really the arc of, how is he going to fall in love with her? And he said, by the end of the show, the finale, beautiful as it sounded, wasn't this moving moment you watched this shell of a man who has nothing anymore basically, like, sing alone to himself. Your love will live in me. Your love will live in me. It's like. And what. It. It encapsulated what we always tried to do and felt like we never really got across, which was that Giorgio has now inherited Foska's illness.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

He is. He is sick now, too. He is a sickly person. He is no longer the strapping, sensitive soul that he once was. He is a. He is a cicada shell at this point.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's also part of it, where it's like. There's that moment where he shoots the colonel where he, like, has an anguish. Yes. Where, like, I think you are supposed to watch that and be like, oh, this is not a well person.

[Matt Koplik]

They also said they wanted it to be the Fosca scream and that they could never make it sound the same.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, they did say that. It's literally in the Wikipedia summary where it's like, Giorgio screams cry eerily reminiscent to Fosca. It doesn't sound like that at all, though.

[Matt Koplik]

That was written by somebody who watched the commentary and put that in there so we could all start perpetuating that narrative.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. I mean, it's a really good idea, but it doesn't sound like that.

[Matt Koplik]

No. And they said, like, it's what they wanted. They didn't succeed at it, and they still haven't figured out how to make it happen. They said. They said the first reason they thought it didn't work was that when we hear Fosca screams, it's off stage. So we don't have a visual component. So there's. It. We're literally just going off of sound, and there's no way to make Jerry Shay sound like Donna Murphy.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

So it's just. It just. It was some. One of those things that's great for a thesis paper, but doesn't actually work.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. I do like it as an idea.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. But it's the. It's the. It's. What makes this show worthy of debate is Fosca can die a better person than when she lived. And the irony is that Giorgio actually has had a very real and in somewhat healthy epiphany about love, in theory. It's just that he is not necessarily better off because of it now, you know?

[Ali Gordon]

Right. Yeah. I mean, like, so another thing that I just think about a lot currently, and so I think probably it bled into my watch of this. And I'm saying that I have a proclivity to think about it. This is not like the perfect example of it, but definitely stands out to me, is that, like, I think we are in a dangerous little rut right now in all of our media consumption in really putting a premium on characters we can identify with. I find it. I see it everywhere. I see it in TV shows, I see it in movies. I see it in books. I see it in people's criticism of movies, books, TV shows. I'll go and I'll read a Vulture article and be like, why does that fucking matter? It's somehow a big thing right now. And again, I want to clarify, I'm not saying, like, yeah, identity doesn't matter. I don't care if there are black people. And it's like, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we are really obsessed with, like, can I, as the audience member, identify with this character? And if I can't, can we make sure that there's description, there's a backstory, there's a moment where we see they're not really bad, they're not really difficult. They just had this difficult thing happen to them. See? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, we're really obsessed with, like, giving characters, like, reasons for their motivations. And, like, it's sort of strange to me because, like, to me, that's not the point of fiction. The point of fiction is to create characters like Foska and be like, get a load of this.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Because there are some people with these people.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. And there are some people who. For whom their taste is. They will watch this and go, I found that disgusting and stupid and not believable. And that's fine.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, the purpose of telling this story isn't so that everyone in the world will identify with it and go, we are all Fosca. In a way. Aren't we all Foska? It's for sick 15 year olds like myself to go, I am Foska. But do you know what I'm saying? Like, it was for me. It's okay if it's not for you.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

It's about getting swept up in the story and we don't. The authorial intent and the identity behind the author doesn't really matter. I don't care if Sondheim finds Foska believable or identifiable or empathetic. He just needs to write a good story. And ultimately, I think passion is a good story.

[Matt Koplik]

That's all art. All. Sorry, all good art is essentially an inkblot test where it presents itself to you in a shape that you have a reaction to and someone else has a different reaction to. And that is what makes the best art continue to live on. The ones that make a. If you see an inkblot that then says above it, this is a butterfly. And if you see it any other way, you are incorrect. That is not right. That is not a compelling story. That is someone that needs to guide your hand through everything. So that way there's no interpretation whatsoever.

[Ali Gordon]

And what I'm seeing in like, criticism of things or even like, in like, industry feedback to scripts or whatever is things like, I don't understand why this guy acted this way. It's such. It's such a horrible thing to do. And it's like, yeah, that's. That's okay. I'm not telling it. Like, to me, the perfect example of it is like, Louis Ironson not to, like, talk about Angels in America, which I'm sure I've done every single time I've been on this podcast. But it's like, what Lewis does is indefensible. It's really. It's really horrible. I also, when I see people who perform him well, completely understand him, I don't agree with him. I don't think in my shoes I would have done the same thing as him. But because he's written so well, and when he's performed well, you get him.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's sort of what a lot of people might not be able to say in their feedback when they're saying, I don't understand why this character would do that. It could be ultimately the character isn't defined enough for them to understand the choices that they're making. But that's, that's. You're. We're talking a very large subject with, with examples that we're not really giving with our own personal experiences. But like I, at this point, by the time this episode comes out, we will have hopefully have done the live stream presentation of my play. And I will say the character of Owen was somebody who, in the last two readings we did to prepare for this one, finally the whole table was able to go. I do not agree with, you know, how he's acting. But, like, by God, does he make sense to me as a human being?

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, yes. That's what I'm saying. Where it's like, I love Angels in America so much that I've seen it 4 million times. Between seeking out anybody's production of it to seeing amateur, not amateur. That seems cruel to say. I just mean not Broadway or West End. I'll go see Angels in America fucking anywhere. And I can tell when a director's really good when they get Lewis. Right?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, that. That is what I really mean. And that's what that is why I think ultimately passion is really successful. I don't necessarily think it's for everybody. And I'm not even gonna, like, defend it as being like, well, if you don't get it and you don't identify with it, you're fucking stupid. I get it. And I really, really like it. It like totally hits a button for me. It has since I was a teenager. I get really swept up in the story. I'm really, like, taken by it, but. And that's why I think it's successful, because, like, I think that it has the bones for that. But I also, like, I understand people just being like, this is not it for me. I don't really. This kind of melodrama, these characters don't work for me.

[Matt Koplik]

That actually reminds me of somebody on the Discord Channel. Posted two TV reviews from the Broadway production that I watched right before we started recording this. And I'll talk about what those reviews say after this break.

[Ali Gordon]

Billy, I beg to differ with you.

[Matt Koplik]

How do you mean?

[Ali Gordon]

You're the top.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble thread of the feet.

[Matt Koplik]

This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. So, fun fact. I've talked about the issues I went through a while ago. Personal, emotional, mental. And at the time, I was afraid to take the dive back into therapy. But I actually gave BetterHelp a try, and I could not have been more thankful that I did. I got paired with my therapist, and let me tell you, that man helped me so much during a time of great turbulence and guided me to the point where I was actually able to use my fears and pain and channel them into productive measures. Like art. Therapy is a wonderful resource in general that gives you the tools to better yourself. And BetterHelp is an incredible way to access therapy that's entirely online, built to be accommodating, flexible, and convenient. So really, check out BetterHelp. You fill out a quick questionnaire with no additional charge, and it will help pair you with a licensed therapist. I know it can seem scary, but honestly, sometimes the really important things are. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com broadwaypod today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com broadwaypod and we're back. So I watched a couple of TV reviews for the Broadway production of Passion. Are you aware of how it was received on Broadway?

[Ali Gordon]

Die, Fosca, die.

[Matt Koplik]

Die, Fosca, die. Well, in previews, yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, if you put that on her shirt, I'd buy that.

[Matt Koplik]

Die, Fosca, die.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Die, Fosca, die, banana.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, I went for die, vampire, die. Because I was trying to do.

[Matt Koplik]

But Fosca doesn't. Vampire is technically three syllables, so technically, yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, I'm sorry. Technically, it's three syllables.

[Matt Koplik]

It's dive.

[Ali Gordon]

So you have to be like, oh, okay, I understand. You were going for a different horm.

[Matt Koplik]

Many you can do. Daska. I said, no, die, Fosca. But you can't be like in. Fly the fosca up the fosca. Like, you can't.

[Ali Gordon]

I kind of like it.

[Matt Koplik]

You'll do that?

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, Italian. Oh, my God. I didn't know you were fluent.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm also fluent.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm so sorry. I don't understand what you're saying. I don't speak Italian.

[Matt Koplik]

It is remote, isn't it?

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, my God. I just. I'm so sorry. I'm such an uncultured fuck. I don't speak Italians. I don't understand what you're saying.

[Matt Koplik]

You really are an uncultured fuck. Passion. Famously, in previews Was a disaster. They talk about that in the commentary as well, which, if you haven't gone on YouTube to watch the Broadway production with the commentary from that group, watch it. It's so fucking funny. They all have an amazing sense of humor about it. And they even say, like, it's such a serious show that everyone thought that we were the most up our asses about it. They're like, it was the most fun rehearsal process, the most fun, like, performance time. Like, we all just giggled backstage all the time.

[Ali Gordon]

That's great.

[Matt Koplik]

And I think it's because it was. And Kyunzi said the same thing about Fun Home. She was like, fun Home is a heavy show, but, like, backstage, it was just a party. And I think it's. You have to have that vibe backstage if you're gonna do something like this eight times a week. Otherwise, you're just gonna go.

[Ali Gordon]

It also encourages, like, love and trust.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

You know, I mean, when you're, like, having a genuinely good time with somebody and, like, feeling like, you know, you can open up more and be a little safer with them because you are you. Because you have the ability to have fun with them, it makes you so much more willing to, like, take risks, be vulnerable.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. You have that.

[Ali Gordon]

Open up your heart to them. Yeah, totally.

[Matt Koplik]

It's. But so the. So previews, they really had difficulty with audiences, as you were saying. Like, audiences wanted to, like, Foska. They wanted to get on board with this love story, because God forbid they watch a story about an unattractive woman pursuing an attractive man and she's not likable, or they. They. They. They just hated her so much. And it got to the point where she became so insufferable that anytime she would enter, there would either be groans, there would be laughter. At one point, she. When she does her epileptic fit in the second half, one of the previews, they talk about. The audience cheered, and Donna Murphy was like, please swallow me whole earth. I don't want to get back up. And. And when that. It's the scene where she falls apart and he's about to leave her on the hill, but then.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And when he went to pick her up, the entire audience groaned.

[Ali Gordon]

It's so funny because, like, it. The story is really. I'm gonna say it's melodramatic, and I don't even mean that in the, like, criticism sense, but it's a melodrama. But it doesn't feel campy.

[Matt Koplik]

I think it can be in the wrong hands, but that's not what they.

[Ali Gordon]

Were seeing on Broadway. No, it's amazing to me that we had like Rocky Horror Picture show reactions to Foster.

[Matt Koplik]

I think again, it's about expectation. People going in. This is Post into the woods and Sunday in the park with George. So you had the esoteric hit that maybe didn't make money, but it ran for a year and a half and won the Pulitzer and had its fans, even though people. It had its walkouts and it had its fans. Then you went into the woods, which was like a genuine hit for the two of them. And maybe like Frank Rich in the Times didn't like it as much as Sunday, but it won three Tonys. They ran for two years. They got a national tour. People were like, oh, Sondheim is back. And they hear that the team is doing a new musical owner based off of this Italian story. Oh, and it's all of these actors and you know, we've got Marin Mazzie and Donna Murphy, two of like the best kept secrets right now in Broadway that no one knows really who they are, but like, just wait, they're gonna pop and people go in. And it's as we were saying earlier, like it's the Sondheim in a lot of ways that people who don't like Sondheim think of Sondheim when they. The melody you can't hum or the self important whatever. And it's, it's a very beautiful production to look at it like, it's designed gorgeously and I think there was a jarring juxtaposition of the messy drama of the story with the like pristine beauty of the presentation and also the expectation from people of like, oh, this is going to be another boundary breaking, get you thinking kind of show. And really all it is is just focusing on love. A topic that Sondheim doesn't really cover all that much in his.

[Ali Gordon]

But it's so funny because like it's. You said earlier, love is the topic, but love's not what the show's about. Do what I mean, it's like, it's like sub. It's like subheader subject line love. But then the body of the email is like kind of like, haha, okay, well I got your attention. It's not really about love all that much. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Well, no, I think it is, but love is not simple. And I think that's why Sondheim always kind of steered clear of it in so many of his shows, primarily Young Love. It's why when he does something like Sweeney Todd with Joanna and Anthony, they're ultimately played for laughs. Or Anne and Henrik in Night Music. When you're that young and you're quote, unquote in love, it's so simplistic that to someone like Sondheim, it's kind of dumb and insufferable. And it's why he's always been anti his lyrics on west side Story, because that is ultimately passionate young love. And there's no snark or cynicism. It is hard on sleeve purple. And I think that actually is to the benefit of west side Story, because it does end in tragedy. But. And. And you can't buy the tragedy if there isn't earnestness in the characters.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And passion is. Is ultimately about grown ups being messy teenagers. And there is a earnestness you have to have in the writing, which he hadn't really done in so long, but because everybody is older, with more experience and more trauma, the subject matter of it being love isn't simple anymore. There's toxicity attached to it, there's pride attached to it. There's confusion, there's disgust and hatred, while also obsession. And so it. I think it's love is the seed of the show, and everything that sprouts from it is what it's actually about.

[Ali Gordon]

Totally. And that also not to keep bringing it back into this weird Gordian knot of this obsession I have with relatability. Do you know what I'm saying? Because it's a really complicated subject and it's hard to pick apart. And it also does have crossover with representation and identity. And it's hard to talk about it without sounding dismissive of what actually is an important topic. But what I'm really trying to say is, like, isn't it enough that Foska is a fascinating character? Isn't it enough that she feels so real despite being so overblown? That's what I'm fascinated by, and that's what I admire when I watch the show. Not that I'm like, dude, Foska is all of us. We're all Foska. Yay. That show was so relatable. I like. I so get it. It's just that, like, I watch it and I'm like, that was a good story.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, you.

[Ali Gordon]

You. You really sunk your claws into me. I was engaged and fascinated and a little repulsed, but also kind of swept up in it. Good job. Not because I'm like, I approve. And you know what? In saying that I approve of Hoska's actions, you have a big old stamp of approval. For me, let's. Like, I. I'm just fascinated.

[Matt Koplik]

There. There it is. It is the norm now to. When you say you like a show, it's because you politically agree with what the characters are doing, or because.

[Ali Gordon]

Or even morally or morally or.

[Matt Koplik]

Or. That's what I mean. Politically. Like, politically, morally, or. A character is so close to how you identify that it's very important to you that it be seen and be understood. I do not. I am not represented physically by most shows. How can I be? I am simply too beautiful for words.

[Ali Gordon]

But so true. So we're all saying it.

[Matt Koplik]

We're. We're all guys, we're all thinking it.

[Ali Gordon]

We'Re all saying it.

[Matt Koplik]

We all know that I have a face for print and a voice for podcasts.

[Ali Gordon]

You will have to put that new headshot of yours in the discord, the.

[Matt Koplik]

One that I put on my Close friends.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, it's really. It's a very handsome picture.

[Matt Koplik]

The one where I'm sort of looking off to the side or the. The one where I'm, like, looking at you, like, what the fuck are you talking about, Willis? Or do you mean both?

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, I like them both. You can drop them both in the chat.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, they'll go by side. By side. I'm gonna. I'm gonna definitely drop them soon. Maddie DeCarlo has told me that I need to put more of my face on my Instagram, that I can't just have writing stuff on there.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Oh, they love to say that, huh?

[Matt Koplik]

Who?

[Ali Gordon]

Just anybody.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, no.

[Ali Gordon]

Anytime you're trying to make something, they're always like, what do you look like? Who are you? And you're like, I don't want to be perceived.

[Matt Koplik]

He wants it. He wants photos of me up there. Because as we are, like, reaching out to people and collaborating with people about the play, he's like, I need them to know what you look like. And I. I was like, well, I have a photo of me on there. He's like, you need several more. So I am being strategic, but I'm doing. I'm gonna do it. So, yeah, I will drop those two photos. I will.

[Ali Gordon]

I just took author pictures for my book.

[Matt Koplik]

That's right. You have a book. Are we allowed to.

[Ali Gordon]

I. Yeah, yeah. It's like. I mean, like, my. Like, my proofreads are back. I'm probably gonna have to look at it for, like, 90 minutes. When those pre freed, like, when I left some questions in the comments when I was responding to some proofread things. We're gonna look at Interior design. Soon, my cover is basically done. They need some text, but, like, the art is done for the COVID Like, it's like, we're coming up on it. And so I got to get, like, author pictures done. But again, it was so weird to me because it was fun and exciting. It's always, like, fun to sort of feed into to the vanity of, like, getting your hair and makeup done, like, being like, that's me. But then it puts me into an existential spiral of being like, that's me.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So sorry. Okay, we need to get back to this topic, because here's the thing. I. I was trying to get back to this about the critics reviews of this show. When the show finally did open, because they did make tweaks throughout the entire preview period. They would sometimes put in a song, take out a song. The biggest change they did was they Loving you was put in during previews. It did not exist beforehand. And Sondheim was very resistant to it because he thought it was too obvious.

[Ali Gordon]

Interesting.

[Matt Koplik]

He was basically saying, must we explain it this broadly? Can audiences be smarter than this? And James Lapine said, no, they are not smarter than this. Have the last three weeks taught you nothing? We need this.

[Ali Gordon]

Good for him.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And they also said it got to the point where audiences started coming in, having heard in the gossip columns and through the grapevine about all the laughter and the jeering. And people came then to start doing that and would seek out where Lapine and Sondheim were in the theater and would try to have reactions near them. And it just got very aggressive. And so they would take make note of all the times people would laugh and then go in and try to fix it. And then the next night, they would laugh at a whole bunch of new stuff. So by the time previews ended, people weren't laughing anymore, or at least they were laughing a lot less. It was less aggressive. But still, the reviews were kind of. The best reviews were admirably kind. And the worst reviews just totally missed it by the mark. And so the two TV reviews I saw, one basically said, you know, it's very beautiful. It's quite moving, but it's so sad.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. Gowns. Beautiful gowns.

[Matt Koplik]

Truly. She was like, beautiful gowns. Wonderful talent. The music's gorgeous. And she's like, this is really, like, the return of the Sondheim that we love. But, my God, it's so shroud. That was so. It was a dumb, mixed review. The other guy is the one who Said, oh, another nail in the coffin of Sondheim because he continues to insist on working with James Lapine Goes Sunday in the park with George. Garbage into the woods flopped. And now we have Passion, which is trash. And he's like, I firmly believe that Sondheim will return to us in the glory with which we are accustomed, but I have to wait a little bit longer. And everyone's like, how interesting. Yeah, Sorry to be you. And the irony is that, no, he did not return to us in the glory that we know soon after Passion. Passion was kind of like the last burst of glory because then it was Roadshow and continued to be Roadshow forever.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, it was Roadshow. Roadshow Part 2, Roadshow Part 3, renamed Roadshow. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And some extra songs for the frogs.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. And then.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, and here we are.

[Ali Gordon]

Here we are.

[Matt Koplik]

AKA Square one, which is what it's the only.

[Ali Gordon]

You saw, right? What you saw.

[Matt Koplik]

Here we are.

[Ali Gordon]

Here we are.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure did.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Beautiful gown.

[Ali Gordon]

Did we talk about that? Gowns, beautiful gowns.

[Matt Koplik]

I can get dinosaur hair.

[Ali Gordon]

Beautiful. Denis O'Hare. That's sort of how I feel.

[Matt Koplik]

I will give us 180 seconds on here we are. And then we got to get back to passion.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, thoughts?

[Matt Koplik]

And here we are.

[Ali Gordon]

It's a really good play. I don't know. And when it was music, I really actually quite liked the music. Like, I really did like the music, but it was just like sort of like seeing two plays with some music. It wasn't really a musical kind of. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Watching it, I went, oh, Sondheim is reminding us that even at 90, no one can touch him with a 10 foot pole when it comes to lyrics. Yes, the. The. The waiter song that Dennis O'Hare sang of them being out of everything. The rhymes. Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

No, no, There were also big theatrical moments that, like, really, like, made me laugh. Like that part where they're at the restaurant and then, like the curtain opens and there's like a funeral for the chef. And it's like. Like, it's so absurd. And I mean absurd in a good way. Like, they really leaned into the tone, those moments where it, like, was genuine absurdity. I, like, loved them.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I thought it was really different and really weird. And it's just fun to see someone at the end of the. At the late stage of their game, honestly, the end of their game still being so fucking weird. That's such a. That's such a delight. What a. What a. What an amazing muscle to still be able to have and flex Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Making a lot of bold choices. There was some really good music in it. Like I said. I know that. End of the World. Nothing about the End of the World and Michaela diamond stuff with the soldier where they're, like, horny for each other was. Yeah, that music was really cool and interesting. Great cast. They assembled a great cast. I thought that Rachel Bay Jones was incredible.

[Ali Gordon]

I love her.

[Matt Koplik]

She's so. Talk about a talent alien. That woman is so good at being weird and vulnerable and engaging at the same time.

[Ali Gordon]

She's got like, baby bird syndrome.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you mean. But in a good way. You're like, oh, you poor little wounded thing.

[Matt Koplik]

I wonder what her Fosca would be like.

[Ali Gordon]

Would she see that?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I wonder how sweet her Fosca might be and if she might be the kind of actress that could get an audience on her side no matter what. Because she's just so damn likable.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I really like Judy Kuhn in the role a lot.

[Matt Koplik]

Hunesy's fucking great in that role.

[Ali Gordon]

I think she's really, really good. I think she sounds like a dream. And I think Foska's a hard role to sing because you think of her sort of being an alto.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Because she has some really low stuff. But then she goes surprisingly high. And like, I think it's underappreciated. The. The sort of like what you would call like an opera, like mezzo. Do you know what I mean? Having those, like, richer, lower notes, but like still being quite genuinely a soprano.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Donna Murphy absolutely can do that. And like, Judy K. Can do that. She was. She was great.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Judy K. Can sing absolutely anything. And it's what makes, like, she is physically not right for Clara. But, like, like, if she wanted to in 2002, she could have sung Clara, like, totally a one woman. Judy Kuhn Passion would be a wonderful bucket list thing.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I'd love to see her. Georgia.

[Matt Koplik]

Although lucre sounds absolutely like velvet sex on that.

[Ali Gordon]

I wrote down that I literally was taking notes when I was writing it. I said, the best I've ever heard Rebecca Luker sound. And she always sounds amazing. That's the literal, verbatim thing I wrote. I was like. I was like, well, that's the best of the best. And you're always the best. Like, I'm just blown away by her vocal performance on it.

[Matt Koplik]

And that's the girl who knows how to sing the song.

[Ali Gordon]

There's a girl who can sing the song.

[Matt Koplik]

So people are asking about the Foska of it all. And I'll try to get some more of this stuff in a second. But first of all, they said it's ironic that the year that Passion came out on Broadway, it was one of three musicals that year about a quote unquote like ugly person falling for a beautiful person. Because there was also Beauty and the Beast and Cyrano the musical.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh yeah, I forgot Cyrano as well.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. And a Tony nominee for best musical that year, as well as score, book.

[Ali Gordon]

And costume and Jim Yankees where he's secretly old.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. And she's really ugly.

[Ali Gordon]

And she's really ugly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Hey, that's another one.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, we also got to put a pin in that 94 Tony's, which I've talked about a few times in regards to the Carousel of it all. But it is a fascinating ceremony.

[Ali Gordon]

I watched the whole thing. I guess maybe you say this, but just like as a background, Matt is a very good host in that he will send some pre stuff for people to look at should you want to familiarize yourself with the show. So like maybe some reviews, maybe some write ups, maybe some whatever. And one of the things that you sent was the 1994. The full broadcast of the 1994 Tonys, which I kind of, I like sort of conceptually knew was like a jam packed year. But then when I was watching it, I was like, this is one of the best years for theater maybe ever. And the broadcast is fucking delightful. Even like the presenters like Madeline Khan and Kevin Klein, you're like, whoa, cool. You know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Melanie Griffith presenting actor in a musical. Like what?

[Ali Gordon]

And, and like just everybody's. Just everybody's.

[Matt Koplik]

And it's also, it's the first year of the lifetime achievement award given jointly to Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronin.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, amazing, amazing. That is just so great. And Angels in America, sorry to bring it back. Perestroika is up that year. Jesus Christ.

[Matt Koplik]

When he play actor and feature actor. But I've talked about about this before on the podcast with that 94 because it's obviously it's the year of the Carousel, but it's so fascinating to watch that, that ceremony because Carousel swept they. They were nominated for five and they won all five. And the audience could not care less. Every time they win, they don't get so much as a whoop from like two people. The shows that are definitely the like crowd favorites in that room are she Loves Me, Damn Yankees and An Inspector Calls. Those are like the big ones that you hear. And when Donna wins for Passion and.

[Ali Gordon]

When Donna was your Passion. But also when. What's her name? Jane Addams. When Jane Adams, when she went for An Inspector Calls. Oh, my God. That's. That's a big reaction also.

[Matt Koplik]

But, like, any time An Inspector calls won anything, they got a lot of reaction.

[Ali Gordon]

That's true.

[Matt Koplik]

And when. I think when Jane Greenwood won for. No, not Jane Greenwood and Wooled Horde for Beauty and the Beast, she got a big reaction for her win.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And like, Angels winning Play doesn't get a big reaction, but Jeffrey Wright winning.

[Ali Gordon]

Every right gets a big reaction. I will say, I. I think part of the reaction to Angels is that, like, it had swept the previous year. And I think people were like, well, here we go again. Like, I don't think anybody was like, holy, I can't believe it. They won. Like, I. As I would have been too, if I. I think.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

It was so expected, Everyone.

[Matt Koplik]

It had been a full year of Angels at that point. Everyone's a little. Like, we're a little tired of it now, but.

[Ali Gordon]

But also, like, you know, if Part one sweeps, you're like, part two is. Wait.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And so it's like, not as a. Brian.

[Matt Koplik]

Part two. Part two was still a mystery to people because it was still so in development. And a lot of feelings were that it wasn't as good as Millennium Approaches. And I. I think the Millennium approaches in Perestroika are polar opposites in that I think that Millennium Approaches is the tighter, technically speaking, better constructed play. But Perestroika for me, is the emotional catharsis like I feel during Perestroika in a way that I don't during Millennium Approaches, which is not a dig at Millennium. Millennium is. Is meant to be the setup for the waterfall. That is Perestroika.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

So, like, yes. I'm like, Perestroika is messier, but, my God, is it engaging. But point is that, I mean, the show opens right. That ceremony opens with the revivals doing their medley. That's also the first year that they split revivals. So it wasn't just best revival, it was revival of a musical and revival.

[Ali Gordon]

And a musical play. Very smart.

[Matt Koplik]

They have George Abbott, who's about to turn 107.

[Ali Gordon]

Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

With Gwen Verdon and Gene Stapleton, the original stars of Damn Yankees, presenting the winners. And so you're already like, okay, so it's like, I guess it's between Damn Yankees and she Loves Me. Then if, like, this is what's happening and they announce the nominees and she Loves Me gets the loudest reaction from the room. Damn Yankees Gets a huge reaction. Grease gets a couple of loops, and they're like, Carousel. And then when Carousel wins, everyone's like, okay. And I feel like everyone goes, okay, so they're probably going to win Revival and now Featured actress, most likely. But, like, well, that'll be the end of it. But then Heightener wins director, and they're like, okay, well, yeah, sure, fine, whatever. Macmillan wins choreography. And they're like, well, you can't beat a dead guy. And then when they win, set, whoever it is that's presenting that award, she has to look at the envelope twice because it's so clear she thought it was going to be an inspector call. Because she looks at it, looks up, takes, then has to go back and look at the envelope again. And then you see her face just go, Carousel. And I'm like, carousel. I'm like, I'm so sorry that one of the greatest productions of all time happened in your season, you dumb, uncultured fucks. And it's.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, sometimes people don't know what.

[Matt Koplik]

They have till they. Till it's gone.

[Ali Gordon]

Although I will say I'm like, I'm obsessed with the footage I have seen of Judy Kuhn in she Loves Me.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, it's perfect. She's fucking.

[Ali Gordon]

I think. I think her. This is a really bold statement, but I think she has my favorite vanilla ice cream.

[Matt Koplik]

Correct.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, thank you. Bold and true.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, so also, I need Steve Tipton.

[Ali Gordon]

I also love Sallie Maze. I love, love, love, love, love Sally.

[Matt Koplik]

Mays, but I need Steve Tipton to hear that. Steve Tipton. Allie Gordon said that Judy Kuhn does her favorite vanilla ice cream. So can you now stop yelling at me?

[Ali Gordon]

I don't know who that is, but I just. When you watch that footage, she, like, not only does she sound like a dream, obviously, she really plays how hard it is for her to admit the things that she's admitting. And at the end when she, like, the give her giving over to saying, like, I guess I really like him, she plays that revelation and what. How it feels to, like, be a giggly girl in love better than almost anybody because then she, like, throws her arms out and is laughing and falls backwards on the bed. Like, it's like, it is, to me, perfect.

[Matt Koplik]

It is playing it. She isn't playing it for laugh. She's playing it for joy and discovery.

[Ali Gordon]

And it's killing her that she likes this guy. And it's like when she finally gives over to being like, I think I really like him. Watching her go from being like, this can't be true. This can't be true. This can't be true to being like it is true and I actually really enjoy it. Being true is like.

[Matt Koplik]

Her face when she first sings Ice Cream, she's so confused. She looks up and her face just goes, ice cream. Like, keep ice cream. What? And so many Amalias want to play it for laughs. It's what been like. Benanti is such a comedic genius and her go to is truly the comedy and she does a very funny vanilla ice cream. But I said this before, she is too Katharine Hepburn for me, whereas Kunzy goes for the Audrey Hepburn. And for my money, the better Amalias are the ones that are hard on sleeve Audrey. And it's also when you watch her final scene with Boyd Gaines on Aurora Spider Woman, which is, by the way, they spend three times as much time as Benanti and Levi do in that final scene. Like they sped through it in the last revival and in this one they took their time. And you watch them both like you, you're convinced they're not going to get together for that time because they're finally admitting their feelings. But it's not a happy moment. They're like, what could have been? Like, she's so sad now because they've now established themselves as friends and she's got to go see this dude now. And they, they take their time on the realization. It's just so beautiful. Her Tony nomination is very well deserved. And Diane Frantoni is great on the cast recording, but we all know that Kinsey should have been on the cast recording. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. We don't deny her Tony nomination. It should d hody for Best Little Whorehouse goes Public is fucking dumb. And we all know it. That should have been Sally Murphy and we all know it. Terence man from Beauty and the Beast is dumb. It should have been Michael Hayden. We all know it. Moving on.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm gonna say two things.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

One is when you watch this broadcast and you see Beauty and the Beast, I think it's very easy now to like be like, oh, Beauty and the Beast, the Disney vacation of Broadway. Da, da da da. When you watch that Tony performance, you were like, if I had a child in the year 1994, I would have spent my life savings to fly to New York and see Broadway and see that on Broadway.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

It is magical. They look amazing. They sound amazing, they dance amazing. The cast is like doing their own thing. But just enough in the Movie. It's perfect.

[Matt Koplik]

It's perfect. Broadway got read for being far too faithful to the movie just in terms of, like, aesthetic, which is 1,000% true. They were a little too faithful. That's something that, like, you watch the progression of Disney shows and you see how. Right.

[Ali Gordon]

And then you see, like, fighting, like. Yeah. Compared to Lion King.

[Matt Koplik]

Lion king with total 180.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

But I will say you cannot, you cannot blame. You cannot clock them for not spending the money because while they are, it's not necessarily the most imaginative of. Looks like Susan Egan looks like the cartoon, but she looks like an expensive watercolor version of the cartoon. And it, like, it doesn't look bad. It looks.

[Ali Gordon]

And she kicks her face. Belle never kicked her face in the movie. She wasn't serving C during VR guest the way Susan Egan is.

[Matt Koplik]

Notice, notice how I did not say that Gary beach and Susan Egan should not have been nominated for their Tonys. They absolutely should have. I will not deny them those nominations. Sally Mays was on here once for an interview and she talked about how the night of the Tonys, it was. It was pretty much down to Beauty and the Beast and Passion for best musical because Cyrano and Grand Knight for singing were in there. Because the Tonys got pressured to have four nominees even though they're like, guys, they're, they're six musicals this year. We just, just only two really worthwhile. And I'm like, you're not.

[Ali Gordon]

Like I said before, I'm such a Grand Knight for singing apologist.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, it's, it's a fun review, but it's really fun.

[Ali Gordon]

It's a really good review.

[Matt Koplik]

But she's not saying it's like a.

[Ali Gordon]

Best musical, but I was like, I'm.

[Matt Koplik]

Saying first that she, Marshall Lewis and Marin Maisie all knew they, that they weren't winning. They were up against Audra and they're like, even then we all knew Audra was winning. And then she says at the commercial break, but before they announced best musical, she goes, and we also knew that she Loves Me was going to close because if we didn't win Revival, we were closing and so we were. We posted closing the next day. And she goes at the commercial break, I'm sitting by Gary beach and we're old friends. And it's the commercial break for they announced best musical. And he goes, we're not winning best musical, but we just sold a million dollars worth of tickets today.

[Ali Gordon]

And that was, and that was the impression. That was the impression I had watching it. I was like, Oh, I was too young to know this at the time, but. But if I was a person who did not live in New York City and I saw that on tv, I'd be like, we're going to New York.

[Matt Koplik]

We're taking the kids.

[Ali Gordon]

It's an incredible showcase. I love. You're saying. Were you saying that Sally Maze was on the podcast? Did I miss that?

[Matt Koplik]

He was. Sally Maze was on the podcast.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm gonna. Wait. This actually ties into the second thing I was going to say, which is that my dream guest is Aurora Spider Woman.

[Matt Koplik]

That's Ken Mandelbaum.

[Ali Gordon]

Can you have him on the podcast?

[Matt Koplik]

I can try, but I'm telling you that we have enough mutual friends that I can. I can reach out. He also is obsessed with the 94 carousel, and in fact, commented on my bootleg that he was thankful that I had it up there because in his words, it should always be seen by everyone, all the time.

[Ali Gordon]

And I said, this is my dream. I just want you to know, like, you could talk to him about basically any topic and I'd be riveted. I'd be very interested to hear about your guys take on just like, archival footage versus bootleg versus filming Broadway.

[Matt Koplik]

Honestly, I think that bootlegs are sort of a necessity because the archive lives can't record everything, and it's never as good as the real thing. But it's so wonderful to have some of that shit out there, you know.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, to me, his YouTube channel is the Library of Alexandria.

[Matt Koplik]

It sure is. I would love it if he would post some of the Kennedy center passion on there. Because that. Because that passion for a lot of critics was sort of considered their turning point in reevaluating this show. Because. And this is sort of. It's interesting we talk about Foska now because people are saying on the Discord, people said, does Fosca need to be ugly? Can she just sort of be playing for it to work? And I'm like, not. It's not about whether it needs to, if it makes it work or not. Like, the material is strong enough that it can just sort of. It's open to interpretation. They were also asking, like, does she have to be young? Does she have to be old? I. Foska's only supposed to be like, 26 or 27.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. She's not supposed to be old.

[Matt Koplik]

No.

[Ali Gordon]

But she's just sort of homely, I.

[Matt Koplik]

Guess, and also, like, like, weathered. She's. She looks older than her years because of her life and her experiences and her illnesses.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

But something that is interesting for me is Donna Murphy as Foska is considered like one of those great, iconic Broadway performances. Not just because it's an original role. It's our introduction to the role. So she's tied to it forever. It's also the launching point of her star career. So it's this sort of combination of so many things, and yet I'm going to make an argument here that her performance being so riveting, being so captivating, and being so big and taking up so much of the room is actually a hindrance to that original production.

[Ali Gordon]

Interesting.

[Matt Koplik]

In addition to the fact that Jerry Shay being intentionally kind of milquetoast for so much of the show and then kind of. Of being more vulnerable as it goes on is also sort of to the detriment because it is not as. As we were saying earlier. Sondheim says passion isn't about Foska falling in love with Giorgio. It's about Giorgio.

[Ali Gordon]

Giorgio falling in love with Foska.

[Matt Koplik]

It's a story. He is. He has to be the center of it. And so casting and performing those two roles is pivotal and crucial to the success of your passion. And Sondheim, as I said, you know, the. The Kennedy center production was when both the Times and Variety and every reviewed it, and everybody's like, oh, Michael Cerberus is Giorgio all. Like, all of a sudden, this show makes more sense than I realize. And it's because he's the focal point. And it's not that, like, Kuhn or Lucre are not good. Like, they're wonderful. They. It's just that this production has chosen to make Giorgio the focus. And now the story makes way more sense and is actually more impactful to me. And Sondheim, you know, he said really lovely things about it on the commentary. But again, he says in look, I made a hat. He says in interviews. The Donmar Warehouse production did a similar thing where they focused on David Thaxton as Giorgio, and he said it made the show come into focus in a way that I didn't realize it needed to before.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, I get that. I. I am not a huge fan of microservice as Georgia. I'm a big fan of Michael Cerberus, though. So, like, I go in wanting to like it. I think what he does so incredibly well is he, like, is the epitome of somebody who's, like, got a hard exterior and a soft interior, which he can employ in many different ways. He. He did it well with Sweeney. He was scary, but he was also very vulnerable. And sad. He does it well in, like, Titanic, you see like, a professional who you can't rattle. And then you see him in his life moments, very rattled. Like, he. He's amazing at that. I didn't think that that was the color I needed to make Giorgio make more sense to me, if that makes sense. That thing of, like, a more a harder guy, but secretly underneath, he's sensitive. Like, I actually am more inclined towards the Giorgio being like, a. Like an open wound, which is what. Which is what Foska sees in him and, like, really. Really is obsessed with.

[Matt Koplik]

For me, it's not what he does. I think he does it beautifully. It's an aesthetic thing for me where I don't like how they've dressed him up as Giorgio in that production. I don't like the goatee and the bald head. I want no goatee. And his Bruce Bechdel wig.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Because he. He. He just looks more sinister and, like, he looks like a Disney villain, how they. How they've dressed him up, which is a shame.

[Ali Gordon]

I agree. I think he looks older.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Than he is.

[Matt Koplik]

And it's.

[Ali Gordon]

And a little evil.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And it's a shame because that's not how he's playing it. He is playing it ultimately very sincere. And I do think he's playing not the open wound, but he is playing the sensitive softy. It's just that physically, that's not what he's giving us. And he doesn't have to look like a, you know, tortured little poet. But there is something to be said of someone who presents in a way that we all have a stigma on. This was a question that was asked in Little Shop that we talked about for a second, which was like, must Audrey be played by a quote unquote, hot actress? And it's like Audrey does kind of have to look like the stereotype of objectification because she is a sweet little girl who the world treats horribly, not just because we're terrible to women, but because women who look and dress like Audrey get labeled a certain kind of way. And it's unfair, especially because she, as it turns out, like, she is the most sensitive soul in the world. Like, she's like the sweetest little baby. And Giorgio, I think there has to be something about him physically that just looks like a strapping leading man, even though, truly, what he's giving us is sensitive poet boy.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, totally. Yeah. I know it's tough because, like, they are very clearly drawn characters in that. I mean, like, I think the book is good. The music is Good. Like, they're very. They're like characters you understand, but, like, there's no description of Giorgio. He can kind of be whatever. And so it's like. I think it's fun to try stuff, but I don't think Michael Cerberus was the right try. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Not to say anything of his performance, like, I still think he's, like, a very good actor, but just, like, the whole package, wasn't it for me?

[Matt Koplik]

No. He's an odd choice, for sure. Just on paper. And I think that's made more clear in the Lincoln center concert that he does with Audra and Patty, where, of the three big videos you can watch on YouTube of passion, each one a different person, that trio comes off best. Like, in the original, it's Donna Murphy's Foska. I would argue in the Kennedy center one, it is Michael Cervers is Giorgio. And then the third one, it's Audra's Clara.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, absolutely. Who's, like, complicated. Like, she's like a complicated woman. Yeah, I sort of, like. I sort of fuck with that. I was like, oh, you're really bringing some colors to this that I've never seen before.

[Matt Koplik]

And it's because I think that with the relaxed element of that concert, I don't think that Cerberus is giving as much as he was giving at Kennedy Center.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, totally.

[Matt Koplik]

And is leaning a bit more into his Cerberus ways. And then you have Patty, who is just so miscast. She is.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, to me, Patty is doing Norma Desmond.

[Matt Koplik]

She. I will say this objectively, and I feel a little safe in saying this because we're all being a little more open and honest about Patty these days. She's bad in it. She's very bad in it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, she.

[Matt Koplik]

It's a. It's a bad take. She's. She sings it in a way that is so harsh. Like, it is. And Sondheim thought this, too. There's a. She talks about how there's a photo of the two of them in rehearsals or in tech for it. And, like, she's on the edge of the stage talking to him. And the photo looks like a really sweet photo. And she's like, oh, no, he's ripping me a new asshole in that photo. He's telling me that my characterization is wrong, that I'm belting too much. Like, he's just like, how dare you come in and sing this? Like, it's Evita. And.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, I mean, but that's what she did. I I owned that Sweeney Todd concert because it came in that DVD box set to go all the way back to the beginning of this podcast, the one that was at. I can't remember.

[Matt Koplik]

It wasn't Avery Fisher Hall. That's where it started. But then they did it in San Francisco.

[Ali Gordon]

It's got George Hearn, it's got Patty, it's got Neil Patrick Harris.

[Matt Koplik]

It's Victoria Clark subbing Victoria Clark.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. I saw Patti LuPone in that and I thought I hated her Mrs. Lovett so much. I hated it so much. And honestly, I have to be honest, if I rewatched it today, I'd still say I hated it to the point where when she was announced to do the revival, the John Doyle revival, I was like heartbroken because it was going to be the first time I ever saw Sweet Todd live on stage. And I was already the biggest fan of it that had ever been born onto this earth. And I was like, I can't believe I'm finally gonna see my favorite show and this, this person's gonna do this horrible Mrs. Lovett in it. And I actually really like her performance in that revival.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, it's a whole different.

[Ali Gordon]

It's totally different characterization is a totally different vibe. But also she just like, really got it. And she really got. She really understood the cog in the wheel that is the bigger story of Sweeney Todd. And she had a really interesting, totally unique take on the character, but was still really, really servicing the big machine that is Sweeney Todd. That's how I feel about this passion where it's like, oh, I don't think you know that this is a clock. You just came in with a car engine that's not going to fit in this. This is a clock.

[Matt Koplik]

It's ironic. It's ironic because she's Sicilian and known for being like, you know, here's all of me on the stage, right. Which is very Foska esque. Not the Sicilian part, but the like, here I am. Take me. And, and, and for her bigness, which in a lot of ways you. We associate with passion. We said melodrama, but it's all just mismatched. And yeah, it's important to know that, like, talent alone is not enough. Intelligence alone isn't enough. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you just don't fit a role. And yes, I talked about this with the Ragtime Review. Like, that whole principal company is very talented. They're good singing actors. Not all of them are a great fit for their roles. And it's not their Fault they, you know, they accepted the offer for being cast. But like, if you sound more modern than a score that is more classic, no matter how hard you try, your voice just isn't going to fit the music well, even if you are a technically good singer.

[Ali Gordon]

Also, sometimes, you know like when people like Gen Z now will say that like when they watch TV shows, people have like iPhone face.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Ali Gordon]

And you're like, I don't know how to say. I don't know what to say. You're not doing bad acting. You just look like you've seen an iPhone before. So I don't believe that you are a 15th century peasant. I totally get that. I remember once when I was in acting school, we were doing scenes from Waiting for Lefty by Cliff Clifford Odets, which is an amazing play. And I was such a fucking goody two shoes. I was like, I was never not prepared. I was never not like. You know what I mean? Like to me an A was the only thing. Anything less than that was like unacceptable. And I was not doing well in these scenes. Like we had just come from doing scenes from August Osage county and I was like having the fucking time of my life and getting like great feedback and like I loved it. And then we were doing Waiting, Waiting for Lefty and I didn't sound good on the text. So like, even though I had like done my character work and done my beats and connected with my acting teacher put me aside and was just like, listen, you're just probably not going to get cast in a show like this. Your voice doesn't sound like that. You don't look like it. You just, you're probably not going to be in this show. And that's fine. That's why we have 100 plays and 100,000 actors. Like, it's really okay. And it was like kind of the first time anybody had like sort of given me like a really pragmatic look, look at acting, which wasn't just like any actor can be anything. You are incredible. You are the canvas, you are the paint. It was just, he was just sort of like, yeah, you don't sound like that character. And so you really tried. Like I can, I'm not, I'm still gonna give you like a good grade on the assignment. But like you just weren't as good as it as you were as the 14 year old daughter who curses in Augustus County. Yeah, you were way better as her. And I was like, I was way better as her.

[Matt Koplik]

And that's sort of the point though of acting school, that is a safe space for you to figure all that out. And also, and it does, in something like acting class, it's probably you probably became a better actor being in something you weren't right for by trying to navigate it for yourself. So when you were in something that was a good fit, you had those tools at your disposal and you could just annihilate it, you know?

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. It's also just like, it's nice to know sometimes, like, when I say, like, I don't really love Michael Cerberus in Passion. I don't, like, love his take on Giorgio. I don't hate him. And I don't think his approach to acting is, like, flawed. I just, like, don't really buy him in that. Do I mean, like, that's sort of.

[Matt Koplik]

How he feel about it for you in the role, is what you're saying, which I totally get. And I think I, I, he is a fit for me. It's, again, it's the look they give him that I think is unfortunately half the battle. I'm just like, Eric Schaefer, give the boy a wig and shave his goddamn face. Come on. He's. He's never going to look like Jerry Shay, but you can help him not look like Jafar.

[Ali Gordon]

And, oh, no, he looks like Jafar.

[Matt Koplik]

It's bad.

[Ali Gordon]

He kind of does.

[Matt Koplik]

But I do, I do love his performance. And again, he's up against Lucre and Kunzy, who sound incredible, are doing the damn thing and look the world. Yeah, Lucre. I mean, that wig they give Lucre is just incredible. It's so long and luscious and like Aurora and Sleeping Beauty.

[Ali Gordon]

She's just gorgeous, and she sounds so good.

[Matt Koplik]

I actually, I do want to talk about Clara, but first, we got to take another break. This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. So, fun fact. I've talked about the issues I went through a while ago. Personal, emotional, mental. And at the time, I was afraid to take the dive back into therapy. But I actually gave BetterHelp a try, and I could not have been more thankful that I did. I got paired with my therapist, and let me tell you, that man helped me so much during a time of great turbulence and guided me to the point where I was actually able to use my fears and pain and channel them into productive measures like art. Therapy is a wonderful resource in general that gives you the tools to better yourself. And BetterHelp is an incredible way to access therapy that's entirely online, built to be accommodating, flexible, and convenient. So really? Check out BetterHelp. You fill out a quick questionnaire with no additional charge, and it will help pair you with a licensed therapist. I know it can seem scary, but honestly, sometimes the really important things are. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com broadwaypod today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com BroadwayPod and we're back. So Clara is the third person in this love triangle, and we were giving her, I think, the short end of the stick earlier in our description of her and her situation. But ultimately, yes, she is a married woman. Giorgio is the other. Is the other woman in this.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. Georgio's the other woman.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. She's got a husband and a kid. It's. Is it ever said if her home life is good?

[Ali Gordon]

I don't think so, but in a lot of ways I respect that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

In that same thing, where it's like, I think perhaps a younger, more impressionable author might be. Might feel compelled to be like. And also, her husband beats her, and that's why she likes Giorgio. It's like, hey, maybe she just likes Giorgio because she. You know what I'm saying? Like, I admire people who can just sort of, like, stand on writing a character and, like, let you sort of come up with your own story. Yeah, she's very intelligent, she's very beautiful. She is also quite passionate in her own way. Like, she's not, like, vapid. Like, her letters are full of a lot of poetry in her own way. But she is not Foska, because Foska is 1,010% in to a frightening degree. And Giorgio always feels like he can't quite get all of Clara.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, again, whereas Fosca has nothing to lose and everything to gain and no ground to stand on, Clara has so much to lose and has actually a ton of ground to stand on. And so they. We get. We get little bits of information about how they met. We don't really know how long they've been together, how frequent these visits are. Did she tell him she was married right off the bat? Did he. Did she tell him much later? Did they try to, you know, hold off on their sexual connection until they just couldn't anymore? Have they tried to be responsible? And we're now just sort of seeing them say it, we're in love.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Who. Who knows? Has she ever had affairs before? I think there's so many ways in which you can play it. If we wanted to be on the kinder side To Clara, if we wanted to give her some grace, I think you could make an argument that she had a perfectly fine home life. She is clearly a woman of privilege, a woman of means. That is. That is evident in the way she dresses, which. Oh, So I. I alluded to this earlier, but again, I recommend everybody watch the OBC with the commentary on. Because the things you learn, not only about the show, but then, like, just how they talk to each other and the jokes they make and the pieces of information that they get. Because they were talking. They talk a lot about Marin Mazie's costumes as Clara because they're, like, the most beautiful costumes in the show. And all the bustles that she has.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Talking about, like, her butt in the bustles. And Sondheim was saying, like, didn't we learn something about, like, why dresses looked that kind of way? James, when we were doing research for this, and you find out it wasn't research for passion. It was research for Sunday that.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, interesting.

[Matt Koplik]

That. What it was was in France, birth control was, like, all the rage. And what that means is that straight couples were doing it up the butt a lot. And in order to, like, entice the sexual appetite of men, the bu. The bustles of women's dresses got larger because.

[Ali Gordon]

Wait, wait, wait. Birth control was. You couldn't get birth control? So they were doing it?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, they're like. There was. There was no pill. There was no contraception in the 1800s, early 1900s. So people were just doing it up the butt a lot.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

That was their version.

[Ali Gordon]

When you said all the rage, I thought you meant, like, we were popping pills.

[Matt Koplik]

No, I say all the rage because that's what James. James Lapine literally says. It was all the rage. So I think it was just like, hey, you know what's great? Sex without babies.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Matt Koplik]

The way we do that is up the butt.

[Ali Gordon]

And so they were like, look at this big, juicy ass.

[Matt Koplik]

I've got 1,000.

[Ali Gordon]

Totally.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

But you look.

[Matt Koplik]

Hey, yeah, listen.

[Ali Gordon]

It looks like juicy ass has never gone out of style.

[Matt Koplik]

Don't I know it. Hey, my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. And they're like, it's better than yours. You know what I mean?

[Ali Gordon]

Clara writes that in her letter, I think.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, she do indeed. She said, my beloved Giorgio, my milkshake brings. And how do you do milkshake to, like, the score of passion?

[Ali Gordon]

What?

[Matt Koplik]

My milkshake brings all the boys out to the yard.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, exactly, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, better than yours. But. So let's say, like, she has, like, a solid home life. Maybe it's no longer thrilling. Maybe they're sort of in a rut and she does not intend to cheat on her husband, but she learns that she can, you know, have a connection with somebody else. That's sort of the whole thing. In the movie Unfaithful with Diane Lane, I don't know if you ever saw that movie. It's her one Oscar narration.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm trying to. I'm trying to think if I have. I can't. I can't tell if I can't remember if I've seen the whole thing or if I've seen clips of it. I definitely know what you're talking about.

[Matt Koplik]

It came out the same year as Chicago, so, like, obviously our minds were elsewhere. But that movie, it's about how she's married to Richard Gere and they actually have, like, a very nice home life. They're. They get along. They're not in a rut. They do still have sex, but it's not very frequent. And, you know, it's probably no longer. It's still good, but not exciting. And she meets a Frenchman in New York, like, on a random trip into the city, and they. She tries to hold off on their connection, but they end up falling into an affair. And there's no reason for it other than just, like, they connect. There's heat there. And. And while she is happy at her home life, there is still something missing. And it's possible, like, she, as she's turned the corner on 40 and had a kid, part of her maybe doesn't feel sexually desirable anymore. And there's something completely fulfilling about that.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, like, that is sort of the story I've written for Clara in my head, which is, like, not based on fact. That's just sort of like, when I see that character, that's sort of what I'm thinking. This is the early 19th century. So, like, I keep thinking about that line from. From Little Women in the Greta Gerwig one where they're like, well, Amy, what will you do if you're not a famous painter? She's like, I'll become an ornament. Society to society. Do you talk about.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's the. It's the Florence Pugh monologue where she's like.

[Ali Gordon]

Which is a great marriage.

[Matt Koplik]

Should be about. Love you.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, right. And it's like, it's 2019.

[Matt Koplik]

Greta Gerwig Having an opinion during Little Women. Yes. But even, like, a correct one.

[Ali Gordon]

But a correct opinion and even an Opinion that I think was probably Drew, which is like, if you're a woman, you have kind of one shot to do something else that isn't be married. And if you don't kind of succeed, you don't get like, another chance. Do you know what I mean? It's not like they're like. Not like people are out there being like, oh, well, why don't you try this? It's like Amy gets to go to Europe. She's either going to find a really rich husband or make waves as a painter. And she didn't make waves as a painter. And so she, as a pragmatist, is like, look, I understand what that means. Means for me, I come home with a rich husband. I'm not deluded about this. That's the truth. I will take my talents and become an ornament to society. I'll be beautiful, I'll be well spoken. I'll be talented at things. When people come over, I'll play the piano for them. Okay, cool. And it's like, I see that very. I could like, totally see that as being true for Clara, which is like, beautiful. Well, probably kind of rich person gets married to another kind of rich person. Their families are happy for the partnership. They're probably both young and attractive. She's got her ch. Her charms, she's smart. Maybe she writes poetry. I don't know. And then, you know, you get older and then you become like, the guy becomes more obsessed with the business and you have a child and the passion falls away. And it's like suddenly you see Georgia sitting on a sort on a park bench, and you can't deny the heat. And it's like, okay.

[Matt Koplik]

And as it turns out, he's also a sensitive soul. And the sex is great and you can talk and the talking isn't boring just yet. And it's one of those relationships that only thrives because they don't have the luxury of spending a lot of time together. They. They even say, like, when he comes back from the. The group of soldiers, and, like, he's gonna have, like a long stretch of days with her. It's the longest stretch of days they've ever had. Usually, you know, they get an evening together, an afternoon together. Best case scenario, they get like a day and a half together when, like, her husband's out of town and her kids doing something else. But usually it's no more than a couple of hours every day or every other day. And so when it's scattered like that, you don't have the time to really see each other for, you know, who you really are and all of the bumps that come along with your personality.

[Ali Gordon]

Like all of your love is. It's love is blind disease.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. All of the idiosyncrasies that make you a well rounded person. If you are a well rounded person, the per. The person who's in love with you is in love with you because of the idea of you. And again, the projection of you and Foska in a way that's sort of the about face of what we always make jokes of. Like, oh, never let him know that you go to the bathroom. Don't go to bed without makeup on. Like, make him think that you're perfect. Fosco, like, comes out of the gate with, I'm ugly, I'm sick, I'm obsessive. And now that you know all of that, right, it's the Liz Lemon telling Floyd, I pooped myself at all you can eat buffet. I got dumped by two different guys who went to a clown academy. Now that you know all this stuff, want to try to date me? I swear it doesn't. It's not great, but it doesn't get worse than that.

[Ali Gordon]

So, like, I was going to say, funnily enough, I was thinking of 30 Rock, because you were. People were asking like, can Fosca not be pretty? And it's like, look, there is a different, totally different stereotype for hot woman who's so hot that crazy gets excused. And a great example of that is that episode of 30 Rock where Jennifer Aniston is Liz's old friend who Jack is like, no, she's great. Why are you trying to keep me away from her? What are you jealous? And she's like, I'm not jealous. And then she's like an absolute maniac who gets him in trouble and, you know, like, basically like, destroys his life.

[Matt Koplik]

Crazy.

[Ali Gordon]

That's. That is a completely different trope.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Ali Gordon]

And that is not the Fosca trope. She's not like, oh my God, look at that girl. Oh, no, she's crazy. Like, that's not the trope here.

[Matt Koplik]

It doesn't help us to ignore the truth that people get treated certain kinds of ways based off of how they look. And we, we are all trying to deprogram ourselves in certain ways, but it's not even about just attractive. Just sometimes somebody looks like a friend of yours. They look like a family member you really love or they look like a family member you fucking hate. And so immediately you start thinking like, oh, that's an Evil person. For example, us being like, well, Michael Service looks like Jafar in the right.

[Ali Gordon]

So he's evil. Yes, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So he doesn't give me, like, romantic lead, but that is. Foska does have to have something unappealing about her physically. It's too. It's not about, can't, you know, why must we de glam all these beautiful actresses? It's like, no, no. It's about not letting the audience off the hook in any way. We don't want to present to you a woman who's, like, not ugly. She's like, just. She's plainer than most, but, like, she's really. Like. She's more pretty than she realizes. She says she's ugly, but she's not. It's her own reflection of herself. Like, no, no. Make her unappealing in every way you possibly can and then watch this story unfold anyway.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. Again, I think it's a thing of, like, that weird instinct that feels very novice to be like, okay, well, she's not mean. She's not, like. She's not, like, unpleasant to be around.

[Matt Koplik]

She's just manipulative. But she's not mean.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. And it's like. It's like, no, she is quite unpleasant to be around. She's kind of like when Daria comes into the kitchen table at like, 8 in the morning and is like, life is meaningless. We should all die and go is gone. And they're like, shut up, Daria. It's 8 in the morning. Like, that's her. Like, that is her quality. And we can learn to love it. We can see the lens through which it becomes intoxicating. Not because it's actually quote unquote, like, not that bad, but because, like, the story is interesting. If she is difficult and we can still find ways to love her, despite.

[Matt Koplik]

The difficulty, we don't even have to love her. We have to just believe it could happen. We have to connect in something in her story to make us keep watching. And it can be the grotesqueness of her that we find fascinating. It can be the brokenness in her that we understand. It could be the. The desperate need for someone to love her or validate her or at least let her love them.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And that's all she. She's never saying to him, like, you must fall in love with me. She's saying to him, I love you, I love you. Like, the letter she makes him write is ultimately for her own comfort. And it is manipulative in the sense that it's. It's not a declaration of love. The lyrics are, that doesn't mean I love you. I wish that I could love you. And that is manipulation in its own sense. But it is ultimately giving her what she needs while not forcing Giorgio to say the ultimate words that he doesn't feel and that I said we were talking about Clara. Now we're back on Fosca. Like, think of her intro. Like how we're introduced to her is a pleasant conversation, what should be a pleasant conversation with Giorgio about the book he lent her. I enjoyed it. That character is a mystery. We should have taken some time to reflect on it. And what does she do? She gives him a four minute aria of I where she's belting and screaming in his face and going on about a flower with poison in the nectar.

[Ali Gordon]

And that's the part of it that is the drag queen. And that's the part of it that I think the 15 year old in us really fucking sees and is like. Yes, because there is something about her tendency towards that. The melancholy, the dramatic, the poetic, the wanting to talk about how sad and miserable and long life is and how even the most beautiful flower has nectar at the top, but beneath it's the poison. If you stay too long, you die. Like, like that is the part that, like, you just can't. You just can't help but want to like.

[Matt Koplik]

It.

[Ali Gordon]

It's attractive because it's sort of like a part of you you don't find attractive. And so you, like, you are. You are fascinated by it and maybe even a little like obsessed with it. At least I was. Because when I was 15 and felt like I was the ugliest person on the planet and the world was over and I didn't understand myself or life or people or attraction or anything, because everybody who's 15 feels that way. This is not just me. When I saw her, I was like, oh, my God, you are saying all the shit that I don't want to say. Because to admit it is sad and weird and maudlin and like, up until that point in your life, you're supposed to like, be like, be optimistic, be positive, whatever. And like when you're a teenager, suddenly the whole ceiling falls and you're just like, life's actually horrible. And then when you see a character who's like, life is actually horrible, you're like, sing it, sister. Do what I mean, like, like, like there's something about it. You're like, you're like, oh, my God, she's so miserable, she's willing to say it It's.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, because it's so big and it's so brazen. The thing about Fosca, she's ultimately the thing that AR society is always kind of rejecting, but just each generation finds new words to reject it. Yeah, the like the pick me girl that people now say, which I think is a very. I think it's a very mean spirited hum down on people to like just openly be like, I like you and I want you to like me, please.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People are like, it's just so pick me. Which apparently it derives from Meredith Gray's Pick me, choose me, love me.

[Ali Gordon]

And is that really where it comes from?

[Matt Koplik]

That's what I'm pretty sure it comes from.

[Ali Gordon]

Interesting. I'm pretty sure. Also I talked to a lot of.

[Matt Koplik]

I could be wrong though. I could be talking out of my bustle.

[Ali Gordon]

No, maybe you're right though. I kind of like it. I talk to a lot of teenagers whose perception of the word pick me girl specifically means when a woman wants to put down other women to make herself look good to men. Which I, I think actually is somewhat better than just being like, I want to be loved. It's like, oh my God, what am I picking up?

[Matt Koplik]

That might be an evolution of it.

[Ali Gordon]

I do think it's an evolution of it. I think it's a.

[Matt Koplik]

But it's, it's. Its origin I think comes from the. Everything this person says or does is derived from their desire to be chosen completely.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm saying, I'm saying I think what's interesting is I think our definition of Pikmi girl and that like sort of like that sort of trope comes from our upbringing when like heroin chic was a thing. Do what I mean. And then I think these Gen Z teenagers who are a lot more lenient and forgiving of the world and a lot more quote unquote woke in that they like actually are aware of like the harmfulness of tropes are like actually a picnic girl is this. Which is actually a bad thing to be. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, but that's the thing is it's awareness without actually doing anything about it. It's awareness without evolution. It's. I don't like that because of this. But it's also, it's an uncomfortable. It's a discomfort with vulnerability. Raw, raw vulnerability of just being open and honest and earnest and no sarcasm whatsoever.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. Which I think people are very afraid of.

[Matt Koplik]

Gen Z and Alpha and Gen Alpha have a really big problem with direct openness. And it's like, oh, it's kind of cringe. And like. No, cringe is a reaction. It's not a thing. You are feeling uncomfortable by this. Ask yourself why.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And Fosca, she is the two. She is. You can't. You can be a pick me girl. You can get away with being a pick me girl and being negative on the world if you look like Meredith Gray or you could be. Or you can get away with being Debbie Downer if you're Rachel Drash and you're funny. But you can't be Debbie Downer and not funny. And you can't be pick me girl and not look like Meredith Gray. And Fosca is.

[Ali Gordon]

All right, it's all of those things. Also, I want to clarify two things. One is that when I said earlier, I talk to a lot of teenagers. I teach, I'm a teacher. I don't just talk. I don't just talk to teenagers. I just want to put that out there. I just want to put it on the record.

[Matt Koplik]

I accidentally have spoken to more teenagers than I realized due to the podcast and social media and the Discord Channel.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

In my mind, I always think I'm talking to like fellow 30 somethings. And.

[Ali Gordon]

And you're like, oh my God, you're 19.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, just. No, not that I saying anything appropriate. That's not how I do. I'm only inappropriate to my friends via dm, but like with, with strangers or listeners or whatever. I just always assume that it's someone like, of our generation. So I'm like, yeah, you know, like Winona Ryder. And they're like, oh, the woman from Stranger Things. I'm like, how old are you?

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, like, no, Joe March. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

The other thing I would say, Veronica.

[Ali Gordon]

Veronica is because I think what's interesting is also this thing that you're saying of people being like, oh my God, that's cringe. And like having like a knee jerk reaction to it. Obviously it still existed in 1994 with these audiences because they also were like knee jerk reaction reactioning to Foska and being like, well, I have to laugh at her because, like, I don't. I can't like, like her. I have to laugh at her. And there's a quote again from Sondheim where he's like, you know, at the time, obviously it was like, like tough because we were just trying to like problem solve. But now that I look back on it, it feels to me it has an element of like the lady doth protest too much, where it's like, why is it that you all really need to reject Foska and you need to make it vocal? Like, not that. Not that. You can just, like, quietly watch it and then go home and be like, I didn't like that. But that. Like, you have to be like, yuck. Out loud. Like, why do you have to make it known that you don't agree with her or whatever it is? It's like. It's like. It does have, like, a quality of that. Like, no, it's cringe and it's like, hold on. Excited. Why don't we identify? Why don't we, like, dig into that for a second?

[Matt Koplik]

Even Donna Murphy says in the commentary that when she went to go see the Kennedy center production with Kyunzi, she's like, I did the show. I knew how it. How it all worked out. She goes. And even I halfway through the show at one point when, oh, God, Foska's back. Like, it was just. It was more just so that. Like, she's so persistent, and she's always. She just is always showing up, and it's really like, as a director and.

[Ali Gordon]

Doing dumb shit, when she's like, I'll stand here in the rain. You're like, don't stand in the rain.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, and when she shows up on the train, it's sort of the ultimate. Oh, like, oh, my God. Like, of course she's here. She keeps fucking popping up like a cold sore. So it's really hard as a director, as an. As an actor to do that and communicate to an audience that this is intentionally overbearing. But we're not trying to make this a running gag. So how do you, like, soften the entrance so it's not like a boom boom, but also show the audience. Like, we're not saying that this is a sweet moment. This is yet another moment of. Of overbearing persistence. And the turning point is the train scene when she does Loving you. Because it is ultimately what it boils down to, which people ask, like, okay, what is this show trying to tell us about love? And this is where I want to also come back to Clara a little bit. The show doesn't have a statement to be made of, like, here's the correct way to love somebody, but rather that there are so many different ways in which we connect and in which love can happen, and that can either thrive or die depending on the person. And some people need one kind of way to connect, and some people need another. Giorgio needs somebody who Will give him what he's giving. Will put in. Well, he. He at first thinks that he needs someone who will love him as much as he loves them. He has come to learn through Foska. He's actually the kind of person who needs someone to love him more. That is.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. And I don't think he knew that until that moment.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. He.

[Ali Gordon]

Which I think is a very cool. Again, it shows to me a sophistication in the writing that his first interactions with Clara aren't like, do you think we'll ever be together? You think this will ever be real? Like, I don't think the thought even occurred to him until suddenly it was quite forcefully shoved in his face. You could. You could be with somebody for whom you are their whole world.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Do you mean suddenly plants a seed in his head of like, am I enough? Will I ever be enough? Will she ever be with me? Is what we have real? It feels really good. But like, what's the depth of it? You know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

He is in no doubt about himself or how Foska feels about him. And at first it's repulsion of, is this what you think love is? But then it turns to, no one has loved me as you have.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And I would argue, actually he is incredibly selfish and unreasonable. When he gives the ultimatum to Clara at the end of the show, her eventual response, the letter she sends him is selfish and conditional. But his initial ultimatum of leave your husband and run away with me. And she's like, I have a son that I.

[Ali Gordon]

He's like, I'm not fucking doing that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, he was. She was like, I could lose my son. He's like. Or he's like, you could lose me. Well, doesn't that mean anything to you? It's like, girl, this is her fucking child.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. But that's. I love that moment. Because you see a little Fosca in him.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

And her telling him in her letter, let us wait till my son is grown and then we can be together. Like, I will leave my husband when my. When my child is no longer a child and he can be on his own. Because it is. It is selfish. It is conditional. Because ultimately she is accustomed to a certain kind of comfort. She does not want to have a public perception of being ruined.

[Ali Gordon]

She's.

[Matt Koplik]

She's more willing to give things up if she has fewer things to give up. But right now she has too much to lose.

[Ali Gordon]

She has another life to be responsible for. Not just their well being, but their Their reputation, their responsibility. Yeah, all of that.

[Matt Koplik]

They're being fed and a person in this world. And I think there's absolute merit to that. And one wonders if Giorgio hadn't come at her with the fire of Foska.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Whether. Whether they could have found another way. But he comes at her with that unreasonable attitude, which then puts her on the defense, which then makes him cut her off completely. Because what he is correct about is that their love has a condition to it. And love should not be conditional. You love somebody, you do something for somebody because you love them right now.

[Ali Gordon]

And he feels like a secret, and he doesn't want to feel like a secret. Totally understand that. Such a reasonable thing to say. However, it's like you said, he comes at it with a fire and a passion where he's not really seeing from her side. Her other very reasonable side of the story, which is like, it's not just me. Maybe I can handle people talking about me behind my back or not wanting to associate with me, but my son, I'm not gonna do that.

[Matt Koplik]

And maybe Foska's love is unselfish, but it also has now become her identity. And the only way you can be a healthy person in this world and in love, in my opinion, this is not even what the show is saying, but that.

[Ali Gordon]

Are you saying, if you can't love yourself, you can't love, how the hell you gotta love somebody else? Can I get an amen?

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Ali Gordon]

Is that what you're saying?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. My mom likes to say she's not looking for other half, she's looking for another hole. Me, too. Looking for another hole.

[Ali Gordon]

It's so funny because it's so close to being such a good expression.

[Matt Koplik]

I know, right?

[Ali Gordon]

Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

But she does say that. And I'm just always. I. Every time she says that, I'm like, ooh, girl, don't say that out at functions. But I'm looking for another.

[Ali Gordon]

I love it.

[Matt Koplik]

How many think well, how many are.

[Ali Gordon]

You looking for exactly?

[Matt Koplik]

How many holes do you need? Welcome to the show, Bubbles. But so with. With Foska, her identity is now her love for Giorgio. She's. That's the whole lyric. Loving you is not a choice. It's who I am. Which ultimately they said was the key to endearing her to the audience. And it's ironic that that is the key, because it is her just blatantly saying, I'm not doing this to upset you. I'm not doing this to make you love me. I'm telling you that this is who I am now, and I have no problem with it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. And also, I mean, I love those lyrics when she's just saying, like, like, it's no reason to rejoice. She's like, it's fucking tough. I'm not sure I would have chosen this rationally. I'm just letting you know I don't really have a choice in this anymore.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I love you. And it's killing me, not to quote my own self, but as Ali Gordon knows, I once wrote a play. And as anyone who's listening to this podcast will hopefully at this point have seen, I wrote a play that will have been live streamed at this point.

[Ali Gordon]

Wow, that's so exciting.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, yeah, well, I was gonna say.

[Ali Gordon]

Everybody has to give to the campaign, but it'll be long gone.

[Matt Koplik]

It'll be long gone by this point. But I think the line was in there when you last read it, because you last read it about a year and a half ago. So it's. There have been some changes, but I'm pretty sure this line was in there. It was when John and Owen reconnected in Act 2 after the phone call and all that stuff. And they're in the park and, you know, John is asking questions about everything that had happened and they're going back and forth and John's learning about Owen's life with Aaron and all this, all this other stuff, and things get to a breaking point and then Owen finally says, like, okay, I want to ask a question now. And he says, do you still love me? And John's like, you fucking idiot. Yes, of course I do. Which makes Owen just break down in tears. And he's like, after everything that's happened that I've said and done, like. Like, why? Why do you still love me? And John's like, if I knew why, I'd be able to talk myself out of it.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

But it's.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, that. That. That was definitely in it. Which is exactly right. Where it's just like, yeah, it's just. That's exactly right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's like. But it's just. It's there and it's. And it doesn't mean that that's all you need, obviously. What? The Beatles are wrong. Love is not all you need, but it.

[Ali Gordon]

What you really need is another hole.

[Matt Koplik]

You do, really. I need another part for this other hole.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

I'll give you half for the hole.

[Ali Gordon]

I need space for another hole.

[Matt Koplik]

Ally Gordon.

[Ali Gordon]

I need somewhere. I need somewhere to put all that I've got. I need to Find another hole. This would be such an easy song. We could do like a modern day.

[Matt Koplik]

Cole Porter, I think. Okay, we need Porter.

[Ali Gordon]

Did I say that weird Cole Porter. I thought you said it really weird.

[Matt Koplik]

You and I need to write a love musical where, like, the big loving you moment is. I'm looking to. I'm looking for another hole.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I'm not looking for another half.

[Matt Koplik]

The whole show is. I've been looking for my other half and then it's. I've really been looking for another hole.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

To fill me up with joy.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, I think it'd be really easy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Cole Porter was doing shit like this.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. I. I'm hungry.

[Ali Gordon]

He's getting away with it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I'm. I'm hungry and hungry for cream pie and love ex.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, my God. It takes place in a bakery.

[Matt Koplik]

It takes place in a bakery and someone comes out with 10 banana cream pies.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. Hello. This is easy.

[Matt Koplik]

That's the problem with. With passion. There's not enough cream pieing.

[Ali Gordon]

You don't know what they did. They never say.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, no, we learned from the bustles that they're into, but stuff. But I'm talking about literal cream pies. Maybe if somebody fed Fosco once in a while, she'd be healthier.

[Ali Gordon]

I was trying to imply that you had no idea what they got up to behind closed doors.

[Matt Koplik]

It's true. I was not alive in Italy at this time. I will never be alive in Italy.

[Ali Gordon]

You were never invited into their bedroom.

[Matt Koplik]

New.

[Ali Gordon]

New.

[Matt Koplik]

New. But I don't know, like, as a married woman. Allie. And you've been with your husband. You haven't been husband and wife for your entire relationship. But it's been about two years now, actually. No, your two year anniversary happened recently.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, we just had our two year. But we've been together for like 12, which is sort of.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it was right before. Right before we finished college is when you guys met, right?

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. We weren't dating at the time, but. No, it's true. I met. I met. We met like a week before I showcased in New York. So we were not like dating at that time. That's when we met. But yeah, it was like. It was like truly days before I was leaving Ann Arbor and going back to New York.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay. Because I remember talking about Marty in your bedroom in New York and I just.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I don't remember when that happened.

[Ali Gordon]

Probably like the summer after. I. Probably like the summer of my graduation maybe like before I left for like. Remember I went to Weston again that summer.

[Matt Koplik]

Were you in New York in that June of 2012?

[Ali Gordon]

Maybe. I went to Weston that summer. I did Fiddler. Do you remember that?

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, I remember when I left, it might have been right after Fiddler, though, then might have been when you got back. Because I. I remember literally being on your bed talking about Marty, and I was like, okay, girl, if you say so.

[Ali Gordon]

But look, I would have said the same thing to me.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, but that's the truth. But as being. Being with Marty for as long as you have in your experience with. With your relationship, with your love with.

[Ali Gordon]

And we've been saying with my other hole.

[Matt Koplik]

With your other hole. But so listen, I don't know what you guys get up to in the dark. Maybe.

[Ali Gordon]

Maybe parties.

[Matt Koplik]

Don't know who wears the bustle, but.

[Ali Gordon]

Maybe there's a lot of holes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, listen, we learned a lot from that episode of Broad City. But also notice how, like, I get uncomfortable talking about love now in the very real context of your life, and it's no longer, like an artistic story, but, you know, in your experience with. With the love that you've had, how would you sort of describe what's made your relationship as healthy as it's been for so long? Because 12 years is a very long time to keep going strong.

[Ali Gordon]

It is a really long time. I mean, I will say, like, I feel my life has been unusual.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

Because I'm such a weirdo. No, in. This is not like, a secret, but I guess I don't talk about a ton on social media, but it's not, like a secret. But both of my parents passed within two years of each other when I was, like, pretty young. Not like. Not like a teenager. Like, I was an adult. And I was already dating Marty at the time, but he was with me through two things, very close together that some couples don't survive. One of you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

I feel like that was around, like, 2015, 2016. Am I wrong about that?

[Ali Gordon]

My mom was 2016, and my dad. My dad was two years after.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, that's what I thought, because I remember. I remember. I remember when that happened. And that was. I was about to say, that's when Joel was still in the city, but Joel was in the city all the way up until Covet. So that.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

But. Yes. No. Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

But anyway. So what I'm saying is, like, that's not like a. That's not like a secret. It's just like, I'm not like a super in my fiction and things I Write. I'm not like, a super autobiographical person, so that only sort of, like, comes up weirdly and tangentially, even though it feels like it's a big part of my work and a lot of stuff. But, like, it's not.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, you're not big about emotional trauma. Clout for social media, which I really.

[Ali Gordon]

I really am not. That's the way I was saying earlier about being, like, not wanting to be perceived when I took, like, author photos. Like, there is a weird part of me that's sort of like, oh, God, I'm not part of this. This book was written magically by someone who doesn't exist. Like, sometimes I feel that way.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I was asked what I asked if being a playwright is a new endeavor. I'm like, I'm not a playwright. Don't ever call me that.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, it's, like, weird. It's, like, weird to, like, label. I don't know. It's so bizarre. But anyway, so, like, part of that our relationship has been, like, withstanding some really difficult stuff. And I think that there are lots of couples who, like, don't go through that maybe ever. And maybe. And certainly not, like, with such proximity and so young. Do you know what I mean? Like, it was such. It was such an unusual thing. And so it's like, a lot of times when I have talked about, like, the positive aspects of my relationship, I'll say things like, it's like, safety and stability and ability to, like, really just be honest about, like, what. How you're feeling. Including, like, when you are, like, hey, I'm not gonna kill myself, but I kind of wish I was dead right now. Like, really ugly things that are, like, hard to say. And, like, you can't really say to a lot of people when you are with somebody who you can, like, be just that unbelievably open vein, vulnerable with. It's so hard and so scary to be that and for someone to accept it and to be the safety net who catches it and can deal with it. My God, that's a rare thing, I think. I really do. And so I remember once my aunt was talking about the fact that we'd been together for so long, and I had given this answer about the fact that we, like, really learned how to communicate with each other and that, like, I. Coming from New York and being, like, the person I am, I'm the person. Like that John Mulaney joke where he's like. She's like. He's like. And my wife will be like, my stomach hurts. Like, I'm. My stomach hurts. And Marty's like, a Midwestern nice boy who, like, didn't ever really have just like, hey, I'm gonna bring up what I'm feeling. It's not an argument, but I'm just bringing it up. We had to, like, learn how to communicate with each other better and, like, be, like, good partners in that way. And it's like, those are the things that I always say first. And I remember once my aunt was like, what about, like, passion? What about, like, feeling crazy? And I was like, I do feel crazy about him, but, like, I feel crazy about him because I remember how safe he makes me feel and how, like, when we went through insane things, it all turned out okay in the end. And I was crying on the floor so hard I puked. And he was like, okay, let's make sure we clean up the puke. And didn't make me feel bad about that. And that is what makes me feel, you know, crazy passion. Genuinely do what I mean.

[Matt Koplik]

But also, like, passion is not something that you can feel 24 7.

[Ali Gordon]

No. It would make you make you go crazy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. You turn you into fucking Fosca.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. You can all those things still happen. And the fact that you don't question when that feeling is coming back, I think is a testament to the stability and safety that you two have with each other. Like, you, like, you have the crazy passion, but you also have the fun silly. And you have the dark emotional stuff. And it all ebbs and it flows. And I think when people start asking about love in one broad stroke is when we're in trouble because it is multifaceted and it is complicated. It's never easy. All the time. There. There was another line of that I had in the play that, granted, I did not come up with my own, but I drift it for my own self from the real life moment when Aaron out, that tells John, like, you know, relationships are a lot of hard work. And John goes, but it shouldn't always be hard work. Right? Like, correct. Don't you do the work for this? Like, shouldn't there be smooth sailing sometimes? And, like, that's what the hard work is supposed to be for is so you can get to those points to smooth sailing.

[Ali Gordon]

Right?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And. And granted, it falls on deaf ears with Aaron, but it was something that I wanted to make sure it was said in the play because, like, everyone has their own perspectives of what make relationships work. But you should never. Your relationship should never be the thing that tires you. It should Never be the thing that wipes you out. It should never be the thing that is like a touchy subject with the people in your life. It should be, you know, some things are for just the two of you behind closed doors. But ultimately when choosing each other becomes a difficult decision to make, that's when things have to get put into perspective again.

[Ali Gordon]

And it's also like, you know, every human is different and that's great. And it's like when I think about your play and when I think about John and like that thing of like would he ever get back together with Owen? It's like, you know who I want him to be with? I like want him to be with somebody who's like so fucking proud of him, who is the kind of person who's maybe a little cringe who like it posts on social media being like I love my fucking boyfriend. Look at my fucking talented boyfriend. I like craven that for him because he went through a period of like feeling like a shameful secret. Do you know what I'm saying? And so like whereas when I think about myself, the notion of that makes me sick to my stomach. I don't want you to post about me on social media. I don't put, you know what I'm saying? Like I don't make Valentine's Day posts. We both don't do what I'm saying. We both don't. This isn't like I'll say when you're withholding from somebody.

[Matt Koplik]

Book is out. You better buckle up buttercup, because you're between me and Josh. Daniel, you are going to get so much social media shit from us.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm scared. But you know what I'm saying though, like, like I try not to judge others. I don't love like couple social media stuff but sometimes as I'm getting older and less knee jerk reactiony, I start to be like, you know what? Like maybe this person like really, really needs this and maybe this is something they never got from relationship and maybe this genuinely makes them feel seen and proud and, and happy. And I try not to like put my own projection on it because my, my projection of it is like don't see me. Don't make assumptions about me. Leave me alone.

[Matt Koplik]

Well I, I have nothing against people sharing their relationships online. I have a problem when they make that their account or their personality because their whole personality. Now you're commodifying your relationship for like gang.

[Ali Gordon]

Correct. But, but that's true of anything with like social media stuff. We get a big old conversation about that. But do you know what I'm saying? Like, when I think about, like, like when I think about this character of John and I think about him being hidden for such a long time and getting and, like, feeling like a complex about that. Like, when I dream a boyfriend for him, I, like, want him to, like, be the person who's like, you know, got a big, long, gushy post about him for all to see because, like, I want him to see that he can also be loved in a very public way and that, like, his very existence isn't like, like a secret. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, and I think that's sort of what makes it complicated in the play, is that in so many ways Owen does that. It's just he can't be super public for many reasons, which. Which makes it all a very complicated relationship between the two of them. And it's ultimately what keeps John sort of in there, is the feelings that he gets from the endorphins he gets from hearing the words he wants to hear in private and trying to be empathetic and understanding, but ultimately realizing that his relationship with Owen is conditional. There are places only, like, there are certain places they can't go. There are certain times that they can't meet because there are other things attached to this relationship, part of which is, like, things that Owen could give up if he either wanted to or was bold enough to.

[Ali Gordon]

Now replace that with the word Clara and we're fucking talking about passion.

[Matt Koplik]

I was getting there. I was getting there.

[Ali Gordon]

I was bringing it back.

[Matt Koplik]

My, how dare you usurp me, my fucking Lord. But, yeah, with those two, you see the Giorgio, Clara comparisons of there is like, what you have is real. Maybe it's not everything you're imagining it to be, because it can't. And it can't be because of the circumstances in which it is thriving. Your love is thriving in these specific environments. You haven't taken it everywhere yet, though, and you don't know what you have until you do. And unfortunately, you can take it everywhere because one of you is holding back for set for some what legitimate reasons, but then also for some selfish reasons.

[Ali Gordon]

Right? Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Because, like, again, like, you could stand on both sides of that argument with Clara and be like, why not blow up your life? I'm here to support you. Don't you trust me enough to be. To love me? And in my love for you, I'm a soldier, I'm well respected. If you blow up your life, I'll be there to support you. I'LL be there to catch you. But then there's just. There's exactly as a reasonable response of just being like, I'm not fucking blowing up my life for any dude.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I don't trust. I don't trust any guy that way. Do you mean. No way am I doing that?

[Matt Koplik]

But then also, as you said, it's not. Not just her. She has a son to think about and.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

And I think it's absolutely correct for her to put her son ahead of Giorgio. That is, yes, what you like the Clara for. As occasionally selfish and sometimes vapid as Clara can be, she does do the thing that I think any person who chooses to make a skin nugget should do, which is, like, the moment you pop that thing out, it's no longer about you. It is about them.

[Ali Gordon]

It's. It's your responsibility.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. You are making something, hopefully a person that can contribute to this world and be fully rounded and. And not just like a mirror of you. It's not your little play thing. And it's not for you to perpetuate your own thinkings. Like, you want to make them smart and strong and productive and confident and motivated. And what they do with that is up to them based on the personality and brain chemistry they have, but those are the tools you want to give them. And Clara's like, I'm not gonna, you know, handicap my son's life by being selfish in this moment for my own happiness. I have him to think about. And she even says, like, I thought you understood that. That this is for right now. This is all I can give. What I can give you, I'm giving you a thousand percent of it, but I can't give you the rest of me. And you know that. And you always did know that. And she also kind of like, why.

[Ali Gordon]

Are you coming at me so strong all of a sudden? I thought.

[Matt Koplik]

We.

[Ali Gordon]

Thought we, like, kind of had an agreement about what we were doing, which is also a very valid thing because it's like, yeah. All of a sudden Georgia's like, well, it's me or no one. And she's like, okay, no one. Yeah, sorry. I thought we were. I thought we were on the same page about this. Like, you suddenly came at me real different. Do. I mean.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, it's. But I think also at the root of it is also the truth that it can't. That it was never going to be anything. I. I'm sure the listeners are tired of hearing this or they're taking a shot now it's become the New the manor right now, as my mom and I are watching Gilmore Girls me for, like, the fourth time, her for the first. And there's when Luke. Luke and Lorelai eventually get together. How familiar are you with the girls?

[Ali Gordon]

Zero.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, 10%. Do you know who those characters are, though?

[Ali Gordon]

I know who those characters are. That's about. That's about as far as I've got on the.

[Matt Koplik]

They finally get together in season four. Spoiler alert, everybody. And they get engaged at the end of season five. But wouldn't you know it? Luke finds out he's got a love child from a different woman from many years ago named April. And Luke handles it about as terribly as anybody could. Not in terms of, like, not wanting to be with the kid. Like, he desperately wants to get to know the kid. He's just terrible about melding all the things in his life to make it all happen. Like, couldn't again, could not be worse about it, dumber about it. And keeps putting off the wedding and putting off the wedding and keeping Lorelai at bay. And she's, like, tiptoeing all season long, trying not to lose him and, like, let. Give him the grace that he needs while also being like, I. I want to get married. I want us to start our lives together. And she has an episode that ultimately is the catalyst of her, like, giving him the ultimatum. But she's at her parents and ends up meeting Melora Hardin of office fame, who is a therapist, and she has, like, an impromptu session in her car, and she's like, if I push him, I might lose him. And Melora Hardin's like, telling somebody what you want, and they walk away. They were never for you to begin with.

[Ali Gordon]

Correct.

[Matt Koplik]

She's like, you're. You are. And Nicole Byer talks about this on her podcast, too. Like, you're. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable, and you're putting it off because you are afraid that that might happen. But. And if it's what happens, it can be painful. But it's not because you said or did anything incorrectly. It was just never going to move on from that truth.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that is really, like, in an episode about fiction love. Do you know what I mean? In this episode about, like, really identifying with and, like, loving this piece and still loving it from, like, when I was a teenager. I think what it does so well is present a very interesting set of characters and a very interesting, somewhat unusual situation. And it says, like, can love thrive like this? And in reality, love is a lot more like, can I Speak my truth and be met with love and acceptance. Can I feel safe to ask for things I need? Can I set boundaries and then be being seen as boundaries and not things to be tested or tried or negotiated? That's really love. Do you know what I mean? That really is the everyday truth of a relationship. That's how people stay together for long times. That's even friendships. Love of a friendship. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, that. That's, like, platonic love. That's like all kinds of love. That is love. And that's why the show's not called. That's why the show's not called Love. The show's called Passion.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. There's a difference between passion and love. It's. I mean, listen, you and I have had our, like, honest truths with each other over the last, what, 18 years?

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, truly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I mean, we have.

[Ali Gordon]

We have. Our relationship is as old as, like, a legal adult.

[Matt Koplik]

It truly is. But also, props to us. Anytime we ever sat down with each other and, like, explained ourselves, it's never been like, a showdown. It's always been like, hey, I'm feeling. It's very. You and Marty. We're like, I'm feeling a certain kind of way, and I would really like to talk about it because I don't want it to become a thing.

[Ali Gordon]

And then we say, again, that's who we are. That's how I was raised. It's very interesting when you meet people who aren't like that, where they're like, oh, I thought you just sort of, like, sit on that and get mad about it four years from now. And I'm like, not me.

[Matt Koplik]

Nope. Nope.

[Ali Gordon]

But that's also not me.

[Matt Koplik]

But that's also our love for each other as friends and why it's lasted this long and has lasted through distance and skews and new friends coming in and adding to the roster and beautiful things and terrible things and exciting things and scary things.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, that's like. I think, to go back to sort of my big thesis statement of the day when Sondheim and Lapine were working on this, or even, like, the original filmmaker based on the novella that they got. They wrote. I forget the names now.

[Matt Koplik]

It's the. The novella is called Fosca. The movie is called Passion d'amore or Passion e d'amore or more. Something like that.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

I heard the Foscarian very well.

[Ali Gordon]

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying.

[Matt Koplik]

Or maybe it's passion.

[Ali Gordon]

Ettore Scola. That's who it Is the guy who.

[Matt Koplik]

Did the film, is it pronounced passione d'amor or passiona de mor?

[Ali Gordon]

I don't do that. I speak Spanish.

[Matt Koplik]

I speak cunt.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay. Serve.

[Matt Koplik]

I speak fierce.

[Ali Gordon]

I guess what I was saying is, like, when they were writing this, when they felt they had something to say, they weren't trying to give you an instruction manual on love and a healthy relationship. They were trying to present an interesting, complex relationship driven by passion. And I feel like a big question in this is, like, is what Giorgio and Foska feel love, or is it passion? Is what Giorgio and Clara feel love, or is it passion? What the fuck is love? What the fuck is passion? Like, I feel like it answer. I feel like it asks and answers a lot of really interesting questions without having to make a really true statement on being like. And that's what love is, Jeremy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, no, yeah, it's very much a. Here's a story. Let's talk about what you can make out of it. And then the other question is, let's say Foska and Giorgio do actually have love. Is it? Is. Do we judge it because of how it began? And do we also judge it because it doesn't end with them in a. In a loving marriage? It ends with one dead and one in a. Fucking insane.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's a Sondheim quote where he said, I wrote this down in my notes. The force of somebody's feelings for you can crack you open. And how it is the life force in a deadened world. Pretty evocative.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. What's the line in the finale? It's the, oh, why is love so easy to give and so hard to receive?

[Ali Gordon]

Ugh. What a line. What a line. That's incredible.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Which. And that whole finale was kind of thrown together in the workshop, they said. And they kind of just sort of kept it, because in typical Sondheim fashion, most of the script was written when they went into that workshop with Donna and Marin and Peter Gallagher. And Sondheim kind of wrote the majority of the score in that workshop because he's like, I can't just come up with a thing. Like, I need context, I need character, I need details, and I springboard from that. And they wrote I wish I could forget you during the workshop. And the finale was similar to Sweeney Todd of like. Like, they knew that it was going to be a combination of songs from the show already, but they just didn't know exactly how. And originally it was just the Foska letter before the. I wish I could forget You. It was just the. Everywhere in the turn. You are there, but things are different. And then I believe it was in previews that they added the reprisive. I wish I could forget you. And it just made the whole thing click. But it's. It's. It's. It's. It's a great tool of a. Of dramatic irony in reprising. Right. It's. It's a letter that is written out of pity and manipulation that ends up holding a lot more truth. But now the roles are reversed in terms of. Against the power. Giorgio is now the one who is sick. And even though Foska has died, she has so much more control over Giorgio.

[Ali Gordon]

Wait, she's got a grip on him.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Ali Gordon]

And he's reading these words that she wrote and meaning the. And feeling the meaning behind them from his point of view, which was only imagined once.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it was. It's also kind of a. He's almost sort of going through a withdrawal, you could say, because in a lot of ways, obsession and passion, it's this. It's this addiction. It's this high you're trying to crave. I remember when I went into therapy for my stuff and was like, in the middle of writing my play, and I had told my therapist, Colton, I was like, I really want to talk to him again. And he was like, you don't. He goes, you are craving the highs you had from when it was really, really good. He's like, that's not. You're not going to get that again. So you need to understand that that desire you have to talk to your person is you craving. Like, smack is.

[Ali Gordon]

It's your.

[Matt Koplik]

You want. You want that high. And it's not going to feel good when you walk away. If you. If you get it again and then walk away.

[Ali Gordon]

Well, because it comes with strings. It's never just the pure thing, the pure, unadulterated thing that you once had. It's like it's always going to come with.

[Matt Koplik]

With. With baggage.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

And I think that's true of. Of so many relationships in love, even the good stuff. Like, the. The trick is having that baggage add depth to your feelings in your relationship, not have it be a hindrance. But it. Everything. Every story is different and the context of that baggage is different. So it's always easier said than done.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm gonna read one lyric from. I wish I could forget you just because I feel like we can talk about it as much as we want. But, like, Sondheim fucking nails it. He Kind of gets it for now. I'm seeing love like none I've ever known. A love as pure as breath, as permanent as death, implacable as stone. A love that, like a knife, has cut into a life I wanted, left alone. A love I may regret, but one I can't forget. Pretty crazy. Anyone can write that also. What a crazy. What an amazing rhyme sequence. Like what? Like what? Interesting. A, B, B, A. Right. Known in stone. And then two internal ones of the breath and death. And then there's another internal one. I love it. Like a knife is cut into a life. So then there's like a CC and then back to A. And wanted, left alone. Do you know what I mean? That's pretty. That's like some wild, unexpected rhymes. Rhyme construction.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And I think it's because passion doesn't follow musical theater norms and thus the rhyme schemes can be whatever you want it to be. Like, there's no I want song, no passion. There's an. There's sort of.

[Ali Gordon]

There's an I Read song.

[Matt Koplik]

I'll say that's the I Am song, the I Read song. But no, no I want song. There's no 11 o'clock number. There's no. It's just this chamber piece that I think it is objectively good. Do I love it? No. I admire and I appreciate it and there are things about it that I love. Granted, I've never gotten to see it live, and if I do see it.

[Ali Gordon]

Live, and that can really change a good production totally.

[Matt Koplik]

I like to see a live production. But, I mean, everyone has their opinion about it and everyone has their opinion about what makes it. It work or not work. We're just sort of talking about ours also. I should have taken a break earlier, so I'm sure I will have inserted a. Billy, I beg to differ with you. At some point.

[Ali Gordon]

Billy, I beg to differ with you.

[Matt Koplik]

How do you mean?

[Ali Gordon]

You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet.

[Matt Koplik]

But I remember we were sort of. We were judging Clara for her conditional love to Georgio and. And him sort of coming for her and then also being like. But no, she's got someone. She's got a kid to think about. And then we, like, did an about face about that later when we were talking about love and expectations and boundaries and. And whatnot. So it's. This is all just to say, when it comes to matters of the heart, doing an about face. Is very easy to do and going to happen all the time.

[Ali Gordon]

What do you mean by that? Like, just like changing your opinion on something? Yeah, totally. I mean, like, in the plot of Passion, Klara is quote unquote in the wrong because in a show about love, she won't give it unconditionally. But in the real world and in our view of it as rational people who are going to see a piece of art, she's not in the wrong. We might not be. She might not give Georgia what he wants. And so she might be a roadblock, an obstacle to our quote unquote protagonist's desire. But it's like what we just said. It's like, sure, her love is conditional, but the conditionality of it is pretty reasonable, which is that she's a fucking kid. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Clara is living bridges in Madison county, but it's from Stephen Pasquale's perspective.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

She ultimately does the Francesca route, which is. I'm sticking with my responsibilities because it's not me anymore. And I also do have people here that I love and care for. I can't just uproot it all on a whim for you because that's, that's about you. That's not about me.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, you're asking me to be unconditional with my love, but you're not being unconditional with yours. You're. You're, you're adoring me, but you're not respecting what I have in my life right now. You're not expecting who I am in this moment. You're only adoring the person I am by your side. Not everything that I have when I leave this room.

[Ali Gordon]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And, and I think both are absolutely valid emotional arguments and, and also like relatable ones. Even when one is in the wrong, you understand why they're arguing for themselves in that moment. It's very human.

[Ali Gordon]

It is. And it's very good writing.

[Matt Koplik]

Hot take. These Tony winning, Pulitzer winning men did a good job with their own.

[Ali Gordon]

Figured it out. I know. I mean, that's why I think I always feel so silly when I'm like, hey, I actually think passion's good. It's like, wow, brave take. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Well, in a way, it kind of is. It's always been sort of deemed the stepchild of the Tony winning Sondheim musicals. Right.

[Ali Gordon]

I just, like, I don't feel that at all. I definitely think it's different and it definitely diverges from some of the things that make other Sondheim musicals successful. But it's like it has so many of the things that make Sondheim Sondheim.

[Matt Koplik]

So someone asked in the Discord Channel about the legacy of it all of what is Passion's legacy outside of, like, not having button songs. It's. I think the legacy of Passion is still kind of growing. It is still the esoteric Sondheim fans musical. It's still not universally accepted as one of his great works, which is. I get why I don't think it's fair. Ultimately, there's no song and Passion that one can really do at a concert. They. Passion was 1000% unrepresented at his 75th birthday concert.

[Ali Gordon]

That is true.

[Matt Koplik]

My God, they did. I read during Sondheim on Sondheim, and I'm convinced it's because James Lapine was the curator of that show and he's like, we're doing.

[Ali Gordon]

I read.

[Matt Koplik]

We're doing. I read. But, like, I don't believe anything from Passion was in Putting it together or any of the other, like, Sondheim reviews of the 90s and early 2000s.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. It's also not in Side by Side by Sondheim. Well, that was before it.

[Matt Koplik]

That's in the 70s. But I don't think. I don't know if they've ever updated it. I don't know if it's in Old Friends. Maybe it is. I don't know for sure.

[Ali Gordon]

I was gonna say I helped co direct an updated version of Side by Side by Sondheim and it did have some newer stuff, but it did not have Passion.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

But it also might have been adapted before the 90s, so.

[Matt Koplik]

But also, like, the one thing I remember they did from Passion was they did a little bit of happiness, like 90 seconds of it. And then the Barbara Cook that I read. And it was the moment of the show that everybody just sort of tuned out. And it is actually, I think, a testament to Passion that there's almost nothing you can pick out of it and do out of context.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, I love that. I think that's so, like, that's ballsy. Yeah, I.

[Matt Koplik]

Really ballsy.

[Ali Gordon]

And it's interesting, like, when somebody's like, oh, I. I've been thinking about getting into Passion. What should I listen to? It's like none of the tracks. You should start at the beginning, carve out two hours of your life, and listen to the end. It's about 90 minutes. You'll. It'll. You'll. You'll be. You'll be. It'll Be easy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. The problem. Problem with the original cast recording is that it is truncated. And because it's the 90s and they weren't really big on doing the full score and, like, sounding Experience, very few musicals up until Passion had a cast recording that gave you the full experience. Like Sweeney and Evita are rare examples.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So if you are going to listen to Passion for the first time, I do recommend listening to the 2013 recording with Kunzi and it's Rebecca Luca replacing Melissa Erico, because it's. I'm pretty sure, if not the full show, it's the full score and most of the dialogue.

[Ali Gordon]

Most of it. Also. Just watch this.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, you can watch it, too. I think what I. The reason I do prefer the 2013 recording is because Quincy has a sense of humor where Murphy doesn't. But that's also their initial response to the material. You don't get Kunzy doing her version of Foska without Murphy setting the mold.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I also just, like. Much like I said when I was 15 years old, I just really like her performance. I think it's, like, really unusual and I think it's really bold and I think it's really unembarrassed, and I just, like, find it so vulnerable. I'm sort of obsessed with it.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, it's one of the most legendary performances.

[Ali Gordon]

I also, like. I think we have certainly talked about this on this podcast, but I'm so obsessed with her. Could I leave you?

[Matt Koplik]

Could I leave you? Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I just think I'm obsessed with it, and I think it's because it's borderline. Too much. Do I mean.

[Matt Koplik]

Borderline?

[Ali Gordon]

But that's why I like it. Like, that is why I like it. I don't like it. In spite of that, I'm obsessed with it. Like, I was. Was. I was watching someone do it on YouTube recently because it came up as a suggestion and the woman went, no, the point is, could you leave me? Which is exactly how it's written in the ink. Right. Like, that's not a. That's not a divergence. But I'm so, like, I'm so obsessed with the way that she speaks that line that I literally clicked away from the video the minute she did it. I was like, not interested anymore. I'm tuned out.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Do you? Yeah. Well, yeah. It's in the same way that if someone were just saying not to fetch your pills again every day at five, I'm like, no, no. Ms. Murphy goes every day at five.

[Ali Gordon]

I know, it is.

[Matt Koplik]

It is too much. But Murphy is an oddball who does make bold choices. I will say I prefer her everything, like, legitimately useful performances of that song. The boot of her doing it at City center at Encores is a pretty perfect interpretation of.

[Ali Gordon]

It's wonderful. Also, so is Jan Maxwell.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah. Jan Maxwell's Could I Leave youe as a God fucking.

[Ali Gordon]

That's another. When we talk about people who have been taken from the theater community too soon, I feel she often gets forgotten from the conversation, but she is. Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And I love that performance.

[Matt Koplik]

She was a ball of talent and intelligence and versatility. What she. All the different things she was able to do in her career. It blows your mind.

[Ali Gordon]

I just. I just adore her. And I think she gets forgotten a lot. And I think, like, even, like when we talk about, like, iconic performances of that song, like, she's way up there for me.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, I know.

[Ali Gordon]

The point is. Could you.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, It's. I would say there's no. There's one video of Alexis Smith doing it on some, like, television program, and it's fine. It's. It's like way after she finished doing Follies. So I don't like to judge it that much. But if we're talking about, like, actual performance performances of it, for me, it's Donna Murphy at Encores, followed by Jan Maxwell on Broadway, and then I probably Janie D at the National. She does. She does a very good Could I leave you? And then it's Donna at the 75th birthday concert. Not because it's. For me, it's similar. Like, not because it's great, but because it's memorable.

[Ali Gordon]

It's so memorable. Yeah, it really. It really makes me go. We're not acting like, I'm like, fuck these. Like, stop giving me like, like, mediated small performances. I want to see more of that. I want it. I crave it.

[Matt Koplik]

I want to wait a goddamn minute.

[Ali Gordon]

I need that with her. With her, like, her two little tendrils of hair flapping in her face. I need it. I crave it. I need it. I need it. I watch. So look, I don't know if you're a teenager listening to this. Apparently there's a lot of teenagers who listen to this. I watch so many pre screens. It's my job. I watch so many pre screens of children. Children trying to go to these musical theater schools. And sometimes I see someone who's doing a little too much, and it is still more memorable than someone who's doing a little too little. I just need you to know that I need you to know that I need you to take some fucking risks. And I need you to be okay with looking a little foolish. If it doesn't 100 land, I will remember that you took a risk.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Ali Gordon]

More than I will remember somebody who did an.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, absolutely.

[Ali Gordon]

So far from Allegro.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, make a choice. Make a choice. It. It's. Even if it doesn't land, we remember you for your bravery of making the choice and are more willing to work with you.

[Ali Gordon]

You are auditioning to be a student. That is what that. That is what. If I could fucking give one fucking piece of advice, that is it. You are not auditioning to be on Broadway. You're not ready. That's fine. That's why you're going to school. We're all aware. So you're not auditioning for this role. You're auditioning to put this in front of everybody at Lincoln Center. You're auditioning to be a student. So you have to show me that you are studentable.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, Teacher. Teachers and directors will tell you their job is not to create you, it's to edit you. You have to bring it to the table and they help you hone your decision making skills and your taste level. Yeah, they help guide you in that respect. But like, a director is not going to come up to you and be like, so you need to do this and this and this and this. I mean, some will do that, but those are bad directors. But they're bad directors will be like, I. It's so much easier to tell you to. To edit one of your choices than to pull the teeth out of you.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. Please don't make me pull teeth.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, nobody else do that.

[Ali Gordon]

We're sort of off the topic of Passion. I feel like we're probably.

[Matt Koplik]

We're wrapping things up. And some might argue that seeing Passion is like pulling teeth. My grandmother would say that. But here we are. I.

[Ali Gordon]

And then she eventually forgave Sondheim over.

[Matt Koplik]

The years, sort of. Well, she eventually. She fell in love with company 24 years after first seeing it. So maybe if she were to see Passion again now, she would like it.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, like my parents, I dragged them to see Sweeney Todd before it closed because I'd seen it 10 times already or whatever. Yeah, the one that was in 2006, that was on Broadway, that was obsessed.

[Matt Koplik]

With the one where the cast called you weepy.

[Ali Gordon]

Yep. Because I saw it so many times and I cried every time. I loved it. I was just like, Honestly, I was just so, so emotional to be seeing my favorite show live. That's really where it came from. So anyway, I finally dragged my parents to see it because I was like, it's important to me. It's gonna close. You have to see it. They fucking hated it. But also, they hated. All my parents hated musicals. They, like, really, really disliked musicals. There were a few that, like, shone through that they liked, but on the whole, they hated musicals. And my mom also was like. She. Upon seeing that, was like, I hate Sondheim. And then once we were talking about it, and she was like, you know what's good musicals? You know what's like, good. West side Story is good. When she. When he says, say it loud and there's music playing, say it soft, and it's almost like, like, praying. That's good musicals. And I was like, oh, my God. Do you know who wrote that? Like, I, like, got to be like, God damn it, because. But. But it was in that moment that she started to, like, reconsider that Sondheim was only difficult. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Matt Koplik]

Do you remember anyway, do you remember at Stage door, I ran across the. The dining hall to you once because I realized something about Sweeney Todd and I had to tell you, and your response was like, I know. Isn't it cool? It was.

[Ali Gordon]

I don't remember that, but that sounds like me.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I ran. I ran over to you because I was. I think it was when. It was when they were doing Sweeney and you were in it for. For the time that they were doing it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And I was listening to. Poor thing. And I was listening to the interlude, the. The dance music at the. At the party.

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, the same as. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And I ran over you. I was like, ally, do you realize that all the bedroom's crazy music is the music from the party where she's like, how about Spit me Muff, damn it? And your response made me go. That's how I always want to respond when I know something that somebody discovers. Because your response wasn't like, where have you been? Your response was, I know. Isn't it cool?

[Ali Gordon]

That's good.

[Matt Koplik]

Always how you respond to people. Always.

[Ali Gordon]

Okay, good. I thought you were going to say that. I was like, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

No, you responded that way after. After, like, much later, when I was. When I'd be vulnerable and would tell you things I discovered, you'd be like, oh, welcome to the world, dumb slut.

[Ali Gordon]

You'd be like, yeah, that's where your hole is, and I'm looking for another one, idiot.

[Matt Koplik]

No, you would. You would say to me, matthew, that's not a hole. That's a half. Exactly, Exactly.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

Final thoughts on Passion.

[Ali Gordon]

I think it's not for everyone, and I think that's to its credit. I think it's really cool when people can create things that are just really not for everyone. I don't know if I have the fucking balls for that yet in my life.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, we'll see what happens with your book. Maybe it's not for everyone.

[Ali Gordon]

I mean, I'm sure it won't be. It's going to be quite sad. It's a small character piece. There's certainly people who will not be for. But I think it really takes a lot of, like. Like the fucking cojones to be like, I'm writing passion. I really admire that. And I want to believe I am that person, but I don't know if I truly am. Deep down, there is still a part of me that's like, oh, God, people, maybe they don't understand. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And.

[Matt Koplik]

And I want to give credit to some of those producers, one of whom, unfortunately, is Scott Rudin, for being. For seeing the workshop of the show and be like, yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Being like, yeah, let's bring this Broadway.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, this. This is never going to make money. If we're lucky, this will win Best Musical because the field is so sparse. But, like, this is not running three years. This is maybe making it to January. And they. And also, like, putting in the money to film it so it can live on. And it's. God bless them, it's allowed it to have a life in a way that it wouldn't have if there. If it never went to Broadway. If it was like a small, you know, limited run at Playwrights Horizons that didn't go anywhere, you know.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Because it's. There's a lot of. Even if you don't like it, you cannot deny that there aren't things about it. I would not ever tell you that the show wants you to believe something about love, about relationships. It is a story, and Sondheim has said this himself, like, it is a story about specific people in a specific moment in time. And our job was to give those characters in those situations definition and depth.

[Ali Gordon]

I think that that is, like, the true mark of a writer confident in their abilities. And it's like a sense of like. And because, like, there is such an instinct to be like, will people think. I think this. Why don't I make sure there's a line in it where another character goes, well, Georgio, that's not love. That's passion just to make sure people know that. I know that because I'm smart.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I think the instinct not to fall into that trap is really difficult. And I think it's really the sign, like, the ultimate sign of, like, great writing, great, confident writing is being able to be like, these are characters. These are a situation. Why don't we watch it, what happens? And not be like, but, of course, you know, I wouldn't do that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

I think it's, like, so easy to fall into that trap, and I really admire that.

[Matt Koplik]

I think that's sort of what makes Loving you such an amazing addition. That with distance, I hope Sondheim recognized what it is that they actually did, because in his mind, them adding it was sort of them being like, oh, now we're just being obvious about the point of everything. And like, no, no, no. You wrote a song towards Dana previews. That wasn't a, hey, audience, this is what the show's about. It was another. It was a moment to give Foska some grace and a chance to express herself without judgment.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And you give that to Clara. You give that to Giorgio. Foska needs that as well. And so you. When you decided to give the audience some ease, it wasn't a, hey, we want to clarify what the show is about. It was, we just want to clarify this character a bit more. And I think that is a wonderful thing to do because, as you said. Yeah. Too many shows, it's like, let's add something so the audience knows what they're supposed to feel afterwards. Give it a. Make something that's worth having a conversation about.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

People are having a conversation about in the Discord Channel, I must say, when some. Because a couple people asked questions about, like, what we're supposed to take away, and then other people came in, were like, I don't think that the show wants you to take away any of those things, like, either yay or nay. And then sent into those Sondheim interviews and whatnot. And I was like, I love this. I love. I love when the people who listen have conversations.

[Ali Gordon]

Yes. I mean, like, conversation is so filming things will keep things alive, obviously. And that's why I really want you. I really, really want you to have a conversation about that with Aurora. Spider Woman. That is my dream. But the other thing that keeps things alive is, like, conversation. And, like, even, like, conversation. Like, I like when people look back on things. Like, I don't find it to be a detriment to the show when people, like, look back on something and go hey, this is a pretty good show for a show written by two white guys. It's pretty illuminating and sympathetic to women nonetheless. Written by two white guys. Do you know what I mean? Like, I. Like, I really appreciate that. And not saying it in a way that's derogatory and not saying it in a way that, like, diminishes its charms or its contribution to the canon of theater or even its material. Like, I remember hearing a director talk recently about Camelot and the character of Guinevere, and they were like, damn. Some of those moments are some of the most mature, insightful writing for a woman in a long time. Some of them, not so much. And I was like, hey, I really. I really appreciate that. Do you know what I mean? It made me, like, feel more. Feel more attraction to Camelot, which is a show I don't really like all that much. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's not because Aaron Sorkin rewrote the book. It's because they're, like, looking at it from the perspective of being like, let's get in this woman's head. Something that we famously didn't do very often. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

I think. Well, it's so hard to say something so, like, as a declaration because it's art and it's all subjective, but ultimately, when it works, it works and it doesn't matter. You don't. You don't think about who wrote it so much when it works to. Because it. When something isn't working, that's when we sort of talk down about, like. Well, because this white person wrote it. This. This man wrote it. It's. When it. When something is. Is fully formed and well rounded and deep, it. It doesn't matter who the artist is, at least in my opinion.

[Ali Gordon]

Right. Something that. That's why, like, that's where conversation keeps things alive.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

And that's where. When somebody goes, hey, I'm new to learning about musicals, and I listened to Camelot because my grandma said it was her favorite. And I don't think I like it. I think it's great for people to be like. Like, hey, I'm really happy you're here. Let's talk about this. Yeah. Let me give you some context about, like, the society that was written into. Here are some of the things that, like, it was really fucking innovating at the time. I am aware that probably with the lens of today, it doesn't feel like that, but, like, this is an interesting little tidbit about where it fits in the canon and then that person. Correct. And then that person can either go be like, okay, well, I still don't like it. You can make it tight, or they can be like, like, oh, cool. I do see that. And I do see how that, like, that song is like, wow, like, imagine being in that theater and hearing that song for the first time. Like, I think you probably have your, like, your little panties blown off. Like, I like, that is such a joy. Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

And then, and then I would send them down the road for other things to give them more knowledge. You can. You. Maybe you'll change your mind down the road. The more you listen to other things and you. Your taste expands and it defines. I'm so open about just saying you don't like something, but also trying to understand why. Not to undermine your opinion or to justify the thing that you don't like, but just. It helps you understand you better and it helps you understand the work better. So if you do come to it at a later point, maybe you will like it more, maybe you'll like it less. Maybe my grandmother will see passion again and love it, or she'll hate it ten times worse.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. And I can't wait to find out what the answer is. Genuinely, I. I genuinely think.

[Matt Koplik]

I genuinely think that she will let herself die before she lets me show her passion.

[Ali Gordon]

I love that. Don't show her passion.

[Matt Koplik]

I won't. Again. Girlfriend still is like, Donna Murphy. I'm like you. You haven't seen her on stage in 20 years.

[Ali Gordon]

I know. It's like, you have to forgive her.

[Matt Koplik]

Speaking of pygmy girls, Carrie Bradshaw. You have to forgive me, Aiden. It's very bad.

[Ali Gordon]

There's only, and I'll say this definitively, there's only one musical that's. That's truly bad. Ms. Brigadoon. Beginning on the episode there.

[Matt Koplik]

Do you want to. Do you want to say why?

[Ali Gordon]

Nope. It's just the worst musical. It's just bad. It's really bad. You used to. Oh, Fiorello is not a good show.

[Matt Koplik]

No, it's not a good show, but.

[Ali Gordon]

It'S not the worst musical. The worst musicals. Brigadoon. Brigadoon is bad.

[Matt Koplik]

Brigadoon is harmful because you did junior year of. At Michigan or senior year.

[Ali Gordon]

I've been in Brigadoon three times, and every single time I've had a bad time. And none of those times I've been met. So I just want to say that.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, there you go. But, but, but you did it in Michigan, right? It was that was. Was.

[Ali Gordon]

I wasn't in it. It was it, but it was. I was there. Sam was in it. Sam was.

[Matt Koplik]

Sam was in it.

[Ali Gordon]

Sam was the New York girlfriend who's like, such a bitch because, you know, God, I fucking hate that show. Literally.

[Matt Koplik]

But I just. I just remember because you guys had to do a project. Was it freshman year where you each had to cover a musical?

[Ali Gordon]

Yes, we had to do. There was a. There was a big. In ye olde days of. At the University of Michigan, Professor Wagner would give a research project as your final project of the year. It was a huge part of your grade. You really took it seriously. And he would assign you a show to do tons of research about. He gave you, like, 25 questions. But, like, beyond that, you were supposed to flesh out way more. And it was not just the technical stuff, like, when did it open, where did it open, who was in it, but also, like, the history of Broadway, when it fits into it and how did it fit into it and where was it in this person's career? Like, it was a huge, huge thing. Most of these paper were. Papers were 50 pages at minimum.

[Matt Koplik]

Do.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm saying.

[Matt Koplik]

And I got Fiorello for the listeners. But I remember I got many calls from you to talk about your Fiorello paper. To, like, I was.

[Ali Gordon]

I got Fiorello not knowing until I turned it in. I was the only person he'd ever assigned Fiorello to in the history of the department. And then he read my paper and went, this is really good, but I'll never, never assign Fiorello again. Because there wasn't enough out there about it. There's not a tape about it. There's one recording about it. It's just. It's rough.

[Matt Koplik]

It's rough on paper. I understand why he did it. It's the only musical to tie at the Tonys in all of history. It's a Pulitzer winner.

[Ali Gordon]

And also, he knew I was from New York and talked about it a lot. And I think he was like, Here you go, LaGuardia. Like the airport.

[Matt Koplik]

Here you go, LaGuardia. L A G U A R D I A. And listen, if you had done your thorough research, you would have known that in season one or two of Mad Men, Don and Betty go to see Fiorello and Betty.

[Ali Gordon]

I remember that, but Betty.

[Matt Koplik]

Betty likes it. Don does not.

[Ali Gordon]

I saw Mad Men way after it aired. I was, like, really late to it. And I remember them seeing, like, Fiorello. And I remember seeing feeling like I had to puke because, like, Sometimes when I think about Fiorello, I still like, feel nervous, like a freshman at the University of Michigan being like, I hope you like my paper. Like, sometimes I think about Fiorello and I'm just like, I'm going to puke.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Ali Gordon]

Also, there's a great song cut from Fiorello. What is it called? It's what Took the Place of When Did I Fall in Love? And Liz Calloway does it on her album I'll Take My Chances. How did I end up?

[Matt Koplik]

I don't know. At Emerson, we had to do research on certain shows, but it wasn't on the history. It was always about the score and we never knew what the requirements were. So nobody ever got a good grade on it. They were never clear about it. But the three shows we had to do because it was all year long and three shows that everyone had to cover at some point were Porgy and Bess, Three Penny Opera and Pacific Overtures.

[Ali Gordon]

Interesting. None of them have anything in common.

[Matt Koplik]

No, none of them. The only show I got a good grade on was on New Girl in Town, the musical version of Anna Christie. And it's because I chose to just focus on one song called on the Farm and I spent two pages talking about on the Farm.

[Ali Gordon]

The song is called Where Do I Go From Here? That's quite a good song.

[Matt Koplik]

Not Where Do I go from here, but where do I go from Here?

[Ali Gordon]

Where do I go from Here? And Liz Calloway does a great version of it on her thing. There's also a Lawson box.

[Matt Koplik]

Can we acknowledge the cleverness of what I just did? That was really good. Thank you. Where do I go from hair.

[Ali Gordon]

From hair or where do I go?

[Matt Koplik]

Where do I go from?

[Ali Gordon]

Where do I go from hole.

[Matt Koplik]

From hole. From Whore house.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. So anyway, you can either use that song as the write out or as you'll see, you should save it before the zoom window closes. I sent you something I made for our recording. Maybe that can be our ride out for the. For the podcast.

[Matt Koplik]

I will. I will. I will download that. Do you want me to wait until I download it to know what that is or do you want to say what the. Like it is you sent me?

[Ali Gordon]

Oh, I'm not going to say what it is. You should just sort of experience it at whole. I will say one thing is that I had to rip some audio from Passion and it's so quiet. So you are going to have to help me in the final edit, sort of equalizing the clips. I apologize for that.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay. So, Ali, where Can people find you? If you want them to find you.

[Ali Gordon]

I don't want you to find me. Isn't that the. Is. Hasn't that been the theme? Okay, I'm on Instagram @Miss Alicenutting.ms.a L I C E N U T T I N G. Yeah, like the character from the Mystery of Druid. What character from Mystery Druid? Shut up.

[Matt Koplik]

Or. Or like nutting, like the thing we've been talking about all day long.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly. I'm also on Twitter, but I don't think I use it anymore because it's sort of run by a bad guy. And I have a book coming out next year. That's cool. Oh, actually, you know what? I finally have something to plug. I actually genuinely sign a plug. I co wrote a musical and I think it's very, very lovely. It's intended for high schoolers to do in their theater camps and summer camps and the highest schools and whatever. I think adults would like it too. But like, I really have written it to like be like the perfect high school show. It's got parts for everybody and it's so fun. It's called Power trip. And on TikTok, we're at power Trip musical. Let me double check. That's true. Power Trip musical. The reason I don't know that is because I don't know how to run TikTok. So I pay someone younger than me to make TikToks. God bless them.

[Matt Koplik]

Must be nice to have money. I know of this musical, everybody. I have not heard a single note of it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, at Power Trip Musical. Well, you can go to it on fucking TikTok and find. Find it.

[Matt Koplik]

If I had TikTok, I would. But you haven't sent me shit. I would. Whenever you and I would get lunch and I would ask you about the musical, all you would say is, it's going well.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, I'm. I'm. But I have to say that that. That is not a you thing. That is a me thing. Like, I'm like that with everybody.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm aware. I just want you to know where I'm at in this moment of your journey.

[Ali Gordon]

You can enjoy. You know what? I'll send you the score.

[Matt Koplik]

I know more about your book than your musical and I find that offensive, considering the podcast that I run. It's pretty much called Library Breakdown, bitch. It's Broadway Breakdown.

[Ali Gordon]

Anyway, I think the musical is very sweet. It's funny. It is a fantasy comedy musical. And the score, while also being very theater y, is sort of like Indigo Girls, Irish Reels folk music Y. Because it's like, meant to sound like sort of like a fun fantasy road trip kind of.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure. Buy your own IUD in the lobby. So you don't want people. You don't want people to find you online, is what you're saying.

[Ali Gordon]

Unless you're gonna go to our trip musical and support that, in which case, please do. And if you're an educator, please do, because I'm really trying to get this into some high schools and I think it would be great.

[Matt Koplik]

I do know educators who listen to this podcast. So, yeah, reach out to Ali on Instagram. You won't be sorry. If you want to follow me, I'm on Instagram only at Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating or review. Join the Discord Channel if you would like. It's fun over there. Everyone's always throwing in media to consume so you can be all boned up for the episodes and you can see.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah, you gotta be boned up.

[Matt Koplik]

Gotta be boned up, baby. And. Yeah, and I. I converse on there with some of you guys as well. It's a fun time. It's a fun time had by all. And also, if you ever hear us say something incorrect on the podcast, people will say so on the Discord Channel, which I love, because I don't want to spread misinformation. Sometimes I just misremember things. Like, I was so sure that that Candide was part of that Sondheim box set that you had in your room, but no, it was just next to it.

[Ali Gordon]

Yeah. I mean, now I'm afraid I'm wrong. But you know what the beauty of this is? That someone will correct us.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Ali Gordon]

That is what that lyric says. And the beauty is when you realize. When you realize you were wrong and somebody in the Discord was right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. It's so beautiful that people will forgive us for being wrong.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm always wrong. But people go, jesus Christ, I'm lost in that ass.

[Matt Koplik]

Them tits.

[Ali Gordon]

I'm lost. I'm lost in your tits. They just forgive me.

[Matt Koplik]

That'll be another lyric in our. In our show in addition to the. I'm in search for another hole. It's. I'm exactly. I got lost.

[Ali Gordon]

I got lost in your tits.

[Matt Koplik]

Lost in her tits.

[Ali Gordon]

Exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

I got lost in her tits. And nothing else was the same. All right, so we'll close out with whoever Ali Gordon has just sent me on the.

[Ali Gordon]

You're welcome.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, I look forward to finding out what that is as I edit it and we'll see you guys next week. I don't know what it's going to be yet, and actually I might either I'll see you guys next week or I'm going to take two weeks off because this is going to be coming out pretty soon after the reading, so I'll be very, very wiped and I might need two weeks off. But we'll be. We'll either be back next week or in two weeks. There's no in between. So we'll see you guys later. Have a good one.

[Ali Gordon]

And take you.

[Matt Koplik]

Take it away, whoever this is. Bye. I don't know about you, but I personally feel like the world could use a lot more kindness right now. Hi, it's Robert Peter Paul, your friendly neighborhood BPN host of the Art of Kindness, a podcast that spotlights people in the arts who make the world well. Well, you guessed it kinder. From icons like Carol Burnett I blacked out. To Tony winners like Stephanie J. Block to Olympians like Lori Hernandez, we've featured so many wonderful guests from all corners of the biz to give you intimate conversations and kindness tips. I'm thrilled to say we're returning for a fourth season.

[Ali Gordon]

Woop woop.

[Matt Koplik]

This World Kindness Week with guests like Ian Armitage, Judith Light, Betty who, Corbin Blue, and more. So please join our kindness community over at VPN fm aok. And I do hope you're doing as a okay as you can. Let's build a kinder world. All audio hug. Can you identify an Elphaba just from her defying gravity war cry? Can you name every actress in the Wicked to Waitress pipeline? Or does the phrase witch switch mean anything to you? Well then, good news.

[Ali Gordon]

My name's Quincy.

[Matt Koplik]

And my name's Kevin. And we're the host of Sentimental Men. We're here to talk and maybe scream about our favorite women in musical theater, the Witches of Wicked.

[Ali Gordon]

So if spending a Friday night in.

[Matt Koplik]

A no good deed rather on YouTube sounds like your idea of a good time, then Sentimental Men is the podcast for you. And with guests like Jessica Vosk, Lucy Jones and Stephanie J. Block, chances are we've already got an episode with your favorite Elphaba or Glinda, like Laura Bell Bundy, Brittany Johnson and Mackenzie Kurtz. So pause your riff compilations, put down your copy of the Grimmery and give Sentimental Men a listen. You can find us on the Broadway Podcast Network or wherever you listen to podcasts.