Do me a favor and listen to “The Color of Your
Eyes” from the musical Daddy Long Legs.
I’ll give you some time…
Now tell me that’s not a beautiful song. Tell
me that you weren’t just filled with so much beautiful imagery of strolling through
Manhattan in spring. Or fall. Or whatever the most romantic season is to you.
Daddy Long Legs was a musical that played
Off-Broadway until this June. It was the first show to live stream so that
peasants like me in Oklahoma could watch New York City theatre without the
plane ticket or hotels. It starred Megan McGinnis, who I’ve loved since the
musical Little Women, and her
husband. They are the only two people in the show as it’s a show of Megan’s character
sending letters to her benefactor (played by her husband).
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| Cute little Jerusha, writing her letters. daddylonglegsmusical.com |
This show is full of hits, but also a lot of
misses. I watched the live stream back in December, listened to the album, then
stopped. I’ve rediscovered my love for the music this summer. However, every
time I listen, often within the same song, I may be shouting “Yaaaasss!” in my
car followed immediately by a disappointed “ohhh…”.
Many of the misses can be attributed to the
story on which it is based. It was written a century ago and is fairly
outdated. It exists in a time when women were at the mercy of men and ending up
with a man twice your age was common if not encouraged. They work around this
pretty well in the show, but I haven’t brought myself to watch the movie
starring a young Leslie Caron and an aging Fred Astaire…
Unfortunately, it’s not just the story that is
weak. There are amazing songs like the one suggested earlier, “Graduation Day”
and “I Couldn’t Know Someone Less”. But
these are accompanied with the opening number (that is so awkward..), “The
Secret of Happiness” (which is supposed to be the big song of Jerusha, but is
boring and falls flat for me), and “What Does She Mean by Love” (dude, chill
out and stop being such a hermit). Along with this, even in some of the good
songs, there are such unforgettable cringey moments. For example: in the song “I’m
a Beast”, Jerusha says “Daddy I’m no
good at being bad”. What? What kind of line is that?!?
But Daddy
Long Legs will remain my guilty pleasure. Megan McGinnis is too delightful,
the good songs are amazing, and it hits me right in the, often suppressed, Rom-Com part of my heart. Yeah the romance is weird, but it’s like a Maury
episode you can’t look away from and I love it!
This post is an honest
love letter to the show I’m currently obsessing with. If you join me in
this obsession, let me know!
