I Know Him…Not At ALL: An ODE to the Emotionally Unavailable Musical Theatre Leading Man

So, after an almost twenty years of NOT, tonight, I put on a mixed-song musical theatre playlist to orchestrate the end of my evening.
2022 seems to be starting off as harsh as a rusty razor blade that you grabbed by accident while rooting around in the medicine cabinet for a stray Advil…400mg…and I thought maybe listening to a musical of some sort would bolster my flagging spirit.

You see, humans, musical theatre and me had a bit of a breakup/breakdown situation occur around that same twenty years ago, and my brightly-coloured collection of cassette tapes went into a covered basket from Pier One and then THAT basket went into the corner of my basement.
I didn’t have the heart to throw them out…but I REALLY wanted to.
Yes, it was THAT kind of breakup/breakdown.
THAT is a whole other story that is not relevant to this moment in time.

I know, maddening, right?

So, anyway, here I am, twenty years later, during a friggen pandemic on a Saturday night after Winners has closed and all the single gals have gone home with their scented candles, fleece zip-up jackets, spatulas and cute tops that they may get to wear if we ever go out again, tentatively dipping my ears and brain into a playlist titled…

“the best musical theatre ballads ever part 1 made by bethanymorales24601Schuylar”

Okay, sister.
Way to bridge all of those classics with the handle, bethanymorales24601Schuylar.
Also, the following is not totally important, BUT what happened with the youngs regarding their non-use of capital letters, careless spelling and general disregard for sentence structure? Anyway.

And as I unloaded my dishwasher, had a shower (is there anything better than a late night shower?), warmed up a tea in my BEST AUNT EVER mug, tidied up my already pretty tidy place, took my magnesium,  popped half of a cbd gummy and turned off all the lights, I listened to Jennifer Holiday, Jessie Mueller, Priscilla Lopez, and then Angela Landsbury showed up for a little BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

I was in the shower at the time, so I could not skip it…OH, nothing against the OG Angela Landsbury, but I was in the show for a year, so I’ve heard the song a few times and, let’s be honest, it’s no “I’m Telling You I’m Not Going”.

As I listened to the song, and scrubbed away, I thought about the show.
I really loved doing that show.
I played Babette, the feather duster…hold on…I think I have a picture somewhere…

Ah yes, that’s me.
P.S. I thought I was fat, here.
The entertainment industry is responsible for so many millions of hours of therapy and body hate, it should be criminal and covered by insurance.
BUT THAT is ALSO NOT what this is about…although? THE issue theatre has with bodies was a large part of my break up with musicals.
BUT BUT again? That’s a story for another time.
True end of that conversation.
Puts arms in front of face, nods and blinks like I DREAM OF JEANNIE…which is one of my fave moves.
Moving on.

ALL that being said, when I had some respite from the anxiety attacks brought on by not eating?…I LOVED doing Beauty and the Beast.
The show itself was 100% pure joy.
I used to love standing in the wings waiting for an entrance with Melissa Thompson ( who played a spunky and joyous Belle ) and we would be talking shit in our regular voices (me dressed up like an almost six foot feather duster), and then we’d both run onstage, she saying “Hello” to an empty castle with her child like soprano and me waiting to have a quickie scene with a candlestick guy using one of the most rangy musical theatre french accents you will have ever heard in your life.
It was just all magic, fun, carnival and glitter…and KIDNAPP-IE.

Yes.
We all know it.

There I stood in the shower, thinking about how we were all so happy that Belle got kidnapped and imprisoned by a monster, in exchange for letting her father going free (way to go, Maurice), and then the monster courted her in the library (what choice did she have? She was just trying to kill forever by reading a book and he would just not fucking leave her alone) and then she was dressed up like a princess in a yellow dress while a teapot sang a song about Stockholm Syndrome and then she fell in love with an emotionally crippled monster who, when she gave her love to him even though he kidnapped her and mostly treated her like shit, turned into the man of her dreams.

AND THIS WAS A KID’S SHOW.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

(THAT IS THE SOUND OF WATER DROPPING OFF MY CHIN, WHICH WAS LOWER THAN USUAL BECAUSE MY MOUTH WAS WIDE OPEN IN CONSIDERATION OF THE ABOVE FACTS)

Well, it all makes sense why no one (but me, it seems) is really batting an eyelash at the musicalization of PRETTY WOMAN.
Jesus wept, people.

What are we teaching our young people!?!?!

As I rolled all these thoughts around in my mind, CHESS started to play.
What followed was a song WE ALL SANG back in the day, an amazing women’s duet.
You could just belt the SHIT out of it.
Every gal wanted to sing Florence and NOT Svetlana…but WOULD sing Svetlana in a pinch.
Then I listened to 4:18 minutes of two women singing about how well they knew a man…that THEY OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T KNOW AT ALL.
An emotionally unavailable man who…oh lord, you know how it goes.
I’d never really listened to it from a naked in the shower, late at night, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST stand point.

Well, of course, after I towelled off and moisturized, I laid down in bed…lights all extinguished….awake as hell…the minutes ticking by…gummy rolling around my blood stream (I think I took the stronger one by accident, if I’m being honest)…thinking through a million other musical theatre songs…and feeling a bit ill about how we have normalized women (and men, and humans) falling in love with emotionally unavailable men…through the special gift of musical theatre.

And let me say here, I started writing this before January bit us all in our collective balls with death, weather, finding out your friends support truckers driving to OTTAWA to protest vaccine mandates (automatic UNFOLLOW activation), and other assorted shitty things that are occurring right…so while this may seem light and airy…it is steeped in darkness, a bit of ennui, and the figuring out of what dog trainer to go to in regards to your new and quite lovely dog periodically telling everyone on our walks to fuck off…just the way I like my writing.

So, as a result of listening to bethanymorales24610Schuylar’s song list and one strawberry gummy, here are my:

TOP TEN Emotionally Unavailable MALE Musical Theatre Songs Off The Top Of My Head Besides The Two I Just Mentioned

…in no particular order.

And I’m putting up the list so you KNOW that when you are singing along with these songs, that they’re grooming you.
Don’t fall for that shit, people, we are better than this.

SIDEBAR AND UPDATE:
And Dear Diary, This is totally tongue in cheek, so let’s not get TOO FUSSED…it’s JANUARY 47th!!! Oh, January.
ALSO? I have updated the list with some suggestions from the wonderful humans who have chimed in…WHICH I FUCKING LOVE.
End of SIDEBAR AND UPDATE.

1. On My Own – Les Miserables
Marius is in love with Cosette. We know it. He knows it. Eponine knows it…but still thinks there is a way for them…and instead? SHE DIES IN HIS ARMS AFTER BEING SHOT TRYING TO HELP A CAUSE SHE HAD NO SKIN IN…FOR HIM!!! Merde.

2. I Don’t Know How To Love Him – Jesus Christ Superstar
He’s Jesus. She’s Mary. He’s the son of god. She’s a lady of the evening. He’s focused on saving mankind…she is focused on him and washing his feet. Ex-hausting. EVEN JUDAS SINGS THE SAME SONG ABOUT HIM. JESUS IS, IRONICALLY, UNAVAILABLE TO ALL. Everything will be alright if you move on…which is a bit Sondheim and Webber mixed together.

3. Maybe This Time – Cabaret
Where to start? Sally is looking for love..she has loved a lot of people…but not herself…Cliff loves many people…but mostly himself. They find each other. Their’s is a flawed relationship AT best…but doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity, sweet Sally. Harsh? Maybe. True? I think so. Maybe This Time, choose YOU SISTER!!

4. What I Did For Love – A Chorus Line
Okay, it’s not an emotionally unavailable man…BUT girl…theatre can exhibit ALL the same qualities. When it’s good? It’s amazing. When it’s bad? Cue the ice cream, tears, heartbreak and the lack of someone tangible to yell back at, because you don’t want to be called difficult.

5. Marry the Man Today – Guys and Dolls
Girls. Ladies. “Marry the Man today and change his ways tomorrow”. No. Just no. Have you ever met two more unavailable dudes than Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit? One dude kidnaps (why is this a theme?) a woman on a technicality, taking her out of the country to Havana and gets her drunk on drinks she had no idea contained alcohol and the other runs from his fiancé for 100 years until she finally wears him down to a dull nub of his former self.  Again, just no…a person, can develop themselves instead. (See what I did there?)

6. Hopelessly Devoted To You – Grease (The Movie)
Find the hope, Sandy. He’s a bad boy. They NEVER turn out. Sure, they are good kissers, and sure they are maybe devils in the sack, and sure he puts on a letterman sweater at the end, and sure you become a bad girl…but is it really worth it? IS IT!?!?

7. My Man – Funny Girl
Oof.
Just oof.
For this one? All I really need to do is post the lyrics.
They say it all.

 

Oh, my man I love him so
He’ll never know
All my life is just despair
But I don’t care
When he takes me in his arms
The world is bright, all right

What’s the difference if I say
I’ll go away
When I know I’ll come back on my knees some day?
For whatever my man is
I am his forever more

It’s cost me a lot
But there’s one thing that I’ve got
It’s my man

Cold and wet, tired you bet
But all that I soon forget
With my man

He’s not much for looks
And no hero out of books
Is my man

Two or three girls has he
That he likes as well as me
But I love him!

Oh, my man I love him so
He’ll never know
All my life is just despair
But I don’t care

When he takes me in his arms
The world is bright, all right

What’s the difference if I say
I’ll go away
When I know I’ll come back on my knees some day?

For what ever my man is
I am his forever more

(WIDE EYE EMOJI)

I WILL say that I sang this in a revue and the song took place after the character who was playing my boyfriend slapped me across the face.

Oh, I was so much younger then.

8. And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going – Dreamgirls
She’s pregnant with his baby, she’s NOT ONLY kicked out of the band by him BUT ALSO out of his life. CURTIS CANCELLED EFFIE…and she sings this to him…INSISTING THAT HE WILL LOVE HER AND TELLING HIM SHE WILL NOT LEAVE EVEN THOUGH HE DID ALL THOSE THINGS AND DOES NOT CARE. Oh, Effie.

9. I Still Believe – Miss Saigon
THIS is the I KNOW HIM SO WELL of Miss Saigon. The much-sung about Chris is unavailable twice, to two different women in two different parts of the world. One he’s with (Ellen), one he left behind (Kim)…yet, they still believe. Mama.

10. What’s The Use of Wonderin’ – Carousel
This musical is highly flawed…we all know it…but this song CANNOT be left out. Lord and Taylor. This is the musical which basically states in a scene between Louise and Julie that a hit from Billy was like a kiss. UGGGGGGGG!!!

(Now, THE Following is a SUB-GENRE of TOP TEN Emotionally Unavailable MALE Musical Theatre Songs that I like to call BAR WENCHES WHO ARE EITHER KILLED BY THE MEN THEY SING ABOUT OR SAVED BY THEM)

11. As Long As He Needs Me – Oliver (this was suggested VIA Catherine Rogan on Instagram)
Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. The Joyful Oom-Pah-Pah serving woman who has convinced herself that her abusive boyfriend is all that and a bag of chips…and that as long as he keeps coming back, as long as she pretends she isn’t anxiously attached to him, as long as she smiles on the outside while screaming on the inside…well…then she’ll be fine, you guys. But she isn’t. Not even close.
Lionel Bart wrote a 23 line song that should be on the wall of most therapist’s offices as an example of the relationship NOT to have…or the list of red flags to look for and avoid.
OH!!
AND THE “HE” SHE SINGS ABOUT? Bill Sikes? HE KILLS HER.
FOR REALS.
Gurl.

12. Aldonza (The Whore) – Man Of La Mancha
If you are NOT sitting? Sit.
So, the “the whore” part is NOT in the title BUT it’s in the song…a number of times. Like many, many, many times. It’s something, really.
But the song is…well…it’s a symptom of a greater problem…which is the show.
So, I’m just gonna go to the show…which is, coincidentally and I didn’t realize till last night while I was lying in bed ruminating over this… but it’s the blueprint for Pretty Woman.
Do other people know this, and I’m just late to the party?
Think about it. I’ll wait.
Jason Alexander has even played Sancho, I think…but in the movie…he’s the rapist/Sancho…which is gross, really.
Oh yes, there is a WHOLE RAPE SEGMENT in Man Of LaMancha (as there is Pretty Woman when Jason Alexander/Sancho/Rapist attacks Julia Roberts) …and come to think of it there is actually a whole rape segment in Pacific Overtures (Pretty Lady) as well…but I digress.
This man, the Don Quixote dude, is unavailable because he sees her as the Madonna (not Madonna the singer…but Madonna the mother of the jesus baby) while she sees herself as a whore. Two ends of the spectrum, no room for the middle ground.
Someone even sings a song about how wonderful she is as the Madonna he sees her as, as opposed to the whore she is relegated to being…Dulcinea…and when I saw the Robin Phillip’s production of LaMancha, during Dulcinea…Phillip’s brought out a naked woman and had the other women onstage bathe her while the Padre sang.
Read that again.
(Blinks)
Can you imagine what those student matinees were like…FOR THAT POOR BATHING ACTRESS?!
Where do you even go with this?

This pic me as Mme. Thenardier in Les Mis, which I always imagined was VERY Aldonza-esque…but with less teeth.

Oh my goddess you guys, my horse may seem high, my feminism on full peacock display, and my soap box is sturdy and grand…but AM I WRONG!?!?!?

I was chatting with a friend earlier today, and she tactfully pointed out how boring the shows would be without these heart-wrenching songs, to which I answered, THEN WHY DON’T THE FUCKING GUYS EVER SING THEM!?!?!

WHY’S IT GOTTA BE ALL ABOUT WOMEN SINGING THIS SHIT!?!?

See?
It got dark there.
I blame winter…and gummies…and showers…and the pandemic…and all these songs!!!

All that being said, while like all these women, I’ve been in a co-dependent relationship with musical theatre…I still love it.

Lord and Taylor, I do.

Like, really love it.

Late in the wee hours, when it became clear that I did INDEED take the wrong gummy…I put on Sunday in the Park, laid back down in bed and just loved it.
AND TALK ABOUT EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE MALES!!!!!

SEURAT IN SUNDAY IS THE ABSOLUTE CLASSIC EXAMPLE.

Okay, I admit I’m fizzling out here…BUT it’s VERY late…and that gummy is riding me like a pony.

So, for anyone who is NOT a musical lover BUT read through this, BRAVO.
TO all my musical theatre lovers out there…I mean, I still love belting out I KNOW HIM SO WELL in the shower. I do.
Life, right?
Ah, January.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Jan 47th, 2022 – S.M.
Toronto, ON

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