This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We have amazing listeners on A Musical Theatre Podcast. By the way, I love you all dearly, including you, Michael. I'm always super grateful when a guest comes on the show that has actually listened to a few episodes. It makes my day. I know that some will have already heard of Lady in the Dark, but I also know a lot will have not. So I've been sitting here thinking what I could say or what we could say right here at the top to pique people's interest, to get them to listen. Here's what I've come up with. Let me know what you think. Lady in the Dark is like, what if Anna Wintour went to therapy and you got to watch? Right?

[0:36] Michael Van Duzer: Well, yes. I think that that's absolutely something that you could sell this as.

[0:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Or if you're a Devil Wears Prada fan, it's like Meryl Streep comes home after Paris, immediately starts having anxiety and depression that she can't explain. So she starts therapy, and those sessions become musical numbers. And now aren't you so excited to hear what happens? Absolutely, yes.

[1:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today we are talking about the musical Lady in the Dark, which was a listener request from the amazing Colden. Thank you, Colden. He wrote and said, after a year of listening to your glorious podcast, I finally have the chutzpah to write for a show recommendation. I think a show that would be worth a podcast and a show that has not been discussed on any musical theater dissection podcast is Lady in the Dark. The trailblazer musical stuck in theatrical limbo, or as a musical theater podcast would say, has turned into black ketchup.

Colden, you know flattery will get you everywhere on this show. So the mere fact that you brought up my black ketchup metaphor means that we are 100% covering Lady in the Dark. By the way, for those who may not know, black ketchup refers to my late great-grandma. She lived through the Great Depression, so she was very frugal and had a basement with bottles of black ketchup that she refused to throw away. She was like, ketchup doesn't go bad, and everyone was like, maybe this has. So that's become my metaphor for looking at some older musicals. Have they gone bad? Were they great in their day, but probably needed to be thrown away? Or are they still totally usable? As we discovered with Flower Drum Song, are the bottles still good, but they just maybe need to be cleaned out and refilled?

There will definitely be moments for discussion like that today, but I'm also really excited to cover this show because we honestly haven't covered much classical musical theater on the podcast. Not classic, classical. I haven't covered Jerome Kern, and today we're finally covering Kurt Weill. So here to talk with me about all of this is someone who's a big fan of the genre and has a significant but not threatening obsession with Lady in the Dark. He's a writer, director, and actor. Everyone, please welcome Michael Van Duzer.

[3:09] Michael Van Duzer: Hello, hello. Thank you for having me. Kolden is definitely my type of fan.

[3:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He is. He's amazing. He also, I need to give him a shout out, sent that email with attachments for me to research. He did some of the research for me, so I'm so grateful to Kolden. He rocks. Now, Michael, talk to me about your relationship with this musical.

[3:34] Michael Van Duzer: Well, I have to preface this by sort of telling people and reminding you that I'm a lot older than you.

[3:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We welcome all guests on the Musical Theatre Podcast.

[3:43] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah. As I grew up in a sort of sleepy surfer town in Southern California, I spent most of my time at the library. You know, any of my free time was in the library. I was already doing some performing, and so my last soprano role was Louis in The King and I. And so I vaguely knew the name Gertrude Lawrence and was in the middle of reading a lot of biographies, mostly of opera stars, actually, at that time, because opera is another passion of mine. But I ran across a biography of Gertrude Lawrence that was written by her husband. I read this biography, became absolutely entranced with the idea, just the way people would speak about Gertrude Lawrence, this enchanting stage presence. My father was in the military, so we bought things mostly on base at the commissary for food and then other stores that they had available.

There was a record section, and I would save up money for either an opera album or a show. And one day, looking through their long catalog, which looked like an old phone book, I found that I could order Gertrude Lawrence in Lady in the Dark. Now, I didn't know at this time that this was really before original cast albums, but I went ahead and immediately ordered it. It turned out to be six songs from the show. And what was most amazing to me was listening to that voice for the first time. I was used to, at this point, Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, and Gertrude was definitely an entirely different cup of tea.

[5:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How would you describe her voice?

[5:59] Michael Van Duzer: It is certainly unique. It's light, and I suppose you could say ethereal, with a fluttery vibrato. It doesn't sound like it would survive eight shows a week, but obviously it did. And the fact was, by all accounts, on stage, she was luminous, mercurial, and pretty much pure theatrical magic.

[6:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Kind of untouchable, truly.

[6:31] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, yeah. She'd been a top star already for close to 20 years. But we're talking about someone who introduced classic songs that were written specifically for her by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, of course, who she grew up with, Kurt Weill, and finally Rodgers and Hammerstein.

[6:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, my gosh, what a resume.

[6:58] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah.

[6:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For someone who's like, quote unquote, not a singer, right?

[7:02] Michael Van Duzer: Right. Yeah. I mean, obviously she did musicals, but at the time of Lady in the Dark, it had been a while since she'd done a real musical. She wasn't conventionally pretty, although she wore clothes very well and had the—

[7:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Style.

[7:20] Michael Van Duzer: Style. I mean, that woman had so much style.

[7:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And very much the body for the 20s and 30s too.

[7:25] Michael Van Duzer: Totally. Totally, totally. Well, it's interesting that your in for this musical was Gertrude Lawrence because, same for me, the way that I learned about this show was through the Julie Andrews, Gertrude Lawrence biopic, Star! Which, to this day, I believe is the best thing to watch when you're homesick. If you have a sick day, if you're in quarantine, people, watch Julie Andrews, Star! It's so long. It's just the longest film. Like we've been talking about, it covers the life of Gertrude Lawrence growing up in theater in England, growing up with Noel Coward, the famous playwright, how they were friends, becoming a huge stage presence. And they recreate a couple of numbers from Lady in the Dark in the movie.

And just seeing kind of the craziness of it, I mean, it's literally a circus. I was like, what on earth is this show? Right? It's so incredibly theatrical. And I'm really grateful that they spent all of the money and honestly lost all the money because that movie was a huge flop. But I'm glad that they did it because it's one of the few references and entry points for, I think, the general public into Lady in the Dark.

[8:41] Michael Van Duzer: That's certainly true. I didn't see it until years later because it probably played briefly in San Diego.

[8:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It came and went real quick.

[8:48] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly. And then they cut it to hell and put it out again. And I think it was retitled These Are the Days or These Were the Days, something like that. Yeah.

[9:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. So you become obsessed with Gertrude Lawrence. You order your Lady in the Dark record. Now, one of the things about this show is that it's so huge. And once it premiered, there was not really a script and a score that matched. So it was nearly unproducible. The question always becomes, if you love Lady in the Dark, how on earth do you ever see it?

[9:28] Michael Van Duzer: I haven't.

[9:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. So did you?

[9:31] Michael Van Duzer: I finally did. Yes. In 2015, I was able to see a production at Lyric Stage in Irving, Texas. I had been to the theater several times when I worked for Equity. The first show I saw there was actually Too Many Girls, the Rodgers and Hart show.

[9:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh. Yes, the Desi Arnaz.

[9:54] Michael Van Duzer: Right.

[9:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: If anybody has watched Being the Ricardos, they talk about Too Many Girls.

[9:58] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, absolutely. They met while making the movie. But it was just as bad as Harold Prince always said, as far as the script goes. But it's extraordinary because that company uses a full orchestra with the original orchestrations. So to hear that in the theater was so exciting. And I finally got to see Lady in the Dark.

[10:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How cute. Love that. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the creation of the show. And in doing so, we need to discuss its creators.

[10:31] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, let's start with Kurt Weill, because once again, like I said, it's been way too long for us to not have mentioned him.

[10:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Kurt Weill was born March 2, 1900 in Germany. He was a voracious student of influential teachers there and really showed a lot of promise. But after World War I, his family, like, I mean, pretty much most of Germany, suffered greatly, you know, talk about Great Depression. And I think that these years, when he saw the social struggle of the everyday family, they were probably the most informative on who he'd become as an artist, don't you think?

[11:09] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say so. I mean, the interesting thing is that, you know, he was studying as a classical composer. So working on early sonatas and symphonic works and even some short operas. But he was obviously a man who was open to experiment and taking risks.

[11:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, you're exactly right. I think what's really incredible about him technically is the fact that he's such a gifted classical composer, but his theatricality is what really sets him apart. It's what makes him unique. And this willingness to risk, you know, one of his big things was instead of just writing music to reflect a feeling or a character, he was really interested in irony and choosing styles, musical styles that would comment on the emotion rather than just expressing it. And I think that made him the perfect collaborator for Brecht, Bertolt Brecht, who was also German and who we, by the way, we also talked a lot about him in our Chicago episode, if you want to go back and listen to our discussion there. But briefly, Michael, how would you summarize their theatrical philosophy? Because obviously it's something that they saw eye to eye on, at least when creating something like the Three-Penny Opera.

[12:27] Michael Van Duzer: Right, right. I mean, you've already sort of talked about it in the sense that they're commenting on what is happening in the action. The whole style of Brechtian theater means that the audience is supposed to be aware the entire time that they are in.

[12:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A theater watching actors perform for them, right? We're not pretending like the facade is down. We all know what's going on here. Yeah. Today, because we're so used to this, to have sets that only hint at what it is, and we accept that as the reality of the space. That's so ingrained for us today that we, you know, modern audiences can't imagine what it was like to see these kind of bare stages that they experimented on to begin with.

[13:26] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely. And what better inciting incident for that to occur than a freaking world war? You know what I mean? To like wake you up to why are we pretending that everything is real? Nothing is real, right? Let's just stop pretending and call it how it is. And in calling it how it was, they called out a lot of corruption with the Three-Penny Opera. And I promise we'll do an episode on that show because it just revolutionized theater. But because of it, Kurt Weill ended up fleeing Germany in the 30s when the Nazi regime started literally interrupting performances of his works because he was, you know, speaking the truth and criticizing where he saw it. He and Brecht ended up splitting up, if you will.

They had a breakup because old Berthold ended up going like full communist. And Kurt Weill was like, that's maybe a little too far to the left than I'm comfortable going. So they break up. He's in America because the Three-Penny Opera has unfortunately flopped on Broadway. And so he starts meeting with new collaborators, one of whom was Moss Hart. And we've talked about this guy both in our Camelot and Merrily We Roll Along episodes. He's so influential in American theater, not only because he wrote incredible Kaufman and Hart comedies like They Can't Take It With You, but he too was an innovator. It was his idea to do Lady in the Dark partially because he had started psychotherapy himself a few years earlier.

He had been close to suicide and worked his way through it. And this made him realize, I have a quote here, why not show someone in the process of being psychoanalyzed and dramatize the dreams? What could be more natural than the dreams being conveyed by music and lyrics so that the plane of reality and that of the dreams would be distinct?

[15:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It shows a lot of ingenuity, especially for the time. I mean, I have to consistently remind myself that this is the late 30s when they're starting to work on it.

[15:25] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, those ideas were just gaining a lot of traction, certainly within that New York audience that would have been going to see these shows, but also with the public beginning to see things in films that would be telling them sometimes good and sometimes scary stories about people probing your mind.

[15:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But that's very true. And really before the art form of musical theater had become what we know it to be now. You know, we always we love to say that the beginning of musical theater was 1943 with Oklahoma, but there were huge advancements before then. Showboat was 1927. And then the second longest running book musical between those two shows was Lady in the Dark.

[16:17] Michael Van Duzer: I honestly didn't know that. I didn't realize what a success it was when it came out. And for it to be that experimental, for it to not even have really a way to describe itself is pretty extraordinary. If you look back at all the press releases about this show, the way that they slowly divulge to the theater going crowd that it's a musical is really interesting. At first, they're announcing a new play by Mosshart, which, by the way, was originally called I Am Listening, which I think is hilarious. And then the next one says, OK, it's a play with incidental music by Kurt Weill. And then it becomes a play with songs. Right. And now we look at it as a piece of musical theater. They just didn't know how to classify this thing.

It was so kind of out of the ordinary. They finally decided on a musical play. A musical play is what they finally decided to call it. But yes, you're right. It was all of that. And he had the idea of a song that haunted the character from the very beginning. So it was a song to begin with. And Weill, of course, ran with the idea and, you know, kept developing and developing. And eventually Mosshart saw the possibilities of creating what turned out to be three mini operas that are the dreams.

[17:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, when it finally gets ready to open on Broadway, not only is it long, but the show is enormous. It had 60 members in its equity cast, 35 stagehands, 20 musicians. This is just an enormous musical that's essentially all about one woman. Once again, another kind of unusual thing. Right before they open, there is an influenza outbreak and the whole show has to shut down for a week. Yep, that's right. It happened even then. Shows had to close because of a flu-like outbreak amongst the cast. But specifically, Gertrude Lawrence got ill and she didn't have an understudy. So the opening was pushed back. The producers had to tell ticket holders to get to their seats on time because the show, despite having music, has no overture.

It begins as a play. So they didn't want people showing up late and then not understanding what was going on. They also had to tell critics to stay to the end because usually critics leave early in order to get their reviews to the paper. But there's a huge twist at the end. So if they were afraid that if critics left when they usually did, they wouldn't actually understand what the play was about. Kind of almost Hitchcockian in a way, like don't get to psycho late or else you won't see Janet Leigh getting murdered in the shower.

[19:12] Michael Van Duzer: Lady in the Dark was really interesting for theater goers. It is also built around spectacle. This show had four turntables.

[19:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Take that, Les Mis.

[19:30] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah. But it was an enormously complex show. The whole idea of having the four turntables was really about getting in and out of the dreams as quickly as possible. That also meant a lot of doubles for Gertrude Lawrence. Each dream sequence starts as a beautiful fantasy and ends as a nightmare. So there's a devastated Liza at the end of each of these dreams. Often that was a double that had sort of come on the confusion that happens at the end of these dreams. So the audience would truly gasp when we came back into the analyst's office, and there was Gertrude Lawrence in her other outfit.

[20:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's like, wait a second, we just saw her.

[20:23] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, exactly. And another convention at the time, you talk about how this is really just focused on one person. We've got no secondary comic lovers.

[20:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, there's no Ado Annie.

[20:37] Michael Van Duzer: No, it is completely focused on Liza and seen through her eyes, basically. I just wish that we had more documented from it. Because it was such a spectacle, it feels like something you'd want to go to the New York City Public Library and watch, but that just isn't possible. And also because Gertrude Lawrence was in so few films, you don't feel like we get to take her in and enjoy her in the way that so many people were able to in that time. That being said, there are cultural landmarks in here that are not only worth exploring, they're worth talking about. And there is some gorgeous music with incredible lyrics by one Ira Gershwin. Anyone ever heard of that name? I mean, we won't go into the deep dive on the Gershwins because we still need to cover Girl Crazy or something by them.

But this was Ira Gershwin's first musical without his brother. George Gershwin had passed away, and I believe Mosshart contacted Ira and said, hey, we're doing this crazy play with music, Kurt Weill's composing, I'm writing you in. And he was like, yeah, and it's really great stuff. So intelligent on his end. So we've got three masterminds working at the peak of their talents. And I'm really excited to go through the show with you. Now, before we do that, I want everybody to listen to a little conversation I had with someone who lovingly calls themselves Dr. Drama. Hi, Alisa Hurwitz. How are you?

[22:17] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I'm doing well. How are you?

[22:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm great. So for people who don't know, please tell us why you are called Dr. Drama.

[22:32] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Because I'm so dramatic. That's the only reason. So in my day job, I'm a clinical psychologist. And in my personal life, I'm passionate about musical theater. And it's going on about five years ago, I put that professional knowledge together with that personal passion and created Dr. Drama and the name just kind of supposed to be a cute reference to both pieces of that puzzle. The idea was to talk about mental health in a way that's accessible to kind of facilitate just normalizing conversations around mental health. And that's how it was born. I thought I had something to offer. And that's really what this is. Dr. Drama is really just mostly an offering, a sharing. It's taken me to directions I didn't think it would go. And that's been wonderful and really meaningful to connect with people.

[23:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I completely connect with you on this level, because it's one of the reasons why I started the podcast is that I felt that the musical theater art form was an amazing launching point for us to understand culture, society, history and ourselves. And I think that that's really what you're doing is like the context of these stories brings us so much insight to what it means to be human and everything, all the joys and crap that comes with it. So I appreciate that. I feel like I'm meeting a kindred spirit.

[24:05] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Oh, 100%. I mean, even this show that we're going to talk about is one of the ones that really deals with psychology as a field head on. And we're getting more of those now. But every show really is about psychology, because I mean, the whole conceit of expressing yourself, your inner life through words, through song, through melody, through dance, is itself about psychology. It doesn't matter if the show has nothing to do with it on the surface or not.

[25:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's funny, because Lady in the Dark is 1941. And yet it also, it's one of the, like you said, it's one of the few musicals that deals with mental health and specifically the medical field, the mental health field, in a way that like maybe Next to Normal does for the audiences in the 2000s. So if you can, can you provide us with a little bit of context of how, they always called it psychoanalysis early on. Can you give us some context about what the culture was around that and what medical professionals, maybe like yourself, were facing in that culture?

[25:14] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah. It's really valuable to understand what psychoanalysis is in the context of the culture and the time. So it was born, or if people know like the father of psychology, Sigmund Freud, and it was born, he was of a time in Austria when there were, he was surrounded by this dehumanization of his people, being Jewish people, and with the rise of Nazism.

[25:36] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: But at that time it was medical doctors. It was psychiatrists who provided it and it was a treatment protocol that included three to five sessions a week sitting on, laying on the couch, literally laying on the couch.

[26:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Yeah. Wow, that's a big commitment then. So at the beginning of the musical, when Liza comes in and, you know, expects everything to be done in one session, I mean, I'm like relatable content, but also they are talking about a process that is much more involved than even once or twice a week.

[27:10] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, much more involved, much more of a long-term time commitment. It was not what we now call evidence-based treatment where, you know, we have studied and researched what works, what parts, what components of treatment are effective and what have nothing to do with a positive treatment outcome. And, you know, and also measuring change, measuring improvement, whether that be objective or subjective, having a mix of both is really valuable. This was not that. It also, I think, is worth noting that it was also in the context of a time when people weren't necessarily thinking a lot about their inner lives. I think a show that's on my mind right now because I'm rewatching is Mad Men, that's so beautifully dramatized in a character like Betty Draper, where her inner life is expressing itself in a kind of actually in a classic way that we would see somebody in psychoanalysis. She had numbness in her hands, which is physiologically impossible.

[28:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I remember that. Yeah.

[28:17] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: So it's like the psychosomatic expression of, you know, the somatic expression of what's going on psychologically. Okay, sorry. So I was on my own train of thought. That's not physiologically possible like that. That is a sign of your brain getting in the way.

[28:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, something's going on.

[28:29] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: There's some that's not physiologically possible, because of the way that our nerves are, to have numbness only in your hands. And so sometimes people will come to us, it's much rarer now for people to come with psychosomatic problems at that level, because we do have a lot more conversation around our inner lives. And so people on a day-to-day basis have a better understanding. In 1941, we did it into the genesis of psychoanalysis had a lot to do with these kind of psychosomatic problems. Most of Freud's patients were women. And he often would sexualize their problems, whether or not that was warranted. So that's a factor as well, kind of in the context of where we come to with Liza Elliot, who is seeing a psychoanalyst, which is also I should say, very New York. It's very, very New York.

[29:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This show is very New York.

[29:23] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: This show is very New York. And psych, there are still psychoanalysts, like absolutely, there are psychoanalysts in New York in the city. I think there are still a good chunk in San Francisco and outside of that. Like I, I and then no, no, I work in New Hampshire. There are no psychoanalysts here. There are psychologists.

[29:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So she interesting.

[29:46] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah. And now she, you know, here she is someone who has a problem that she can't understand why. And so that is a reason why somebody in 1941 would go see a psychoanalyst.

[29:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's really interesting. So I have a little audio clip I want to play for everybody. This is from a radio play version of Lady in the Dark that Gertrude Lawrence recorded. So it's very, I mean, it's very radio. I'm really excited for everybody to hear it. But it's when we first meet Liza and she enters into her psychoanalyst's office. Here we go.

[30:15] Gertrude Lawrence: Well, a room full of sunlight and flowers. Psychoanalysis with charm. I hope you approve. Please sit down. Dr. Brooks, may I tell you something? I resent this visit, this necessity to ask for your help. There's nothing strange in my life. I'm doing the kind of work I like and I'm quite successful at it. A splendid man is in love with me and I return his feelings. But something has gone wrong with me lately. I can't tell you what or why.

[30:44] Dr. Brooks: Not unusual, Miss Elliot. Let's say that if you did know, you wouldn't be here.

[30:48] Gertrude Lawrence: Dr. Brooks, I've come here in desperation. I fought this thing. I've tried to pull myself out, but I can't. I've clung desperately to my work to try to steady myself, but now that's beginning to go too.

[31:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, first of all, the accent, the drama.

[31:03] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: It's amazing.

[31:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's amazing. But also like, I am speaking out of turn. So please feel free to correct me. Maybe not that different from people you see.

[31:14] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Minus the accent, yes.

[31:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Dr. Hurwitz, I don't know what's going on with me.

[31:24] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah, yes. With less flowery language, like people come and say something's wrong and they don't understand it. Often, sometimes we'll say, I didn't want to have to need this help, but I don't know what else to do.

[31:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. And for me, I connect to the idea of all of my old tricks aren't working. I'm going, you know, work used to solve all my problems. Work is no longer solving my problems. Whatever it is, we've like created these coping mechanisms that sometimes just aren't working anymore.

[31:58] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah. And that is often, you know, in different words, in different language, exactly what people are saying when they come in.

[32:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, I know that we've been through, we currently are in a pandemic and that's been really hard and we've lost a lot of people because of COVID-19. But I've also read so often that we are also in the midst of a mental health crisis because of it that has really nothing to do with respiratory problems. You know, it is in and of itself its own illness. And I want to touch on that a little bit, because I know that Liza is having a hard time coming to ask for help. And what would you say to people who may find themselves in a similar position?

[32:46] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Therapy is for humans. I will say that until my last breath, therapy is for humans needing, not even needing, but wanting support through trying to get through life. And being a human is not a weakness. Life just gets increasingly complicated. And so as we try to understand ourselves in a more and more complicated world, it is so valuable to have somebody as a navigator. And then that's how I see my role and my colleagues' roles as therapists, is that we're navigators. We're not the driver. We're not the fixer. We're not the solver. We just we know the roads. And so we can, you got your foot on the gas pedal on the brake, let us guide you through these woods.

[33:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's beautiful. And I want to say this, actually, follow up to what I just said also, that it's not that we have it figured out.

[33:43] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Right.

[33:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So I could be driving down those same roads and still hit some potholes and, you know, have some car problems. I'm human, too. What I have to offer, what we have to offer is our experience and training and education and expertise. I just want to say that caveat. It's not because we haven't like figured out.

[34:02] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Well, let's talk a little bit more about her because she's such a fascinating character. I know that's why Gertrude Lawrence was so excited to play her. It's also a path full of potholes, as you mentioned earlier, because it's 1941 and we've got some men who have decided to write about women in leadership and in a beauty industry with relationships. So it's just it's a minefield to kind of go through with our 2022 perspective. But still, I feel a lot of compassion for her and I love her. I love this character. So what's your take on her?

[34:40] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah. Oh, gosh. You know, where my mind's going with what you're saying is a little bit of a tangent. So if you'll indulge, indulge me for a second. I found it really interesting that so Mosshart, the book writer, as you were saying, was really inspired to write this story by his experience in psychoanalysis with I don't know. I don't remember the psychoanalyst name, so forgive me. But what was interesting about him, about his psychoanalysts, he was of his time also. So had these notable new ideas, one of which was that postpartum depression was caused by ambivalence about becoming a mother, which is so horribly misogynistic.

[35:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[35:28] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Which you can just see such a direct line to, I think, to what Mosshart wrote for this show about decision making and ambivalence and women's free will.

[35:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that cracks open a place that I did not know about with this.

[35:47] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yeah. Interesting.

[35:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Valuable context for her decisions as a character in the show.

[35:56] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Wow. Now, talk to me a little bit about like as a theater fan, how you process some of these things that we've been talking about with the fact that this show was groundbreaking in its time, also has an incredibly perfect score by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. What do we do with this? Do we just sit around and wait for somebody to fix the script? Because also, you know, Mosshart, what a genius in his own right. Or do we just let it lie and have conversations like this? What do you think?

[36:31] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Gosh, it's so complex. I mean, there's no one answer.

[36:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, of course not. Right.

[36:36] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: It is such a great piece. And it's very much like a hidden gem. Like people don't know about this show. And honestly, I don't know that I would have known about it. As I said to you, I have not seen a production of it, but I think most of us have not. And gosh, I would love to see a production of this.

[36:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, cool. Really?

[36:55] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I would I would love I was not expecting you to say that. That's awesome. I think there's so many ways to take material we would view as problematic today and present it now. I think it's worth producing. It's such a great piece. And if we at the very least, if we value that this is of its time, then we can sympathize with the character being stuck that those were the choices that she saw.

[37:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's it. And because, you know, frankly, there are so many people, I would say more so women who feel that they are limited to the choice of who to marry, not whether or not to marry. That's not that hasn't completely gone.

[37:40] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Not at all.

[37:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I see so many people who got married and had kids by default and they're not happy and because it wasn't it wasn't right for them and they didn't know.

[37:50] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: There you go.

[37:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I love shows where we look back and think, wow, we've come a long way, but also maybe not so much.

[37:58] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Right.

[38:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Dr. Hurwitz, I'm so grateful you came on.

[38:03] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I'm so grateful you asked me. This was such a wonderful opportunity to talk about a show that I think a lot of people, a lot of people I would just encourage to listen to that music because your heart will not be sorry. It was daring. And I think theater that's daring is a wonderful thing. I think theater that's just simply entertaining is a wonderful thing.

[38:24] Michael Van Duzer: I think just live theatre is wonderful because it taps into our logical brain, you know, thinking about the plot and the words and the, you know, and what we're seeing and what's happening on the stage, but the feeling, you know, and the feeling from the melody, the feeling from the colours, the lighting, the feeling from the movement that we're seeing. And it's so, yeah, and just, you know, to get out of our thinking brains and just to get into our feelings is, uh, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful experience and to do that in community with other people is, um,

[38:56] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I was going to say, and then turn it into a social experience that makes it all the more special.

[39:01] Michael Van Duzer: Amen.

[39:02] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: That's amazing. How do we follow you and your thoughts and everything you're up to?

[39:04] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, I'm on my website, which is drdrama.com. So everything is D-R-D-R-A-M-A, um, on Instagram and Twitter, uh, at the Dr. Drama.

[39:16] Michael Van Duzer: Awesome. Thank you again. And I hope to meet you. Maybe we'll go see a show together.

[39:21] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I would love that.

[39:22] Michael Van Duzer: All right, Michael, we're going to go through the show now, even though I haven't seen it. I was, however, able to read the entire script and listen along with my recording of the show that Jay Records did back in the 90s with Maria Friedman, which is one of, I think, the few recordings of the entire score. Maria Friedman is so over the top, and I'm kind of obsessed with it. But that has been what I studied going into this. So starting out with no overture, we start this show like a play. And the play begins in the office of a therapist by the name of Dr. Brooks. Dr. Brooks is expecting a patient. Liza Elliot comes in. Now, at this point in time, if people were coming to see Gertrude Lawrence, Gertrude Lawrence gets a star entrance, right, where everybody applauds. And when Liza Elliot comes in, what do we see? How would you describe who we see? It isn't a glamorous star.

[40:22] Michael Van Duzer: No, no, and that's certainly what people would have been expecting. So suddenly we see this professional woman, no makeup, walking on stage, no jewelry, no big picture hat, none of the things that we would expect for a star entrance. A very plain, serious suit.

[40:43] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, and it's right at the top of the show, which also, you know, you wanted to warm up the audience a little bit. Sure, there's no, here comes Dolly.

[40:50] Michael Van Duzer: Not at all. So it would have been a huge surprise and would have telegraphed to everybody, this is something different.

[41:05] Michael Van Duzer: 100%. She's coming because it's her last resort. She's heard all the stories about these quacks who make you sit and talk about your childhoods, and then you realize that's why you don't like anchovies, right? She's not entirely bought in on this whole concept. But the fact of the matter is, is that she is non-functioning. She is the editor of this wildly popular Vogue-like magazine called Allure. Allure?

[41:33] Michael Van Duzer: Allure, yeah. And has been doing it for 10 years. She started the magazine. And so she's always just been work, work, work, work. And now she can't really do it anymore. She's prone to, you know, fits of anxiety. She sleeps randomly for long periods of time and can't get her life together. And she doesn't know what's going on. So she's come to this doctor with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he can provide some insight.

[42:02] Michael Van Duzer: Right, exactly. What Hart does, you know, pretty brilliantly is boil it down to, she cannot make a decision between these two covers for the upcoming magazine, the Easter cover and the circus cover.

[42:18] Michael Van Duzer: Right. And interesting that one, the Easter cover is very traditional, what you would expect at that time for an Easter cover. And then you've got something wild and crazy on the other side, the circus, almost uncontrollable, right?

[42:32] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly. Yeah. And it, it stands in, you know, as metaphors for all of this stuff that's raging beneath her.

[42:42] Michael Van Duzer: That's great. So the doctor invites her to lay down, kind of clear her mind and just talk about whatever comes to mind. And the thing that comes to mind is this melody. Can you hum it? And not get in trouble by the Kerr Viola Foundation.

[43:02] Michael Van Duzer: Gorgeous.

[43:03] Michael Van Duzer: There's that Robbie award winning actor at work. So this little motif is the trigger for all of her dreams. As she focuses on this little melody, she remembers a dream that she had recently and were taken into that dream. The stage completely transforms. And this first section is called...

[43:29] Michael Van Duzer: The Glamour Dream.

[43:30] Michael Van Duzer: Now it's all very much heightened, I would say, right?

[43:34] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely. Well, we've got the freedom of, you know, the surreal world.

[43:39] Michael Van Duzer: Surreal. Thank you. That's the word. 100%. They're taking full advantage of that. We have this chorus of boys who is now giving like the lead up to a star entrance. Truly, they're singing about this woman who's the most glamorous woman in the world. She is Cleopatra. She is everybody who has ever been adored and loved. And this leads to Liza's entrance into the dream. And now she is a full glammed out, gorgeous lady with red hair, which she didn't have in real life. And that's what this whole sequence is about, is her living this super glamorous life. She sings a song called One...

[44:25] Michael Van Duzer: One Life to Live.

[44:26] Michael Van Duzer: Yes. Great song. You know, she's rousing the troops, telling them, you know, it's just completely different from the Liza that we met in the play. And then what happens? How does this kind of slowly disintegrate?

[44:38] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, of course, the music has so much to do with what's going on in all of these sequences. Vile came up with music that would give us the feel of each of these dream sequences.

[44:56] Michael Van Duzer: You're right. And if I remember correctly, one of the things that keeps happening in these dreams is that we hear a song and it's really fun and energetic. And then it's sung again a little bit later in the dream, but with a really threatening rhythm underneath it. It's exactly the same song, but now it sounds completely different.

[45:16] Michael Van Duzer: Right, right. That's exactly what happens in this. We have at the beginning that praise of the most beautiful, stunning, everything woman in the world, a girl of the moment. But we end with that as well. What happens is each of the men in her life, you know, her real life plays different roles.

[45:41] Michael Van Duzer: Very Wizard of Oz.

[45:42] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah, typically metaphors of who they are in her real life in the dreams. So suddenly, there are soldiers here directly from the president. He wants to have Liza on the two cent stamp. And she is supposed to pose right then and there to be painted in front of this big audience of nightclubbers.

[46:08] Michael Van Duzer: That's right. So here comes the painter.

[46:10] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah. Now, you know, thematically, it's important that this is Charlie Johnson, who also works with Liza at Allure. He arrives as the soldier who's going to paint her. But what happens is that he paints the true Liza, the real life Liza. So what happens is she takes a look at the portrait. The portrait's revealed. She screams. Everybody's like, oh, it looks like Liza.

[46:42] Michael Van Duzer: Like, who is this?

[46:43] Michael Van Duzer: Yeah. But why is Liza so un-Liza-like, as some of Gershwin's fabulous lyrics go? It devolves into this craziness with Liza running around. And that's where we do that little switch so that we can come back into the psychiatrist's office at the end of this craziness.

[47:04] Michael Van Duzer: I love them chanting, who's the real Liza? Who's the real Liza? Right? Once we're back in the doctor's office, Dr. Brooks basically says, all right, well, that's all the time we have today. But I just want to leave you with one question. And that is, why have you dedicated yourself to making women beautiful when you are not interested in conforming to any of those ideas or norms? And it's almost as though no one has asked her this and she's never thought of it.

[47:31] Michael Van Duzer: Right. Right. But it's obviously very much taken from this dream in that there is this beautiful version of her, this very stereotypically beautiful version of her. And then there is how she presents herself to society and there is a disconnect. And the doctor is proposing the question, what's up with that? Why do you have that disconnect? And so she goes out of the office, excited to come back, honestly, because she's found something new. It doesn't mean she has any answers and she's still completely filled and racked with anxiety. But there's something new.

[48:12] Michael Van Duzer: So leaving the office, she now goes to her office and we meet all of her employees there at the magazine. There's Maggie, who's like the second in charge, right? She has various secretaries. What is happening at the office on this particular day is the most handsome Hollywood actor by the name of Randy Curtis is having his photo taken for the magazine. And the reason we know that is because a fabulous character by the name of Russell Paxton walks in and is like, ladies, I have just been taking the picture of the hottest guy in the world. I am completely vapored and you all are going to feel exactly the same. Which leads me to another incredible thing about the show. We got a gay character in this musical. He's not out. He's not a proud homosexual, but he is 100 percent a gay character.

[49:03] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely. Yeah, that is true. I don't know whether you want to get into the Moss Hart sort of.

[49:19] Michael Van Duzer: Oh, that he's possibly a bi at the very least. Uh, yes, you can. You can certainly see a gay subtext to this whole story. I don't know if you want to go into that or not. Wow. OK, so hold on, Michael. Are you telling me that the lady in the dark might be Moss Hart? Because that's the coolest thing I've ever learned today.

[49:41] Michael Van Duzer: Well, definitely there were always those rumors about Moss Hart. And you can look at the subtext of this and and read into it a lot of gay things. While Russell Paxton's character is not the first gay person in a Broadway show, he is certainly comfortable in his own skin. And he's also not gay evil. You know, no, his flamboyance isn't being used to destroy anybody. He's actually one of the audience's favorite people in the show.

[50:13] Michael Van Duzer: Right. And of course, in the original production, he was played by Danny Kaye in a star making performance. So not only did Lady in the Dark give us everything that we've talked about so far, it gave us freaking Danny Kaye.

[50:31] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely. Well, that's really cool. So we meet these people. But now we also meet these three love interests for Liza. One is the guy who helped her start the magazine. He basically funded the entire thing. Who's married. His name's Nesbitt. Right. His last name's Nesbitt. Kendall Nesbitt.

[50:52] Michael Van Duzer: Kendall Nesbitt. Then we have Charlie Johnson, who is in charge of advertising. He is just the poster boy for toxic masculinity and disgusts me beyond all measure. He's constantly pinching the model's behinds and saying horrible things to Liza. She has infamous.

[51:43] Michael Van Duzer: So, "Lady in the Dark" is a fascinating piece of musical theatre history. It was groundbreaking for its time, particularly in how it tackled themes of mental health and the complexities of the human psyche.

[52:13] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Absolutely, Michael. The show premiered in 1941, and it was quite ahead of its time in addressing issues that were often stigmatized. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is a fashion magazine editor who undergoes psychoanalysis, which was a relatively new concept in popular culture at that time.

[52:33] Michael Van Duzer: Right, and the way the musical integrates Liza's dreams into the narrative is so innovative. It allows the audience to experience her inner turmoil and the societal pressures she faces.

[52:53] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, and it’s interesting to compare that to today’s understanding of mental health. In 1941, discussing such topics openly was quite taboo, but now we see a shift towards more acceptance and understanding.

[53:13] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly! And the music by Kurt Weill is just stunning. It complements the story so well, enhancing the emotional depth of Liza's journey.

[53:33] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: The score is a blend of different styles, which reflects Liza's multifaceted character. Each song serves a purpose in revealing her struggles and desires.

[53:53] Michael Van Duzer: And let’s not forget the role of the director, which was played by the legendary Moss Hart. His vision helped bring this complex narrative to life on stage.

[54:13] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Hart's direction was crucial in balancing the serious themes with the entertainment value that audiences expect from a musical. It’s a delicate dance.

[54:33] Michael Van Duzer: It really is. And the fact that it was one of the first musicals to incorporate a psychological plotline makes it a significant piece in theatre history.

[54:53] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Definitely. It paved the way for future musicals to explore deeper emotional and psychological themes, which we see more frequently today.

[55:13] Michael Van Duzer: And I think that’s why it’s so important to revisit "Lady in the Dark" now. It reminds us of how far we’ve come, but also how much further we still need to go in terms of mental health awareness.

[55:33] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Well said, Michael. It’s a timeless piece that resonates with audiences even today, especially as we continue to navigate our own mental health challenges.

[55:53] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly! And I hope that more people get the chance to experience it, whether through recordings or staged productions. It deserves to be celebrated.

[56:13] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I agree. And for those who may not be familiar with the show, I encourage them to explore its themes and music. It’s a rich experience.

[56:33] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely! And if anyone has questions or wants to dive deeper into specific aspects of the show, I’m always here to chat about it.

[56:53] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Same here! Mental health is such an important topic, and discussing it through the lens of musical theatre can be incredibly enlightening.

[57:13] Michael Van Duzer: It really can. And I think that’s the beauty of musicals like "Lady in the Dark" — they open up conversations that are often difficult to have.

[57:33] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, and they do so in a way that is engaging and thought-provoking. It’s a unique blend of art and psychology.

[57:53] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly! And I hope our listeners feel inspired to explore this musical further and reflect on its relevance in today’s world.

[58:13] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I hope so too! It’s a conversation worth having, and I’m glad we could share our insights today.

[58:33] Michael Van Duzer: Thank you for joining me, Dr. Hurwitz. It’s always a pleasure to discuss these important topics with you.

[58:53] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Thank you, Michael! I enjoyed our conversation and look forward to more discussions in the future.

[59:13] Michael Van Duzer: Likewise! And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this deep dive into "Lady in the Dark."

[59:33] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Be sure to check out the show and let us know your thoughts!

[59:53] Michael Van Duzer: Until next time, keep celebrating the power of musical theatre!

[1:00:13] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Goodbye, everyone!

[1:00:33] Michael Van Duzer: Bye!

[1:04:31] Michael Van Duzer: So, "Lady in the Dark" is a musical that was written by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, and it premiered in 1941. It's a fascinating piece because it was one of the first musicals to really delve into the complexities of the human psyche, particularly through the lens of mental health.

[1:05:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Absolutely. The show centers around Liza Elliott, a fashion magazine editor who is struggling with her mental health. The way the musical portrays her journey through therapy and her dreams is groundbreaking for its time.

[1:05:31] Michael Van Duzer: Right, and it’s interesting to see how the themes of mental health were approached back then compared to today. In 1941, mental health was still quite stigmatized, and this show brought it into the mainstream in a way that was both entertaining and thought-provoking.

[1:06:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Exactly. The show uses dream sequences to explore Liza's subconscious, which was a novel concept in musical theatre. It allowed audiences to engage with her struggles in a more intimate way.

[1:06:31] Michael Van Duzer: And the music is just stunning. Weill's score is incredibly sophisticated, blending elements of jazz and classical music, which was quite innovative for a Broadway show at that time.

[1:07:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, and the songs reflect Liza's emotional journey. For example, "My Ship" is a poignant ballad that expresses her longing and desire for escape, which resonates deeply with her character's struggles.

[1:07:31] Michael Van Duzer: The entire score is filled with such rich emotional depth. It’s a shame that the show isn’t performed more often today, considering its relevance and the beautiful music.

[1:08:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I agree. It’s a hidden gem in the musical theatre canon. The themes of self-discovery and the quest for happiness are timeless and still resonate with audiences today.

[1:08:31] Michael Van Duzer: Plus, the character of Liza is so complex. She’s not just a typical leading lady; she has flaws and vulnerabilities that make her relatable.

[1:09:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Absolutely. Liza's journey is one of self-acceptance, and it’s portrayed with such nuance. It’s refreshing to see a female character who is allowed to be flawed and still be the protagonist.

[1:09:31] Michael Van Duzer: And the supporting characters add so much to the story as well. They each represent different aspects of Liza's life and her struggles, making the narrative even richer.

[1:10:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, and the way the musical blends fantasy and reality through Liza's dreams allows for a unique storytelling approach. It’s almost like a psychological exploration set to music.

[1:10:31] Michael Van Duzer: Exactly! It’s a musical that challenges the audience to think and feel deeply, which is what makes it so special.

[1:11:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: And it’s fascinating to consider how the conversation around mental health has evolved since 1941. Today, we have more awareness and resources, but the stigma still exists in many ways.

[1:11:31] Michael Van Duzer: Right, and revisiting "Lady in the Dark" can spark important discussions about mental health and the importance of seeking help, which is still relevant today.

[1:12:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Definitely. It’s a reminder that these themes are not just historical; they are part of our ongoing narrative as a society.

[1:12:31] Michael Van Duzer: And I think that’s why it’s so important to keep these conversations alive through art, whether it’s through musicals like this or other forms of storytelling.

[1:13:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Absolutely. Art has the power to reflect our realities and challenge us to think differently about the world around us.

[1:13:31] Michael Van Duzer: And "Lady in the Dark" does just that. It’s a beautiful blend of music, story, and emotional depth that deserves to be celebrated.

[1:14:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: I couldn’t agree more. It’s a show that not only entertains but also educates and inspires.

[1:14:31] Michael Van Duzer: So, for anyone who hasn’t seen it or heard the score, I highly recommend diving into it. It’s a journey worth taking.

[1:15:01] Dr. Alisa Hurwitz: Yes, and let’s continue to advocate for more productions of this groundbreaking musical. It’s time for "Lady in the Dark" to shine again.

[1:15:31] Michael Van Duzer: Absolutely! Thank you for this enlightening discussion, Alisa. It’s always a pleasure to explore these important topics with you.