Grief, Protest, and Song: Why Olivia O Feels Like a Musical for This Moment

Go on. You’re on the ledge. Step off.

Do you feel how scary that moment is? Standing on the edge of something, and the sheer unknowing that is in front of you.  Letting go of the anchor. Jumping.

Something inside of you is hurting while the world outside is fracturing too. You don’t have anything to stand on while your heart is breaking.

You are no longer dancing on the edge of something or holding on the ledge, you are falling, maybe breaking. You don’t know because as you fall, everything intimate, familiar, safe is collapsing around you.

To me, that is the moment that we are in now. And as a storyteller and producer of Olivia O at Toronto Fringe this summer, I want our story to meet that moment.

How do musicals meet that moment?

Sometimes it’s in spectacle and ‘big’ epics, like Les Miz (French Revolution) or Miss Saigon (fall of Vietnam) that tell a political, mythical story set in the long-ago past and hint at how the story is echoing today.

Sometimes it’s in the deeply personal, family stories like Next to Normal or Dear Evan Hansen that show private grief and by doing so, they draw out our grief, so that we feel the hurt of what has fractured within us, what we’ve lost (and we change as a result, as anytime we truly feel our own grief, we change).

But can Olivia O do both? Can we bring a story that is a right now story? That is both deeply personal and a mythic/epic situated in a current political landscape? Can we be brave in a time such as this?

I love all kinds of storytelling, but right now it feels a bit safe to tell a story from another generation, hoping that the echoes of the past will be enough, or to just tell an intimate family story without also examining the system that created their reality.  

We see the turmoil and personal grief of Olivia and other characters in the show, but we also see her experience her loss in a world that is fracturing around her – her separation from her mother is a politically produced reality. It was not a random accident. It was planned and done to her.

Can we be intimate and mythic?

Olivia O is a personal, emotional show and a mythic, community show. As Olivia tries to deal with the confusion and pain of her loss, the community also is confused, afraid and trying to understand what they need to do as their own ‘ledge’ is pulled out from underneath them. They also are unmoored and dangling on the edge of a new reality.

This is what I’m looking forward to at the Toronto Fringe – sharing Olivia O and presenting a story that is both at once – the mythic scale, the big, community story and an intimate, family story – a show that meets the moment we’re in.

I’m looking forward to the seeing our talented cast and crew bring Olivia O to life, but also to have a chance to see other shows and see how the theatre community is responding to the challenge of telling stories as our world changes around us, as myths morph right before our eyes.

Earning our Protest Songs – The Promise of Grief Awakened

“Be safe. Be quiet. Don’t talk about it. Blend in. It’s not the right time.’ There is no safe!!  I can’t be ‘safe’!! Small, scared, little group of fears. All wrapped up around me.  I can’t be that anymore!” – Isabel, from Olivia O, The Musical

One of the themes of Olivia O is awakening. Olivia’s aunt Isabel is trying to understand what’s happened to Olivia, who she was expecting to meet at the US/Mexican border. As she gets involved with an immigrant rights group, she begins to awaken to not only what’s happening around her (especially in the context of being a Latina American) but also what’s happening in her heart and in the hearts of the community around her. She starts to understand what it means to lose someone, to be afraid, to not have easy answers or any known path ahead.

She knows that she is losing something – a sense of safety that she once had, a sense that she lived in a country that was just or compassionate, that she can just blend in and stay quiet and all will be well. Like us, the myths she believed in are falling apart around her.

But she knows that she can’t be quiet and safe anymore.

And she awakens to her own power, and the power of the people around her through shared grief. We see the first protest song in Olivia O (“Manos a La Obra”) led by Isabel in response to how the community shares and expresses their grief about their lost (taken) loved ones.  

Olivia too, leads a protest style song “Where Volcanoes Sleep” only after she has shared her grief in a powerful lament “Mama, I’m Sorry”. These full-throated, fist-in-air, we-are-not going-quietly protest songs follow an expression of grief and sorrow, giving them a powerful emotional undercurrent. We know they come from a place of deep hurt, (and thus deep love) and that drives the anger and determination we see in the scenes of protest and movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41j_VlTSF9M

We are living, right now, in a time that is full of deep pain and loss. It is violent and scary what is happening right now.  Like Isabel and Olivia, we are living in a politically produced reality that is fracturing around us.

Do we get a happy ending?

I think it is the most honest to say we don’t know what new reality or collective myths we will end up with as we live through these fractured times. I like stories that are honest and hopeful. That leave us with something joyful and good but also meet the reality of the moment and world they inhabit.

While I’m not going to spoil the ending (since I want you to come see it!), but let’s just say that Olivia O ends neither in despair nor in complete triumph. It ends with a promise – a promise that Olivia’s grief, like the grief of the community, has been seen and awakened. Through finding each other, and finding a place to belong, Olivia, Isabel, and the community are awakened to their own power.

Our story ends with hope and joy, but also, I hope, it leaves us understanding that the belonging they find with each other, in family, in their found community, is fragile, peace is fragile, the idea of social justice and equality is fragile. We are in a fragile moment, but we are in it together.

Follow our journey, come see the show in Toronto this summer. We’d love you to join us. We are telling a story of love, grief, hope and passion. And we are jumping off the ledge.