Victoria Clark: It’s thrilling to return to Love Life. The last day we were all together was 12 March 2020, when all live performances shut down due to the onslaught of COVID-19. We did our first and only run-through that afternoon. In an instant, all the work we had done for the previous three years evaporated before we even made it to the Sitzprobe, technical rehearsals, or performances.
Rob Berman: Now we, and America, are five years older. Are you thinking about this project differently?
VC: I still see Love Life as two interlocking descending spirals. One spiral tells the story of the Cooper family and a marriage that is strained and eventually broken by the stresses of modern life. The other is the story of the American Dream and how it threatens to undermine us, told through a series of vaudeville acts that serve as socio-political commentary.
As I approach the piece now, I feel more drawn than ever to the Coopers’ story. I don’t see them as just symbolic figures; they are flesh and blood people living in the present day. Weill and Lerner challenge us to see both life and love as full of nuance; living and loving both require work. How have you changed your thinking, Rob? What do you admire about the score?
RB: In writing a “vaudeville,” Weill drew on so many American idioms: a soft-shoe, a blues, a Tin Pan Alley number, a hoedown, a torch song, and so on. Yet none of it feels generic or pastiche. Things don’t go where you think they are going and there are musical surprises at every turn. My favorite pieces to dig into with a performer are monologues which constantly shift in feeling; in Love Life, the alternately heartbreaking and triumphant “This is the Life” is a real tour de force.
The score contains heartfelt sentiment, savvy showmanship, and biting satire. It’s easy to see how it influenced theater artists such as Kander and Ebb or Hal Prince. It’s smart, has a strong point of view, and makes the most of that quintessential American invention, “show-biz.” What speaks to you about the book?
VC: This piece is deeply insightful about marriage, family, our country, and the skill it takes to communicate. Love Life exposes in both serious and comic ways how Americans are lured by the shinier thing, and how our own greed and egos take us farther and farther away from the simple act of listening to one another and tending our relationships. This production gives us an opportunity to explore what it means to be an American, from the vantage of our own diverse backgrounds and stories. How big are our hearts and minds? Big enough to hold all our diversity — race, ideology, culture, class, history? As Americans, how do we weather change, as we are buffeted by social, economic, cultural, environmental, political, technological, and human influences? Like Sam and Susan, can we find a way to talk to each other?
RB: The original creative journey of the show took many twists and turns, with many rewrites between out-of-town tryouts and Broadway. What do you think they were struggling with? I think some of your ideas about the piece are picking up where they left off.
VC: Weill, Lerner, Elia Kazan (director), and Michael Kidd (choreographer) were so ambitious and brave in their construction and interpretation, always testing ideas and changes. They wound up cutting the most heartbreaking scenes and songs about the marriage; we are restoring them. I believe modern audiences can appreciate that complexity, and those moments are integral to the story.
