“Now is the time to
seize the day. Answer the call and don’t delay. Wrongs will be righted if we’re
united. Let us seize the day.”
Newsies,
the Original Broadway Musical
Wow, he just kept going. The
young actor kept spinning and diving and sliding and jumping and tapping and
flipping. Then there was another and another. The stage became full of young
men leaping around and singing at the top of their lungs. The audience jumped
to their feet at the end.
I did too. I love theater
and I love this musical. Newsies! It was first a movie of my youth and then
adapted for Broadway.
I was intoxicated with
nostalgia that night at the Pantages Theater. I smiled at the memories flooding
through my head. I was in middle school again. The sing-a-longs with my friends. The heated debates on who
the cutest Newsie was. (I was the odd one out and picked David). The Sunday
afternoon replays on T.V.
And here I was, seeing it
live and on stage. The choreography alone was worth the price of a ticket.
I spent the next several
days humming the music, being grateful for a memory of my smiling middle school
self and thinking that is all there is to it.
That wasn’t all there was to
it.
Wikipedia struck again. I
got a little curious and asked myself the question, “ I wonder if Newsies is
based off of anything that actually happened?” A few clicks later I found out
that it is.
On July 21, 1899 the New
York City Newsboys went on strike because the cost of a bundle of 100
newspapers went from 50 cents to 60 cents. That was a huge blow to their
already meager profits. They decided to fight back. They organized. They held rallies of 5,000 plus. They
effectively shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. They even had a leader. Kid Blink
was his nickname; he was blind in one eye. They won. The strike was successful.
Wow.
When I was watching Newsies
from the audience I spent a fair amount of time wallowing in my guilt for
eating a cheeseburger then sitting down in the cushion seat while the dancers
on stage danced the equivalent of roughly 3 marathons.
I missed the bigger
headline.
Luckily, music sticks to
your soul and finds a record player somewhere in your heart. I continued to
hum.
Now what is staying with me
is the gumption and grit these kids had. They were survivors yes, but they also
saw injustice and they acted.
Can I say the same?
I have a disease that I
think many in my generation have. Heck, many people have. I live in an age of
cynicism and criticism. We are told, no, we are TRAINED to think critically.
Now don’t get me wrong, it is good to think critically. But when that is the
only thing we are trained to do we become a generation of bystanders.
The sterile criticism leads
to cynicism. And cynics become pacifists. Not the non-violent Gandhi kind. The
silent majority kind. The turns a blind eye to justice kind. That kind that
would rather sit in the bleachers than go out on the field. The kind that
doesn’t get their hands dirty. The kind that takes no risks. The kind gets the
future they are handed.
The kind I am guilty of.
I don’t want to be. I look
around at some of the injustices of this world. Human trafficking for goodness
sake. Climate Change. Education. Underfunded mental health programs.
Homelessness. Poverty. The increasing income gap. War.
It can be hopeless. Being a
critic seems like a good gig.
And yet I find myself
humming a song and feeling inspired. The echoes of the striking Newsies are
finding themselves in the crevices of my mind. I don’t want to be a comfortable
critic anymore.
What to do? I am not sure.
What to say? No idea. It is too overwhelming? Yes of course it is, but so what?
Start small.
Where to start? Maybe it is to
say I’m in. If orphan kids led by a half blind boy in 1899 can band together to
make a tangible difference, what’s my excuse? Really, what IS my excuse?
With a shaky imperfect heart
I am putting the paper down. I am throwing away my cheeseburger. I am getting
off my seat cushion and heading down onto the field.
Wanna come? I hear it is
more fun down there anyway. The view is certainly better.
“Once we’ve begun. If
we stand as one. Someday becomes somehow. And a prayer becomes a vow.” Newises, the musical
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