Every Broadway show has a souvenir stand for things like t-shirts and mugs. But in the new musical that opened last week, they’re selling boxes of tissues.
“I guess it’s one of the hottest little commodities on Broadway, from the articles I’ve read,” said writer Nicholas Sparks. “It’s a tissue box. It has the logo of the play!’
Sparks has published 24 romance novels, all bestsellers. They sold 130 million copies and were made into 11 movies. But the first to publish was his best-seller of all: 1996’s The Notebook. The 2004 film version put a young Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams on the map and became a romantic classic.
And now, it’s a Broadway musical.
Sparks was in the theater for the premiere. And yes, he was crying. “You’re getting a little weepy,” he said.
And he is not alone. One audience member admitted to crying “from the jump”.
Julieta Cervantes
Each version of “The Notebook” uses a framing device: as the end of his life approaches, husband Noah reads from a notebook to his wife Ali, who has Alzheimer’s disease. This is the notebook containing the story of their own decades-long love.
“It was a story inspired by my ex-wife’s grandparents,” Sparks said. “They met when they were young, separated for years, she meets someone else, she comes back, finds her first true love, and they live happily ever after.” And then, in their later years, age begins to take its toll.”
Playwright Becca Brunstetter wrote the screenplay and lyricist Ingrid Michelson wrote the music and lyrics. They didn’t mind calling their show a tearjerker. “If we’re the play that makes you feel things, then there are worse boxes,” Michelson said.
This is the first time either of them has worked on a Broadway show.
Michaelson said, “I thought, ‘I can do this.’ I can figure out how to get people who are going to come with their arms folded to open their arms, basically.
“And then let’s all laugh, you know?” said Brunstetter. “Kind of combining those two things all the time. Because laughter and tears are so right next to each other all the time.”
In the musical, three pairs of actors play the couple at three different ages. “We knew from the beginning that we wanted three Allies and three Noahs,” Michaelson said. “You can have an older version of a character watching their younger self. Especially since we deal with memory so much, memory loss and fragmented memory that these other versions of ourselves on the scene [was] really helpful.”
“The Notebook”
No romance novel by Nicholas Sparks has featured a black protagonist. But in the musical, Noah and Ali seem to switch races smoothly at different ages. “Race is not the story; you see the spirit of who they are,” said co-director Shelley Williams. “You see not only their essence, but also their experience. And for someone like me who grew up watching the theater through a window and never through a mirror, being able to see it on stage is powerful.”
Co-director Michael Greif said, “It grew out of, ‘How do we do this in the best possible way, a unique and I think very wonderful casting idea?’
Many of the creative team relate deeply to the dementia depicted in the show. Williams’ mother has Alzheimer’s. “When I read the story, you know, it really spoke to me.”
“I also have a grandfather who had Alzheimer’s,” Brunstetter said, “so I witnessed it firsthand. And it seems like almost everyone has a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle or a sibling.” And that affects the writing. “This is all from us,” she said.
Reviews of the musical have ranged from rave to reserved. But Sparks suspects that such a universal story will stand up to criticism. “It’s a love story,” he said. “It’s a story of young love. This is a story of love united. This is a story of eternal love. It is also a story about memory.”
And speaking of timeless subjects, remember that box of tissues? It turns out that the musical’s producers weren’t the first to recognize the marketing potential of Kleenex. Thirty years ago, when The Notebook first came out, handkerchiefs were handed out to critics and bookstore owners. “We gave them a tissue for their tears!” laughed Sparks. The ‘notebook’ and real emotion have always gone hand in hand.”
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Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
