I. A WORM IN HORSERADISH
I cried like a little baby the first time I watched the taping of Sunday in the Park with George. I watched Mandy Patinkin map out a sky, finish a hat, and neglect the woman in front of him. I felt so seen I could vomit.
I’ve been squeamish about the Tick, Tick… Boom! film since I heard about it. Not squeamish in the sense that I didn’t think I’d like it, squeamish in the sense that I thought it would make me cry like a little baby. Squeamish in the sense that I thought it would make me see who I am, and I wouldn’t like it. Squeamish in the sense that I thought it would rip my heart out of my chest, show it to me, and tell me that it had ought to stop beating.
I write musicals. I’ve put up performances of my work. I’ve spent seasons of my life focused entirely on writing songs that will land, that will fly, that will sing. When I get so focused, everything else disappears. People disappear. People whom I love. People who love me.
Here’s a phrase I think about a lot: “To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.” I think about the art form I love, I think about the craft that consumes me. I picture it as an inconsequential dab of sauce on the floor of a diner. I think about being a worm in that sauce, just lapping it up. I love that damn sauce. I’m just a worm. I can’t fathom anything else in the universe. I need to nail this I Want song more than I need air.
I have felt the ticking, ticking, ticking. I’m 26. Sure, I’m young – as young as Sondheim was when he worked on West Side Story. I know how old most of the writers I admire were when they worked on their first big projects. I’m older than most of them. I have worked the schedule of appearing in a run of an off-Broadway show while working over 20 hours a week in a coffee shop and still writing songs in every spare second I had. I expected Tick, Tick… Boom! to run me over like a truck.
It didn’t.
It… didn’t. That isn’t to say I didn’t think it was a good movie. That isn’t to say that I didn’t like the performances, that I didn’t like the screenplay, or didn’t like the songs. If I would have watched this movie five years ago, maybe the day after I watched Sunday for the first time, it would have destroyed me. But… it didn’t.
I watched the movie with my girlfriend, Liv. We live together. We met under a year before the pandemic. When the world changed, my relationship to work underwent a change of a similar magnitude. She watched it happen.
The movie really reached her. After watching the movie she told me what she thought. Then I monologued about my reaction to the film, or lack thereof. Liv is a patient woman. Halfway through speaking about it, I told her I wanted to write about my reaction to this film, and that I wished I had been recording what I was saying. She told me I should start recording.
So… this is her fault. I’ve edited it a bit:
II. A TRANSCRIPTION OF OUR CONVERSATION AFTER WATCHING TICK, TICK… BOOM!
(John presses record on his phone.)
JOHN
I think – and wouldn’t it be funny if I just transcribed this and put it directly on the thing, and was like – “this is literally what I said to my girlfriend after watching Tick, Tick… Boom!,” right, like, that would be a funny way of writing an article.
Um, but, I’ve been in that setting, where I’ve gotten a bunch of people together, and, you know I didn’t get a workshop produced, I, you know, funded half of it and Josh funded half of it, um, but I’ve been in that headspace – and you were with me during that headspace, where… I… couldn’t think of anything except for the show… and that’s all I could do, that’s all my life was. It was seeing if these people were properly re-animating these thoughts that I wanted to have them deliver, and… I still wanna do that, but I want to do it when I’m in an emotional state where I believe that the work is good. And that I don’t have this feverish clinging to the outcome of the workshop.
I want to be in a place where if you came into the rehearsal room, that, I…
(John rips a huge wet fart. It’s a long fart and it is very close to the microphone)
LIV
(off the fart)
It’s a good idea.
JOHN
Yeah, that I would… be able to let the MD – if I could afford an MD – keep doing their thing and… and leave the room and talk to you about Crouton going to the vet or whatever.
(Crouton is our dog – he is sleeping in a strange position on a bean bag on our floor.)
JOHN
That I could kind of leave the show and trust that other people can handle it, that it doesn’t revolve around me! And I guess a lot of things that I’m grappling with, culturally, surrounding identity and privilege and my position and what I’m supposed to be doing, have essentially led me to this place where I’m no longer obsessed with my own autership. I no longer feel that ‘ticking’ that pervades the film. And I think I’m… better for it.
I think, um, a lot of people would be better for it if that ticking wasn’t there. If the sort of slowing down that we all said we were gonna do after the pandemic actually stayed slow. I think this movie is actually really timely in that way.
Everyone was like – well, not everyone, a lot of people just died, but, those of us who were healthy and had our basic needs met or whatever, had all these (Corky St. Clair voice) “lessons” that we learned the pandemic and whatever, and… I don’t know. I can already see people shedding them and going back into doing the exact same things they were doing before, and I think, if anything, this movie is a really good reminder of that. For a lot of people, at least creatively, time stopped for 18 months. Nobody did anything. Except for the people who filmed Tick, Tick… Boom! I guess. You know? But most people didn’t do shit.
Um, and I guess I haven’t returned to that hustle, I haven’t returned to the grind. I’m still working – I’m working probably more than I ever have before, but I don’t feel… I’m not grinding anymore. I’m like, sitting around and chilling. And like, we have our little life. We have a dog, and he’s… in that weird position right now. Yeah… I don’t know.
(pause.)
So in a way, this is a reaction to the movie, right? Like in a way, this is probably a more intense reaction to the movie than sitting there and being like, (pretentious voice:) “Oh my God, I do this.” Because that’s one reaction, and that’s what I had to Sunday, years ago. But this reaction is: “This isn’t me, and I’m really glad this isn’t me.”
(pause.)
LIV
You’re nicer, that you’re not tortured. To like, everyone.
JOHN
I hope so.
LIV
And yourself.
JOHN
I hope so. Yeah. I’m nicer to Crouton.
(John and Liv look at their dog.)
LIV
Yeah.
(pause.)
LIV
And I think this is the best work you’ve ever made.
JOHN
Thank you.
(pause.)
JOHN
Yeah and I’m like able to say “thank you” now. To that. You know? Like, I wouldn’t have been. It would have been, (weird voice) “ooh, well, I don’t know, what is good work?”
(They laugh.)
LIV
(laughing)
Eeeheeheee.
JOHN
Or whatever.
(pause.)
JOHN
What else? What else is there to react to?
Cause I might just type that out, word for word. You’d have lines in it too, you’d have what you just said.
LIV
(sort of sarcastically, I still can’t tell:)
Yay.
JOHN
[inaudible]
LIV
I got to say that when you farted it was your most brilliant idea. That’s how it works, when you fart you tell the Absolute Truth.
JOHN
That’s very True.
(pause.)
LIV
Yeah, it’s actually horrible when you think about it. Like, everyone was just dying around him, and he was just obsessed with his Superbia musical.
JOHN
Dude, and like the musical wasn’t even that good, like – I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good show when you sit down and listen to it, but it seems like half-baked satire and everyone’s like “beep boop beep boop”
LIV
Meanwhile everyone’s like dying of AIDS.
JOHN
Yeah. And the fact that his partner was like… “I could have a job. In the Berkshires. Teaching dance, and like, restoring my body.”
LIV
After she got –
(Liv starts giggling)
JOHN
After, after, what was her accident?
LIV
She like sprained her ankle or something, but for a dancer that’s like –
JOHN
That’s huge. And for him not to be able to see beyond his own fucking nose? And, and just… And yeah so I guess I’m interested in just a full-scale indictment of that mentality.
(Takes a sip from wine glass, puts it down)
JOHN
I don’t know, like I – I’m happy that I’m not gonna be 29 and thinking that everyone who’s in advertisement is a corporate shill. There’s a lot more… I don’t know – it’s a really self-serving narrative to paint yourself as the martyr when you’re actually just doing what’s easy for you.
LIV
I just think it’s very limiting.
JOHN
And notice this – the way that he’s able to see Michael’s worth isn’t in the fact that he is a gay man striving, getting the things that this world can give him because he can’t be seen as a respectable person in the eyes of most of society. And Jonathan Larson doesn’t admire him in this film for what he is doing – which is doing the best with the cards that he was dealt. Instead he’s like, “well, we used to sing together. And that was cool.” You know?
(Liv laughs)
JOHN
Like, even when he finds out his friend is poz, he’s like… he’s still like “he used to sing.” He’s looking at reality through this really narrow lens. And I guess, if this portrayal of Larson is to be believed… this movie makes me wonder: had Larson survived, would he have been able to write anything that wasn’t RENT? Would there have been another great work after that?
LIV
I don’t know. He seems like a happy guy, but he doesn’t seem like a happy guy.
JOHN
Yeah.
(Crouton wakes up and sort of stumbles over.)
JOHN + LIV
No, Crouton! Our special boy! (ad lib, etc.)
LIV
Oh, good morning, Baby Button.
JOHN
It is evening for me, but it is morning for you, my boy. Good morning, boy! Good morning, little guy. Good morning, little guy.
(Crouton struts his stuff.)
JOHN
As I’ve been saying all this, I’ve had an awareness that I’m probably going to transcribe this word for word.
(pause.)
LIV
Shut it off.
JOHN
Alright.
(He laughs.)
LIV
Goodbye.
(John stops recording.)
III. A FULL-SCALE INDICTMENT OF THAT MENTALITY
Look, I get it. We need to have characters in our movies who want huge things. Who will go to any lengths to get those things. Who will act recklessly and do damage to others on the way there. In a movie about creativity, we need a protagonist who will hit these beats. But Tick, Tick… Boom! seems to leave space for a conversation about whether or not this is a good model of artistry. I’d like to have that conversation.
I think the securest model of artistry defies depiction. It asks us to be boring characters. It asks us to have mature, lasting, and thoughtful relationships. It asks us to take care of ourselves. It asks us to befriend the blank page. It asks us to enjoy writing. It says, sure, you’ll have deadlines, and you’ll have times when you’re up against the buzzer, but what if that wasn’t the default? It asks us to rely on the highest source of wisdom and power that our conception of the universe provides us. It assures us that our artistry will only be as deep as our empathy. It begs us to ask ourselves why we’re sitting under the kitchen table like dogs, sustaining ourselves on the crumbs that happen to fall our way.
Tick, Tick… Boom! didn’t hit me, at least not how I thought it would. And I’m happy it didn’t. I’m happy that it didn’t make me want my heart to stop beating. Look, I’m hesitant to say that I know anything that others don’t. I’m hesitant to put myself on a pedestal, because I see so much room to climb higher. But let me be bold and ask you this:
If this movie hit you in the way I was afraid it would hit me, would you be happier if it didn’t?
I am on Twitter. Please don’t follow me @johncoyne_