There are certain topics we have to tip-toe around in our household because we’re a mixed-faith family. I’m a Bernie supporter and my wife is a dyed-in-the-wool Hillary parisian partisan. (Sorry, I was looking at that logo when I was typing and “partisan” just came out as “parisian”).
Anyhow, she’s also a huge theater buff. She even goes to most of the high school plays in the surrounding towns. So when she saw an email from one of the other high school robotics team parents claiming that the school’s production of Les Misérables had “even greater emotional impact than the Broadway production,” she had to go.
I was tempted. We have an outstanding music education program in our town, so when they do a musical there’s always a couple of kids good enough you’d actually pay money for the iTunes track. But I decided to give it a pass. To be honest I’m something of a book snob. I actually saw the Broadway production of Les Misérables; I sat through it like I do through most adaptations, thinking, “the book was way better than this.”
Still, I was curious, so when she got back I buttonholed her.
Me: So, Le Miz. How was it?
Wife: It was good.
Me: And the emotional impact?
Wife: It was.. It was… It kind of…
Me: Yes?
Wife: It kind of made me want to vote for Bernie Sanders.
Me: What!
Wife: It was that Song of Angry Men.
Me: And they couldn’t have put this on in February?