Attention Must be Paid
I’ve been working on The Girl Who Cried Different for nearly three years. There have been many significant changes in the libretto along the way, but one thing has stayed the same: The show has always been about Mariella and her dad, Tommy. In fact, when the show first came my way, I remember thinking that it was not quite what I’d have hoped for because it was about a father and child, instead of a mother and child. I told myself it was okay; at least I was writing from the parental perspective. Plus, I adore Tommy and Mariella and believe in this project.
Then, out of the blue, a friend said to me that it’s Lisa’s character, Tommy’s wife and Mariella’s mom, that’s most important. I was surprised. My friend elaborated. She said people will be charmed and moved by Mariella, but they’re not going to identify with a child living with Williams syndrome. She said they’ll empathize with Tommy’s character, too, but they won’t see themselves in the movie-star-handsome, ex-rock star, hero who literally played with Prince. My friend said: The audience will see themselves in Lisa’s character: the working mom who does EVERYTHING yet fails to save the day. And is never noticed. Which makes Lisa the most important.
And I realized she was right.
Suddenly I thought, Attention must be paid. Had I been given the opportunity to write the female version of Willy Loman?
Lisa is a woman who works full time because she has to, and also has massive family responsibilities, and that’s how she’s portrayed in the libretto. I had written her. And I hadn’t noticed her either.
That monologue at the end of Death of a Salesman is one of the most powerful and moving monologues ever written. When I realized that Girl — the musical I had been slightly disappointed about because it was about a father rather than a mother — can also be seen as the story of all mothers, unrecognized heroes to whom “attention must be paid,” I cried. I had been given the opportunity to write what I crave to write and hadn’t noticed.
My job now is to make sure that people who see the show notice, too.
