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bennought's review against another edition
3.0
This is the first Kushner I've read, and I was a little disappointed. As I'm sure (and my housemates have reassured me) this is probably in large part due to the fact that I am reading a musical. A show is completely and utterly different when you take it from the page and onto the stage: even more so when it is a musical which relies upon music so heavily. I really enjoyed the idea of the play, the issues it highlights and explores, and the arc of the story. I absolutely loved the Channukah scene and the Yiddish, Hebrew, and bits of Jewish culture and religion highlighted in that and sprinkled throughout the rest of the play. My disappointment spread, mostly, from a feeling like there wasn't enough. It felt truncated and half-finished to me. Was that purposefully done by Kushner? Is he pointing out that these issues haven't been resolved and that there are millions of Carolines still struggling, suffering, and giving up? I'm not sure. But I'd really like to see the show performed and try and get a better grasp of it and feel for it.
breathehopebooks's review against another edition
3.0
2.75 so rounding up. So sorry if this seems scathing.
I completely understand that this is a play/theatrical text, and that the book is written as so. I did read this while listening to the cast recording so that I could better understand the story, because much of the "dialogue" is spoken simultaneously over multiple characters (hope that makes sense).
Still, I found the story very dull and confusing. WHY did THIS story need to be told THIS WAY? With these characters and these plot points?
Yes, the musical tells the story of the mother of a Black family who works as the maid for a wealthy White/Jewish family in 1960s Louisiana. But there are characters and conflicts set up within the plot that serve no real purpose or have no real resolution (probably the point when it comes to a story about Civil Rights in America, about issues and conflicts about racism in America haven't ever gone away or been resolved). It made the musical feel incomplete and lacking in proper direction and reason.
On top of the that, the appliances that Caroline regularly used during her work were inexplicably anthropomorphized; they had voices and spoke to her. BUT LIKE WHY?! And yeah, duh, the change she collects from the kid's pocket is supposed to represent social change. All of the metaphors are obvious and make the statement they are striving to make. But to what end?
There's a literally a scene where the Black daughter and the Jewish grandfather get into a debate about . . . something? The plight of civil rights in America? It was so confusing to track.
And there are plot lines that go NOWHERE. Like the White/Jewish family is made up of the boy, his dad, his step-mom and her father. And the dad is kinda absent because he's a musical genius but also mourning his dead first wife. okay. So now his second wife, the step-mom, is trying really hard to connect with the boy and be a good mom but not replace his real mom because she was best friends with his real mom but also complains about the boy preferring mean ol' maid Caroline to her but also tries take charge of her household because as the step-mom she is THE woman of the household and WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER? WHAT IS THE POINT THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO MAKE WITH ANY OF THIS?
This show--because it was a show--tackles a lot of important topics, like family and motherhood and racism and civil rights and society and change. It uses and references actual Civil Rights events as the historical backdrop, but doesn't do much with the discussions it creates regarding its time and place. I'm sure I would feel differently about the whole thing if I experienced as it was meant to be--performed on stage--but as it is I just did not enjoy this very much.
I completely understand that this is a play/theatrical text, and that the book is written as so. I did read this while listening to the cast recording so that I could better understand the story, because much of the "dialogue" is spoken simultaneously over multiple characters (hope that makes sense).
Still, I found the story very dull and confusing. WHY did THIS story need to be told THIS WAY? With these characters and these plot points?
Yes, the musical tells the story of the mother of a Black family who works as the maid for a wealthy White/Jewish family in 1960s Louisiana. But there are characters and conflicts set up within the plot that serve no real purpose or have no real resolution (probably the point when it comes to a story about Civil Rights in America, about issues and conflicts about racism in America haven't ever gone away or been resolved). It made the musical feel incomplete and lacking in proper direction and reason.
On top of the that, the appliances that Caroline regularly used during her work were inexplicably anthropomorphized; they had voices and spoke to her. BUT LIKE WHY?! And yeah, duh, the change she collects from the kid's pocket is supposed to represent social change. All of the metaphors are obvious and make the statement they are striving to make. But to what end?
There's a literally a scene where the Black daughter and the Jewish grandfather get into a debate about . . . something? The plight of civil rights in America? It was so confusing to track.
And there are plot lines that go NOWHERE. Like the White/Jewish family is made up of the boy, his dad, his step-mom and her father. And the dad is kinda absent because he's a musical genius but also mourning his dead first wife. okay. So now his second wife, the step-mom, is trying really hard to connect with the boy and be a good mom but not replace his real mom because she was best friends with his real mom but also complains about the boy preferring mean ol' maid Caroline to her but also tries take charge of her household because as the step-mom she is THE woman of the household and WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER? WHAT IS THE POINT THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO MAKE WITH ANY OF THIS?
This show--because it was a show--tackles a lot of important topics, like family and motherhood and racism and civil rights and society and change. It uses and references actual Civil Rights events as the historical backdrop, but doesn't do much with the discussions it creates regarding its time and place. I'm sure I would feel differently about the whole thing if I experienced as it was meant to be--performed on stage--but as it is I just did not enjoy this very much.
artytytyty's review against another edition
5.0
"I know it hurts to change.
It's actually hurts learning something new, and when you full grown, it's harder, that's true
it feel like you got to break yourself apart,
it feel like you got to break your own heart, but folk do it. They do."
It's actually hurts learning something new, and when you full grown, it's harder, that's true
it feel like you got to break yourself apart,
it feel like you got to break your own heart, but folk do it. They do."
rsurban's review
4.0
Having read the "book" for Caroline or Change, Tony Kushner’s musical about a black woman who works as a maid in a white Louisiana home in the 60’s, and then having heard the cast recording, and THEN having seen a local, incredibly well-done full production of it, I have to say that I cannot give this artistic work its due by simply reviewing the text. Sometimes, when reading the text of a play, and especially one that relies upon the written word for it power, as with Shakespeare or O’Neill, the language, the ideas and the emotion of the piece can be gleaned from a close reading. With something such as Caroline or Change, so much of the impact of the work is in the construction of the musical element, and in the acting, and even in the set design and costuming, that the text is but the barest frame on which to judge the entire enterprise.
That being said, you can see what Kushner is striving for here, and understand the structure of the story he is trying to tell. Caroline Thibodeaux is a broken down woman who has four children, a husband who has run off, and a job toiling in the employ of a Jewish widower and his young son, Noah. Caroline is seen as a mother figure to Noah, whereas her feelings towards him, while indulgent, are more complicated and muted. She knows she has her own children to tend to, which causes her the grief of knowing she is giving more of her time to this white child than her own kids. Complicating matters, Noah’s father has remarried, and the new wife, Rose, is anguished by the fact that her stepson feels closer to the maid than to her. For her part, Caroline makes do, taking pride in her inner strength and fortitude, while secretly tending her sorrow at the loss of the love of her life, who took off after his aimlessness and abuse of her led to her striking back in a fit of rage. Things seem to be maintaining their equilibrium in the world of Caroline until Rose decides that any change Noah leaves in his pants pockets can be kept by Caroline when she finds it in the process of doing laundry. The simplistic gesture by Rose, which she sees as a generous thoughtful gift, causes Caroline to see her position in the social and economic life of the Gellman household as even more fraught than it was previously, and helps bring about the change referred to in the freighted title of the play.
The musical revolves around ideas of inequity and inequality in class, race, religious identity, and gender, and packs in quite a lot of very nuanced subtext among the text, as can be easily seen by a close reading of the book. Kushner’s compassionate depiction of his characters means that everyone comes in for both an affectionate, as well as pointed, examination of their attitudes and beliefs, and the characterizations are rich and melancholy; even the allegorical characters, the Moon, the Radio, and the Bus, seem fully inhabited. Of course, being a sung-through musical, the language is economical and potent, and matches well with the song styles employed in the full production, from blues and r&b to recitative and even klezmer music.
To reiterate, this is a musical to be savored in a full production with fine actors with strong voices, an orchestra of technical virtuosity, and a stage designed to meld the allegorical phases of the moon with the banality of a concrete basement in humid Louisiana. Though this book is a fine starting point for discovering this underrated Tony Kushner collaboration, it only fully blossoms when seen in its complete, breathtakingly soulful realization.
That being said, you can see what Kushner is striving for here, and understand the structure of the story he is trying to tell. Caroline Thibodeaux is a broken down woman who has four children, a husband who has run off, and a job toiling in the employ of a Jewish widower and his young son, Noah. Caroline is seen as a mother figure to Noah, whereas her feelings towards him, while indulgent, are more complicated and muted. She knows she has her own children to tend to, which causes her the grief of knowing she is giving more of her time to this white child than her own kids. Complicating matters, Noah’s father has remarried, and the new wife, Rose, is anguished by the fact that her stepson feels closer to the maid than to her. For her part, Caroline makes do, taking pride in her inner strength and fortitude, while secretly tending her sorrow at the loss of the love of her life, who took off after his aimlessness and abuse of her led to her striking back in a fit of rage. Things seem to be maintaining their equilibrium in the world of Caroline until Rose decides that any change Noah leaves in his pants pockets can be kept by Caroline when she finds it in the process of doing laundry. The simplistic gesture by Rose, which she sees as a generous thoughtful gift, causes Caroline to see her position in the social and economic life of the Gellman household as even more fraught than it was previously, and helps bring about the change referred to in the freighted title of the play.
The musical revolves around ideas of inequity and inequality in class, race, religious identity, and gender, and packs in quite a lot of very nuanced subtext among the text, as can be easily seen by a close reading of the book. Kushner’s compassionate depiction of his characters means that everyone comes in for both an affectionate, as well as pointed, examination of their attitudes and beliefs, and the characterizations are rich and melancholy; even the allegorical characters, the Moon, the Radio, and the Bus, seem fully inhabited. Of course, being a sung-through musical, the language is economical and potent, and matches well with the song styles employed in the full production, from blues and r&b to recitative and even klezmer music.
To reiterate, this is a musical to be savored in a full production with fine actors with strong voices, an orchestra of technical virtuosity, and a stage designed to meld the allegorical phases of the moon with the banality of a concrete basement in humid Louisiana. Though this book is a fine starting point for discovering this underrated Tony Kushner collaboration, it only fully blossoms when seen in its complete, breathtakingly soulful realization.
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