Speaking of Synchronicity!
(when Big-Apple bites weren't the ones on the menu...)
Greetings, with snapshots and thoughts from that brief midweek NYC theater trip. It went not-at-all as planned, yet somehow apt as soul-fare for newShrink.
These are early thoughts in a mostly single-topic edition, as I’m still a bit fried and bleary-eyed from a crazy air-travel day. (Absurdly to many, this doesn’t tend to dampen my going-somewhere travel delight, even when a travel day is baaaad.)
Today’s utterly stumbled-upon Broadway play and topic, A Beautiful Noise, emerged as far more than an entertaining, emotionally moving musical-theater take on the life and work of popular singer-songwriter Neil Diamond. Before Tuesday I knew nothing of the play but that one existed, a bit like Jersey Boys.
The play’s scene, setting and story-setup in a psychotherapy session is no mere stagecraft device or trope. Particularly in the second act there’s a sense of real discovery underway in the moment… that healing kinds of breakthrough are happening, onstage and beyond.
As one reviewer noted, the show’s well-curated jukebox approach tells Diamond’s story via his music without slavishly contriving it. Beyond that and psychologically significant, somehow Diamond, himself, is fully alive in the room.
With the play’s finale, so, too comes culmination in one’s sense of the current “therapy session” that 82-year-old Neil Diamond is in. It’s in this one that he is doing what psychologists call integrating life, loves, work, parts of self. This is a weaving-together, along with his third/by-all-accounts-final, wife Katie McNeil and extended family that includes the two former wives/mothers of his children.
In effect this is the writing of vital next chapters forward, both their joys and the obvious adversity clearly faced. (It happens to be a similar psychological juncture to last week’s subject Stephen Spielberg with his memoir-like movie. For Diamond it is clearly long-more-familiar, and deeply mined/confronted, material.)
From newShrink standpoint the play, and Diamond himself, evoke several clinical-health/mental-health and depth (soul) psychological themes. You might keep these in mind when reading or viewing the links and photos below:
🔷It’s rather a Valentine or love letter to Socrates’ — and Jung’s — concept of the examined life, presented like a how-to map for us all onstage, in song and by humbly courageous public sharing of private pain.
🔷Similarly, both the play and (somewhat as a result) the man demonstrate Jung’s individuation, initiated adulthood across challenging thresholds — such as Diamond’s sudden, life- and career-altering Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2018.
🔷A valuable and needed personal note of public support for mental health awareness and psychotherapy is sounded. This happens with Diamond’s dedication/tribute to his own late longtime psychoanalyst. There’s also the play’s subtly excellent use of depth/psyche-engaged approaches — the wonderful application of musical metaphors, much as though they were living images from dreams, is one marvelous example.
A therapist-related joke’s-on-me came in mid-play, when I suddenly realized a lyric, in a song I otherwise like, that I had long considered a nonsensical attempt at rhyme by Diamond… wasn’t nonsense at all. The phrase is in the song “I am I said,” the lines “I am I said, to no-one there, and no-one heard at all, not even the chair.”
The chair here doesn’t just rhyme with there. This is the “talk-to-the-chair” Gestalt-style approach therapists have patients use a lot — as the therapist has the “current Neil” character do in the play. (Duh!)
🔷With the play, and with interviews and selected public forums since his 2018 Parkinson’s diagnosis, Diamond has with great gentleness brought and modeled conscious acknowledgement and integration of the realities of physical/medical illness and issues within the whole fabric of one’s life and relationships. It’s a study in doing the opposite of compartmentalizing.
From both professional and personal experience I especially appreciate his combining the benefits of psychotherapy within the context and process of working constructively with physical or medical illness. The promptings, images and guidance of the unconscious soul/psyche can be most potent and therapeutic in this context. Diagnosis of illness, too, can be one of many crises that become vital thresholds for initiating change and growth at deepest levels.
🔷In keeping with the title, for me several synchronicities are evoked by this play, topic, and Diamond’s life-story. (Remembering here Jung’s idea of synchronicity: Personally meaningful external images, events or other phenomena that occur coincidentally with an internal perception, image, thought or dream phenomenon, with neither logically causing the other.)
First here is a rather mundane one — and if you happen to be up, reading and interested this morning perhaps timely. Not until late Friday, after the New York trip, play and various readings and links here about it and Neil Diamond, this preview alert comes into my feed, for today’s broadcast (browable in full later on the CBS site or You Tube):
Coming this morning on CBS Sunday Morning starting 9 a.m. EDT (From CBS News):
TO WATCH VIDEO PREVIEW: Neil Diamond on his life becoming a Broadway musical...
TO READ TEXT PREVIEW: Neil Diamond on coming to terms with his Parkinson's diagnosis
Most powerfully synchronistic for me with the play were two moments in real-time while in the audience. Both brought the signature momentary frozen-in-time, shivers-up-the-back of the neck and a little weepy feeling.
The first I call bathed-in-blue, when deep blue lights washed over stage and audience with performance of “Song Sung Blue.” Suddenly it was replay of a recent, twice-recurring dream image of my being suddenly covered head-to-toe, bathed in deep blue color. One dream snippet was during the intense televised Alex Murdaugh murder trial, in which the blue was like the UV light used to track otherwise invisible biochemical markers.
The second, similar but with what was more like deep blue paint, especially on the face, came during early weeks of NCAA tournament basketball! Neither dream’s blue felt ominous. But it was keenly alive in that blue-lit NYC theater, weeks later!
The next synchronicity during the play itself, a little shivery and a bit teary, came toward the finale. It’s at the culmination “therapeutic breakthrough” moment when present-day Neil is finally, painfully slowly— as is exactly how this happens in therapy — opening-up, “talking to the chair.” All I can say to describe this is, in that moment, the felt-experience was, psychotherapy.
My interior conversation was something like, “Oh, MY, this play is really expressing Neil, he is really going-there… about his Parkinson’s, about his regrets and loves and wanting a way-forward… Oh holy cow, it’s happening HERE! We must hold this for him.”
(The stage-set “therapy chairs” being mega-sized versions of my signature red leather therapy-room chairs only intensified this entire sense of being in two settings at once.) I should add that this never seemed as though the actors onstage were actually Neil Diamond or his therapist. It was more that the message of that “special letter from Neil” tucked into the Playbill, as yet unopened on my iPhone, was immediately clear.
More on that, and links to video and articles, are below. First, about
the change of menu
Since October the plan and booking had been for Almost Famous, Oscar-winning screenwriter Cameron Crowe’s much-touted new Broadway musical adaptation of his 2000 film. The fun story’s underage aspiring journalist reporting for Rolling Stone, and dynamics with well-drawn mom character, also had some newShrink appeal.
My affinity for New York is no secret. Another motivator was support for the city’s live theater, other performing arts and hospitality venues still struggling with post-pandemic recovery. The timing would ideally miss worst winter weather snarls.
Alas, the Broadway run for that play, couldn’t last so long.
Musical Adaptation of ‘Almost Famous’ Closed on Broadway (The New York Times)
Along with another new fall production, it succumbed quickly to lackluster reviews, an enormous dollar investment and New York’s very low fall and early winter tourism. (Famous is planned for a likely better-box-office run on the road after some revamping.)
Now to reports, reviews and videos bathed in blue…
Neil Diamond gives surprise performance at his Broadway show nearly 5 years after retiring (USA Today, December 8, 2022)
Good times never seemed so good for the Neil Diamond fans who attended opening night of the singer's Broadway show and found themselves watching a surprise performance from Diamond himself.
The 81-year-old singer-songwriter announced his retirement from touring nearly five years ago. But he performed again Sunday evening, treating an audience already in the mood for some Neil Diamond tunes with a performance of "Sweet Caroline" from a balcony of Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre, where "A Beautiful Noise" opened that night…
…In January 2018, Diamond announced he was retiring from the road due to Parkinson's disease and canceled the third leg of his 50th Aanniversary tour. In August of that year, the musician told the Associated Press he hoped to be able to perform live again one day.
“Well, I’m doing pretty well. I’m active. I take my meds. I do my workouts. I’m in pretty good shape. I’m feeling good. I want to stay productive. I still have my boys. I just can’t do the traveling that I once did, but I have my wife there supporting me (and) friends,” he said.
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Good coverage from the play’s December official opening is in both the PBS video here and the ABC News story (and photos in the illustration above)
New Broadway musical ‘A Beautiful Noise’ explores Neil Diamond’s life and music (PBS News Hour December 2022)
JUDY WOODRUFF: The playlist is personal for the team distilling the life of and legacy of Neil Diamond in the new Broadway musical "A Beautiful Noise." Without Diamond, we would not have "Sweet Caroline" and The Monkees wouldn’t have had number-one hits like "I’m a Believer." Jared Bowen of GBH Boston got an early look at the show for our arts and culture series, "CANVAS."
Neil Diamond musical 'A Beautiful Noise' opens on Broadway (ABC News Nightline December 10, 2022)
ABC News' Gio Benitez gets a behind the scenes look of the new musical based on the life and music of Neil Diamond.
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And from The New York Times.
Review: ‘A Beautiful Noise’ Spotlights a Morose Neil Diamond (NYT, December 4, the play’s 2022 opening week)
For decades, Neil Diamond was on top of the world. He toured arenas packed with shrieking fans. He wrote “Sweet Caroline,” an irresistible anthem that continues to trigger Pavlovian singalongs— a feat that would delight most performers, but Diamond didn’t leave it at that and was a prolific hit machine.
A 1986 profile in The New York Times described him in these words: “Olympian aspiration, raw aggression and agonizing self-doubt.”
As unlikely as this might sound, it is that last trait that forms the narrative engine of “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical,” the ambitious, often rousing biographical show that opened on Broadway on Sunday at the Broadhurst Theater. We meet a superstar with no confidence, despite being known to engage the beast mode in concert and prowling stages in tight pants and a wide-open satin shirt. He seems perpetually dissatisfied, as if on a fruitless quest — but for what? What gnaws at him?
To answer those questions, the book writer, Anthony McCarten, put Diamond on the couch, or more exactly in an armchair: “A Beautiful Noise,” directed by Michael Mayer, is framed as an extensive therapy session between the aging singer (Mark Jacoby) and a psychologist (Linda Powell).
This Times reviewer captures the gist of the production, but with notable lack of psychological perspective completely omits Diamond’s life stage at a very conscious 82, his life-and-career-altering Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2018 and long habit of conscious self-reflection via psychoanalysis. The latter omission thus misses the entire point of the play’s setting as a therapy session.
Diamond disclosure
I should note that I can’t claim to be a long or avid Neil Diamond fan, am more a recent and situational one. For him as songwriter and particularly a lyricist I had valued his work over decades. But his entire giant concert-touring-years shtick as the sequin-studded megastar, affectionately dubbed “Jewish Elvis” by some, either bypassed or otherwise turned me off.
It may have been as with the disco era, which I managed to miss completely. Perhaps was focused on work… or some on-trend granola stuff like growing alfalfa sprouts in a terrarium jar (despite loathing for eating the hairlike things!)
More recent fondness for Diamond came through friends’ kids’ wedding reception playlists, also sports teams ranging from my UNC alma mater, stepson Nick’s Penn State to Boston Red Sox appropriating Sweet Caroline as their anthems.
From this week’s Playbill here is the full Special Letter from Neil.
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For the Broadway run things look bright into nearly the next year ahead, at least.
'A Beautiful Noise' Broadway tickets on sale through January 2024 (New York Theatre Guide)
The musical, which celebrates Neil Diamond's life story and features hit songs like "Sweet Caroline," has played at the Broadhurst Theatre since November.
This news is so good, so good, so good! A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical has released a new block of tickets for performances through January 7, 2024. Get A Beautiful Noise tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
Beginning September 7, A Beautiful Noise will also replace its Wednesday matinee performance with a Thursday matinee, still at 2 p.m
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As mentioned above, there’s a bookend-effect of this week’s unexpected Neil Diamond production and its common psychological themes of biography and life-review with Spielberg last week. It underscores how much these matters of individuation and psychological adulthood resonate with both newShrink and my long ongoing research focus.
Another arts-&-entertainment figure I have for awhile studied — and admired in this regard, probably surprisingly — is shock-radio jock Howard Stern. He is eloquent, humble, open and deeply wise in describing his long, personally and professionally transformative work with analytic (depth) psychotherapy. Stern’s conversations, and starkly apparent contrasts, with fellow comic-commentator Bill Maher about this are interesting. They may appear in some future newShrink discussion.
As was long a focus in my clinical practice, this life-stage individuation work is challenging and worthwhile for all of us. Undertaking it can be lonely and daunting — in this culture, especially so for men expected to maintain their personas and idealized-ego “success.” So I notice and appreciate when it’s modeled, especially by men, for the inspiration and encouragement we all can use.
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Contrasts of psychology and character
Psychological perspectives regarding public figures highly successful in their respective fields bring to mind points of comparison and contrast with each other at these later-life (age 60s, 70s, 80s) reflection points. The contrasts among Stephen Spielberg (75), Neil Diamond (82) and his fellow native-New Yorker Donald Trump (76) are profound.
Most apparent are Spielberg’s and Diamond’s thoughtful, measured efforts and application of their talents and energies toward self-accountability, continued growth and positive creative contribution to the world and their loved ones through positive legacy. With Trump there is so much adolescent bluster; inability to tolerate (much less initiate) even superficial self-examination; dissembling, deflecting, and lying whenever challenged; and most of all keeping his own unfillable ego at the center of all endeavors.
Meanwhile,
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Around the Manhattan neighborhood
The unfolding Trump news was during this week’s visit time spent within a few blocks of the former President’s three monolithic Upper Midtown/Central Park-area Manhattan real estate holdings. Pictured above: At left, with the Atlas-like globe is Trump International Hotel and Tower at 1 Central Park West/Columbus Circle entrance to the park. At right, the posh residential Trump Parc East overlooking the park at 100 Central Park South. At center is the landmark Trump Tower at 725 Fifth Avenue.
In two pre-Covid NYC visits to the area the three, particularly Trump Tower, were memorable for concrete barricades occupying curbside street lanes, flanked in additional lanes by the ubiquitous signature black, tinted-windowed Cadillac and Suburban SUVs. Even now, pedestrians wisely use caution on sidewalks across from the 5th Avenue Tower — prime spot for aggressively selfie-taking/back-up-walking tourists of all ages.
Protests both for and against prosecution of Donald Trump that had been reported earlier this week near the court and police facilities in Lower Manhattan weren’t happening up closer to the three buildings and Central Park. With security at every level from Secret Service to an all-in-uniform call to NYPD officers this coming week, I am very, very glad the trip was last Tuesday.
The Kevin Siers cartoon at bottom center above offers commentary on the indictments and coming arraignment of Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels campaign-finance/hush money case. Here’s a New York Times overview, with embedded video, related pieces and links to live updates.
What We Know About the Indictment of Donald Trump, and What Comes Next
Mr. Trump was indicted over his role in paying hush money to a porn star, and likely plans to turn himself in on Tuesday, a lawyer has said.
An eerie note on leaving the city via Uber for La Guardia to fly home Thursday, phone alerts began announcing the Trump indictments. During the same home-bound trip to the airport in late February 2020, similar phone alerts were announcing pivotal news: The East Coast’s first confirmed case of Covid, a Brooklyn women arriving through La Guardia after visiting family in Iran. About 10 days later the pandemic halted travel and shut down much of American life. The next NYC visit would be a year and a half later,
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On the week’s other story unfolding during the trip, here is Observer cartoonist Kevin Siers’ take on the Nashville tragedy amd aftermath.
Yet Another School Shooting
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In more hopeful spirit I leave you today some fun with the title bites-of-the-apple.
I appreciate the irony of all of this being compiled, consumed, created, written and sent via the interlocking functions of at least five more Apples of still-another variety: This kind .
The "apple of my eye” photo at bottom center evokes my late maternal grandfather’s frequent-favorite way of addressing me. My mind’s-ear still hears him.
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And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.
🦋💙 tish
•🌀🔵🔷🦋💙
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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