“Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”

That lyric came to mind as I watched ART, the hit Broadway revival now playing at the Music Box Theatre. The show, starring Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, and Neil Patrick Harris, layers a conversation about art and taste into a deeper meditation on what it means to sustain friendship over time — to keep the “gold” even as life offers us plenty of “silver.”
Set in Paris, Serge (Harris) is over the moon about a new piece of art he’s just purchased and can’t wait to show it off to his longtime friend Marc (Cannavale). Marc’s reaction is tepid at best — and when he learns the staggering price Serge paid for what appears to be a minimalist white canvas, he’s downright offended. He confides in their mutual friend Yvan (Corden), and from there, a witty, poignant debate unfolds about taste, loyalty, and the strain of changing perspectives within lifelong friendships.

We all have those friends who’ve known us forever — the ones who remember our childhood pets, our parents, our first heartbreaks, and our most embarrassing moments (like maybe spraying fart spray in the high school hallway just to see what would happen). As we grow and our lives diverge, those relationships can be tested. ART captures that tension with humor and heart: What do we do when a friend’s choices seem shallow, foolish, or foreign? Can affection outlast judgment? Can shared history withstand wounded pride?

I still remember my high school chemistry teacher — a man with wild, Einstein-esque hair who looked like his last experiment had gone awry — telling our class that the most important thing to remember wasn’t chemistry, but friendship. He reminded us that these early relationships, though sometimes distant later in life, are embedded in who we are. Like gold, they don’t tarnish easily.

Corden steals the show as Yvan — the most humble of the trio and the least “successful” by conventional standards — yet he’s also the most soulful. His frantic monologue about an upcoming wedding invitation is one of my all-time favorite moments in theater. It’s a reminder that friendship, like art, isn’t about perfection or prestige. It’s about recognition — seeing and being seen — and remembering the gold that endures even as we collect new silver along the way.

Psychological takeaway:
Friendship is one of our most powerful emotional regulators. It anchors us in identity, softens anxiety, and reflects our capacity for differentiation — the ability to stay connected without losing ourselves when disagreements arise. ART reminds us that the tension between closeness and individuality isn’t a flaw in friendship; it’s the heart of it.

A friend recently introduced me to Bandle – an app that invites users to play name that tune with a twist. The app introduces only one component of the song at a time. With each failed guess, the app splices in one more instrument at a time. I’m a wiz with name that tune; unfortunately, I’m abysmal at Bandle. It turns out it is staggeringly difficult to name a song listening only to the opening snippet of its base – or guitar – or drums. My love of music may be strong, but my understanding of the moving parts involved in musical composition is pedestrian at best. Enter the Tony Award sweeping play, Stereophonic.

Loosely based on the composition process behind Fleetwood Mac’s legendary album “Rumors”, this sensational show takes the audience far behind the scenes of the technical, relational, and creative process of song production. The band members – Diana, Peter, Reg, Holly and Simon — are wildly talented and emotionally flawed. Their two-person tech team – Grover and Charlie – service the musician’s many needs and become an interpretive conduit between the audience and the band as their creations form and their relationships implode.

From a creative perspective, the play is groundbreaking on many musical fronts exploring the complexity of artistic process. Many excellent reviews and podcasts are covering why Stereophonic may become a long-running classic.

From a psychological perspective, the play also breaks unusual ground. When we go behind the scenes of the band’s music, we simultaneously peer behind the scenes of Diana and Peter’s fraught relationship. Diana resents Peter’s unbreakable drive for perfection and work ethic. (But this does not hold him back.) Peter resents Diana’s pure raw if not fully exercised talent. (And his relentless criticism beats her down.) Diana begs Peter to give her the affirmation she lacks from within. Peter refuses, instead impulsively hitting Diana where it hurts. And then, as so often happens following a bitter divorce, when Peter no longer has Diana as an outlet for his rage, it explodes and poisons all of his other important relationships along with the band.

Stereophonic’s creator,David Adjmi, understands the psychology behind dysfunctional intimate relationships as well as he understand the multitude of moving parts of a song. Many pained marriages allow an abusive partner to contain their dysfunction behind the walls of the marriage. If they lose the marriage, they lose a vital emotional dam. And when the floodgates open, the collateral damage can be catastrophic.

For song lovers and relationship therapists alike, Stereophonic is a master class on music and marriage.

Family therapists love a good genogram. For those unfamiliar with this term, a genogram is a comprehensive family history framed through the psychological lens of Family Systems Theory. Family Systems Theory is a relationally oriented approach to therapy emphasizing the formative importance of the family landscape. Systemic therapists believe that relational patterns are often passed down from one generation to the next and that early experiences shape adult patterns and choices.

In my work with therapy clients, our third and sometimes also our fourth session of therapy are entirely focused on a constructing a comprehensive genogram. I begin by drawing a map of circles and squares with horizontal lines connecting married couples and vertical lines between the married couples, connecting parents to their children. We discuss each family member’s role within the family unit, how siblings and parents get along, what parental relationships are like and what clients understand about what their parents’ lives were like growing up. I am particularly curious about grandparents and their marriages. It is surprisingly common to know very little about how one’s grandparents met or what their early courtship was like. I encourage clients who are comfortable doing so to ask their parents to tell them more about their grandparents. If grandparents are still living, I encourage clients to also speak with them and be curious to learn as much as they can about their lives. Family Systems Theory assumes that our grandparents’ stories are essential to our own, and that the human impulse to deny painful parts of a family history can be quite strong. The past is worthy of exploration as a gateway to deeper self-awareness and healing.

Tom Stoppard’s magnificent play, Leopoldstadt, is anchored through a meticulous genogram which is displayed for the audience in the middle of the playbill and also presented as a primary staging element of the play’s opening scene, titled “1899”. The horizonal and vertical lines track the 27 Austrian family members of the Merz and Jakobovicz family tree whose journey is traced through five scenes, each marked by the year – 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938 and 1955. Emilia and Israel Merz and Estelle and Solomon Jakobovicz are “machatunim” — a Yiddish term referencing that their children Eva and Ludwig are married to each other. But this sophisticated, cultured group are not likely to speak Yiddish. They have assimilated into Austrian life, and we meet them on Christmas Eve 1899 gathered around a festive, unYiddish looking tree. One of the gleeful children places the Jewish star of David atop the tree and is told to take it down. The family and the audience erupt in laughter as the families’ conflicts about their Jewish faith shine brighter than the rejected Jewish star. The tension for the survival of the Jewish people and the lack of a Jewish homeland are consistent threads of conversation. Some family members have converted to Catholicism and several tense conversations challenge the characters and the audience to explore how difficult it is to acknowledge and understand current events as they unfold.

Denial and repressed memories shape each scene. By 1955, a dapper young Leo is one of only three remaining family members. Like Tom Stoppard, Leo has only a vague sense that he is Jewish. Like Stoppard, Leo writes popular, funny stories. Like Stoppard, Leo has changed his name so that it sounds less Jewish. Leo’s demeanor reflects how temping it can be to avoid the past. Even as his pasts lingers within and shapes who he has become.

Leopoldstadt is running through January 31, 2023 at the Longacre Theater in Times Square. While obviously intense, this important story challenges audiences to confront the impulse to look away.

The Orpheus and Eurydice tale broke my heart when I first learned it in high school, and I have been in the bargaining phase of acceptance of it ever since.

It was one of the many contributors to my decision to become a relationship therapist.

I’m probably not kidding.

In short, the story is about two young lovers who are separated when Eurydice dies. Orpheus is so sad and so talented that his grieving song moves the gods to give him a chance to go to the underworld and take her back to life with him. The one condition is that on their journey back to living she must walk behind him and he cannot turn around to check on her. They are so close to making it out together, but he gives in to his doubt and turns around – separating them forever.

When I think of the story, I bargain things like: What if Hades gave them one more chance? Or maybe they needed to break up anyway and they both found happiness elsewhere? Maybe this was all a vision of things to come and Orpheus was able to correct his behavior before he made such a grave mistake?

It is very hard for me to accept that Orpheus just blew his chance at happiness with her and poof! She’s gone.

This tale has a profound meaning when we think of the more terrestrial things that desperate lovers do to ruin relationships forever. The modern Orpheus battles insecurities, so he cheats for validation. The modern Orpheus is hypervigilant for signs his partner will abandon him so he smothers his partner until the worry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The modern Orpheus abandons his Eurydice before she can leave him.

And then there are the Orpheuses who are a little less dramatic, but slowly chip away at their loving connection through patterns of emotional reactivity. Verbal meltdowns and distancing, for example.  These are the Orpheuses who do little peeks back – flirting with the risk of losing their partner…

Wow, this is getting sad. It’s such a sad tale!

Anyway, as the audience, we can see their tragic fate could have been avoided with trust. If Orpheus has built up his trust in himself and in Eurydice, he might have been able to emotionally endure long enough to see them both out.

Yes, I’m wishing that Orpheus had talked through his plans with a therapist and created an effective cognitive and emotional safety plan. I wish Orpheus and Eurydice had met with a couple therapist before their journey out of the underworld to fortify their communication and connection during such a stressful time.

The hit Broadway musical, Hadestown, by Anaïs Mitchell hauntingly depicts this story. The lyrics in the song “Wait For Me,” and its reprise, bring to life the psychological battles that doubt creates. The characters, “the Fates,” personify our worst fears and most pernicious inner voices that can drown out the voices of those reaching out to us. In this song they attempt to overpower Eurydice’s calls to Orpheus with their questioning.

My wish for people in love is this plot can stay fictional. That by working through insecurity, we need not lose love to distrust.

If you are interested in seeing Hadestown you are in luck! It’s coming to The Kennedy Center this October!

Wait for Me (Reprise)

From the musical Hadestown

Music and Lyrics by by Anaïs Mitchell

Lyric Sample:

[HERMES, spoken]

The meanest dog you’ll ever meet

He ain’t the hound dog in the street

He bares some teeth and tears some skin

But brother, that’s the worst of him

The dog you really got to dread

Is the one that howls inside your head

It’s him whose howling drives men mad

And a mind to its undoing

[ORPHEUS and EURYDICE]

Wait for me, I’m comin’

Wait, I’m comin’ with you

Wait for me, I’m comin’ too

Lucy’s husband needs to work and take care of their kids, so he convinces Lucy’s mother (who has never taken a plane) to fly to Manhattan to keep Lucy company in the hospital. Linney was stunning as Lucy, and entertaining when she morphed into her mother in this memorable one-woman show. Linney is not playing two different characters. Instead, she is playing one character that, at times, becomes an animated imitation of the other.

During the show, I felt fortunate to see one of my favorite actresses become a literary character she seemed meant to play. I wondered how she could remember so many lines and what tricks she might be using to not loose her voice performing each evening, night after night. I also recall that the sounds of audience members coughing throughout the Samuel J. Freidman theater seemed much more noticeable. Was that because we were all thinking more about the mysterious virus exploding in China? Might a sound that was always present in shows of the past sound amplified as questions about the virus penetrated my consciousness? Or were audience members actually sick? I felt relieved to have a seat in the back row of the theater. I remember feeling pleased that the doctor had a revered presence in the play, though not quite as much of a beloved presence as in the book.

What I did not anticipate at the time was how incredibly fortunate Linney was to complete her Broadway run while so many other actors and staff were not so fortunate. Nor did I contemplate that the very idea on which the plot is based — being permitted to be in a hospital with an ailing loved one — could soon seem like a luxury. Nor could I have imagined that I would look back the beloved doctor’s presence in the play and feel even more awe and appreciation for who doctors are and what they do. In the play, Lucy’s doctor is a respected and revered illusive presence lurking devotedly in the background, pulling Lucy through her illness and keeping her alive. That’s who doctors are and the play acknowledges the significance of this role. With so much to grieve and fear during this uncertain time, I feel grateful that doctors and other medical and scientific professionals are being seen for the heroes they are and always have been.

I felt affirmed to discover that Rich, too, felt “perplexed” by the play and motivated to develop a deeper understanding of the experience. His article likens the original play and the phenomenon of its immediate popularity to Hamilton. The original play premiered soon after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and told a tale of human relationships with a backdrop of apparent patriotism. Rich continues:

Like Hamilton, too, Oklahoma! was deemed artistically revolutionary for its time. A self-styled “musical drama” rather than a musical comedy, it dispensed with the usual leggy chorus line and leveraged its songs to advance character and plot. Not that there was much plot: The Oklahoma farm girl Laurey can’t decide between the two suitors vying to take her to a box social, Curly and her farm’s hired hand, Jud.

Through Rich’s review I discovered that the dialogue in the play is unchanged from the original. The play I saw as an adolescent seemed to celebrate courtship, love and romance as well as the American dream. The current play is mesmerizing and overwhelming audiences while telling the same story, only swapping out a knife with a gun it its final scene. The relationships in the current production feel fraught and full of anxiety. The backdrop of patriotism I recall from the earlier production shifts to one that asks pointed questions about the undercurrents of American values and American life.
The idea that the same dialogue can tell two completely different stories is quite interesting from a psychological perspective and one that comes up often in couples therapy. As a systems therapist, I work intensively with clients to focus on communication skills and styles. My work affirms and re-affirms that words matter as do tone, volume and body language. But I have never seen the significance of tone, volume and body language enacted so powerfully as through the comparisons of these two versions of the very same play.

Couples will often remember a conversation – especially a heated one – as if they lived it out as characters in two completely different stories. Especially in volatile relationships, one partner may remember an exchange as hostile and combative and the other may recall the exchange as calm and free of angst. To navigate contrasting versions of the same story, it is essential to excavate how each person feels about the dilemma and what they are willing to own as their part of the problem. It never works to determine with certainty exactly what tone was used at which volume accompanies by what particular body language. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to reflect on a work of art that threads the needle between the two and, in doing so, tells a completely new version of the very same old story.

If possible, make it to Broadway to catch this Tony award winning production. But read (and maybe re-read) Frank Rich’s column before you do.

The show’s glib and gutsy improvisational artists elevate the concept of spontaneity to new heights of festivity, humor and musical freedom. We happened to join the audience on what was likely the coldest night of the fall thus far, and so the presenting chill became a recurring lyrical theme.

The general plot consists of three distinct moments of audience participation. First, the audience is asked to shout out words representing something they do not like. Freestyle interpretation soars. And let’s just say that avocado toast will never be the same again.

Next, audience members are encouraged to share difficult memories from the past and one person’s memory is chosen. The cast proceeds to sing the story’s narrative, revisiting the pain and embarrassment from the past. Next, the script is restructured and re-written to construct a new narrative and construct what therapists would call a “corrective emotional experience”. This improvised storytelling and retelling functions as the show’s expressive centerpiece. The idea is to take something painful, tell the story, and then re-tell it with a different twist that pitches to the protagonist’s strength. By giving a traumatic or adverse memory a new perspective, healing is possible. This theatrical approach is psychologically consistent with one of the most respected and cutting edge treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – EMDR. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The therapeutic strategy uses rapid eye movements to help patients to reprocess traumatic memories and infuse their current narrative with new perspectives. Flawed cognitions that are often the result of trauma are replaced with healthier, more realistic insights and cognitions. As a therapist trained in EMDR, it was thrilling to discover the therapy’s improvisational counterpart.

An audience member willing to come on stage and describe some unfortunate human interactions shapes the final musical chapter. Each of the three audience infused threads are connected through the artists’ improvisational observations and exceedingly creative interpretations. Avocado toast, the original point of contention, takes center stage again and again.

The cast is inspiring, talented, musical and sharp. The audience laughs with carefree abandon, and nobody misses the time away from their phones. Not even my skeptical daughter.

From a psychological perspective, the play explores the dilemma of single parenting. Scout is the play’s protagonist and she and her brother, Jem, and their hilarious friend Dill fend for themselves in a gritty Alabama town in the 1930s. Unlike the book, the play wastes no time getting to the falsely accused defendant Tom Robinson’s rape trial. Their widower father, Atticus, is a dignified defense attorney who acts as a vessel championing justice, etiquette and human decency. Atticus lives and breathes to model and teach his children these values. Their nanny, Calpurnia, functions as a surrogate mother and more of a sibling than a stand-in spouse for Atticus. As she breaks rank and points out, sometimes the values of justice, etiquette and decency can clash and collide.

Scout, and Jem emphasize justice. And their dignified, determined but beleaguered father prioritizes etiquette. The irony — as true today as it was in the 1930s when the book takes place or in 1960 when the book was written — is that parents often learn as much from their children as the children learn from their parents.

Atticus teaches his children that life isn’t fair. Scout and Jem teach their father that sometimes justice is more meaningful and complicated than manners will allow.

This is a propitious time to be reminded that protest in the face of injustice and indecency may require less attention to etiquette.

Landford Wilson’s Broadway play, Burn This, starring Keri Russell and Adam Driver is a story about grief, and loss, and falling in love. Keri Russell plays Anna, a chic young dancer in New York City in 1987 who has just lost her gay dance partner and housemate, Robbie, in a freak boating accident. Robbie has not come out to his family. So, when Anna attends the funeral, she is treated as if she was Robbie’s girlfriend and she goes along with this charade.

The play opens as Anna, awash in grief, describes the scenes of the funeral to her other housemate, Larry. (Larry was traveling for work and unable to make it to the service.) Anna stretches her limbs and sighs with sadness as a violent door-knocking interrupts her pensive self-reflection. With swagger and abundant male energy, Robbie’s brother, Pale, barges into Anna’s home.

Pale is drunk, belligerent, and broken up about Robbie’s death. Anna and Pale experience a personality clash that invites the audience to wonder about the intense contrasts that must have existed between machismo Pale and his sensitive, gay, dancing brother. The chemistry is immediate. Anna and Pale banter in annoyance as if they have known each other for years. Anna steps in to say what Robbie could not. Pale teases Anna for living in a less than conventional neighborhood in an off-beat, open space. Anna reprimands Pale for his failure to make time to experience the utter joy of seeing Robbie dance. As far as Anna is concerned, Pale didn’t even know his brother.

And yet, Anna and Pale fall quickly and passionately into each other’s embrace.

Burn This explores how two unexpected, grieving souls might be drawn together despite strong differences in personality, preferences and world views. Anna is artsy and wears lots of flowing robes. Pale is a guy’s guy who drinks too much and throws too many punches. Anna seems drawn to the parts of Pale that may be physically or spiritually similar to Robbie, despite their uncanny differences. Pale seems drawn to Anna’s creative energy and the welcoming way she lives outside of the box. Of course, this is a part of Anna’s personality that bonded so deeply with Robbie with his brother during the years that his family rejected him. Their love seems fused by a dual desire to feel closer to Robbie.

One healing strategy through grief or loss is to aim for a corrective emotional experience. An experience can generate a healing value when revisits a painful situation and tries to do something differently in order to navigate a new result. Pale sees, accepts and embraces Anna for who she is. This mirrors the way he should have embraced and accepted his brother. Anne can absorb Pale’s admiration and acceptance as hers, but possibly not entirely hers alone. Perhaps she views Pale’s love as way to finally allow Robbie some version of being loved and embraced for who he was. This journey offers a glimmer of healing for them both.

When Joan Allen and John Malkovich starred in Burn This more than thirty years ago, Joan Allen won a Tony Award as Anna and John Malkovich won notorious praise for his wacky portrayal of Pale. Keri Russell and Adam Driver recreate these roles as their own and create a compelling, unexpected love story that demonstrates how love can sometimes become a healing and corrective emotional experience.

Sam Shepard’s intense and honest play, True West, offers a raw exploration of brotherly competition. The play opens as Austin (Paul Dano) clicks away on his typewriter, diligently determined to meet his professional obligations as a writer, spouse and father who is housesitting for his mother while she takes a trip to Alaska. In struts his tipsy brutish brother Lee (Ethan Hawke) who taunts and teases Lee and tries to distract him from his work. Both actors melt into their roles as quintessential good cop and bad cop as Austin dutifully waters his mother’s plants and tries to whip Lee into shape. Lee just wants more liquor and the keys to Austin’s car, and Austin relents if only to get Lee out of the house as he prepares for an important meeting with a Saul who wants to sell Austin’s screenplay and further launch his career. Not surprisingly, Lee takes the car but returns in time to invade Austin’s business meeting as brotherly tension builds.

Shepard’s masterly presence is felt throughout these actor’s lively and active performances. Dano and Hawke’s chemistry is believable and admirable. The brothers’ journey reveals how ardently people tend to cling to their family roles. It is common to state a desire for change, but when possibilities for transformation present themselves, conscious and unconscious resistance to change can feel as ingrained as conscious and unconscious sibling rivalry. But rivalry and resistance to change do not mean that change is impossible, and neither represents a barrier to love.

I was thrilled to find last minute tickets to this past Sunday’s matinee. At the show’s conclusion, it was announced that members of the company would be staying to discuss the show. About a quarter of the audience stayed and shared the exciting surprise that it was Ethan Hawke and Gary Wilmes (Saul) who joined the audience to answer questions. A talented moderator shared that Shepard’s work conveys the belief that male violence in America connects with painful experiences of inadequacy and that the play was as much about how toxic masculinity sabotages our land, our culture and family relationships. Wilmes was humble and humorous and Hawke was brilliant and engaged. Hawke described how his lines and his character enter his subconscious and it was noticeable that his hands were covered in scabs from the sheer physicality of his performance. This unexpected window into the actors’ experience amplified an already extraordinary theatrical experience.