"France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter – it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of heart."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yesterday at Carnegie Hall, I attended The Great War and The Great Gatsby, a special two-night multimedia concert and historical narration, conceptualized by historian John Monsky.
At its core, John walks us through the events of World War I in a blended storytelling format that's both personal (he has his own familial links to the war), grounded (in photographs and factually accurate details), and present (in each performance he makes an effort to bring descendants into the audience, and gesture to them when appropriate).
To accompany the historic immersion, photos projected onto the wall of Carnegie Hall itself took us back to scenes from World War I, as a 30-piece orchestra played both peppy and somber Americana wartime melodies. Five esteemed singers played the roles of different historic figures (and some from The Great Gatsby's universe), personifying them through song, all while John laid out for the audience through all of the historically significant moments.
Dubbed as "musical storytelling," the mash-up format felt both novel and throught-provoking. (How many times have you considered how the literary narrative The Great Gatsby layers up so elegantly with major themes from World War I?)
It was, to put it plainly, a Production (with a capital "p").
You don't see creative works quite like that anymore. In many ways, it feels like an artifact from a simpler time. When I learned John first conceptualized a version of this work (in his apartment, with neighbors gathered around him) back in 2013, I realized that he's managed to retain this concept to bring us back to an inclusive, American-positive mindset, from long before the twists and turns that the decade to follow would introduce.
I left walking away from the performance feeling decidedly American, which is a word I don't use much anymore. And certainly one that doesn't bring me pride the way it used to.
What's nice about the production is that it transports us all to a collective moment of American ideals, back to a time when the whole country could rally around something (ie: "the Great War"). And they did.
I'm neither a war historian nor a military aficionado, but I still found it fascinating to hear how John broke down different aspects of the battleground stories from the front lines, which concluded with the Argonne Forest and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, one of the final pushes that the Allied troops made before the war ended.
At one point, John said something to the effect of:
"Every boy on every block in every neighborhood in every town in America knew about the Argonne."
I found myself wondering what that thing might be today. The one idea that captivates the hearts and minds of Americans, that brings us to the front lines of the parade routes in celebration after a job well done, the thing that encourages us to set down ourselves, for a few years, even, for the greater good of the country or the world at large.
Near the conclusion of the show, John brings us back to a quote from The Great Gatsby, the one at the top of this blog post and projected on the wall of Carnegie Hall as well. It asks us to consider the notion of America as represented not by physical land, or the people who live there, but of the ideas it inspires.
I like to think we can get back to a little of that feeling again.
I wonder: What's today's concept of the "American idea"?
Acknowledgements: I would be remiss to omit the immense work from several members of the creative and production team on this performance. I can't overstate how incredible it is to see a decades-long friend conduct a show like this. Bravo to Ian Weinberger for conducting the St. Luke's Orchestra. Additionally to co-orchestrator Scott Wasserman, production manager Bethany Stewert, and of course my husband, Jason Crystal who led the sound design for this ambitious work.
PSA: See it Yourself: While the NYC run of this performance has concluded, the concert was recorded for PBS and will be available as a movie. It will also features performances in Miami and other cities in the U.S. as part of a national tour. You can find more information about the series at American History Unbound here: https://www.americanhistoryunbound.com/
