I really like Me and the Sky as a song, although I think it's a bit derivative of Life Story from Maltby and Shire's Closer Than Ever, down to the somewhat random mention of the protagonist's age plopped into the middle of a verse (49 in Life Story, and 51 in Me and the Sky). Jenn Colella's rendition of Me and the Sky is wonderful.
But it's very weird to hear this song within this show. As others have mentioned, the song sticks out as being the only solo song in the entire production. And the song is mostly a backstory about the protagonist's struggles against sexism, and it has very little to do with the remainder of the musical. And in the staging, the song ends abruptly before the last lyric when the phone rings, and Colella picks up the phone, says she'll be right there, and walks off the stage. It's a peculiar ending for the audience -- is she coming back? Is the song over? There's no clear explanation later of who called her or where she went; it's just a method to get her off the stage. And none of the themes brought up during the song are ever brought up again in the show.
(On the cast recording and in TV show appearances, Colella sings the last word - "sky" - but not in the show. I get that Christopher Ashley wanted to eliminate the applause button, but if you don't want to have the applause button, there are other ways of handling that. ) |
