Once (a new musical)

Spoiler Alert! If you plan on seeing Once and don’t want the ending ruined stay away!

            This Musical is based on the 2006 Irish Musical film Once. The story, set in Dublin,Ireland, is about a Dublin man and a Czech immigrant. They meet one day when the man “Guy” is playing a song on his guitar and the women “Girl” becomes intrigued by his music.

Throughout the story it is clear that the two are falling in love with each other, however, it is all much more complicated then that. Girl has a husband back home; they were not doing very well together which caused her to move to Ireland, however, she still feels loyal to him and hopes they will work out their problems. Guy has a girlfriend who moved to New York a few months ago, he still loves her but can’t help falling for Girl.Throughout the story Guy tries to push his girlfriend out of his mind. He believes that she is living in New York and will have found someone new by now.Girl knows that Guy’s girlfriend still loves him, call it intuition, so she makes sure to never let guy get too close. In the end Guy’s father gives him money to move to New York and pursue his dream of becoming a famous musician.Guy also calls his girlfriend and they plan to reunite. As his last gesture before leaving Dublin Guy buys Girl a piano (what she’s always wanted). Girl finally hears from her husband and he decides to move to Dublin so they can fix their marriage.

            “It’snot a love story, it’s a story about love.” This quote describes the musical perfectly. It’s not about two main characters falling in love forever and always. Guy and Girl never so much as hug throughout the entire musical. Yes the tension is there, but they both know better. Girl’s reluctance to be with Guy is probably tied to her own longing to fix her marriage. Her entire family tells her to leave her husband and be with Guy, as it can be inferred that he is a much nicer and better man then her husband even though the audience never meets him. However, it is clear that she feels obligated to fix the marriage if not for her sake but for her child. This feeling of loyalty to her husband is also a reason why Girl feels that Guy’s girlfriend is still in love with him. She portrays her own feelings for her husband on a women she’s never met and uses them to infer the feelings of Guy’s girlfriend. This inference is proven to be true when Guy finally calls his girlfriend and discovers her excitement at the idea of Guy coming to meet her in New York. All this comes together to make up the theme of following ones heart. Not just following ones impulse as Guy does throughout the Musical but digging deeper to realize what the heart really wants. If Guy never met Girl it is uncertain whether he would have ever realized his true potential and decided to move to New York to reunite with his girlfriend. In a sense Guy couldn’t have done any of it without Girl.

            This brings us to another topic, the one of names. Why is it that in a musical as intricate as this the two main characters have such simple yet peculiar names?  Is it to contrast the complications the two face in figuring out what their hearts want? Or is it to show how simple the solutions to their problems were, they just thought too hard into them? Such obvious names like Guy and Girl serve the purpose of being blatantly simple within a complicated situation. Love confusion aside, the writer reminds us that while a relationship can be difficult, in the end there’s just one guy and one girl. Two people, while a whirlwind of thoughts, emotions, and interactions may happen between them; at the end of the day it’s just two. The simplicity within the names reminds us that the answer to our problems may be clearer then we think, if we take the time to look into what our hearts are telling us. Love is not always as complicated as people make it to be. The heart is a tricky thing, but it will tell you what it wants if you’re willing to listen.