13 is a broadway musical about, well, being 13 years old. it has an all-teenage cast and band, and is about a kid named evan goldman who finds his world turned upside-down when he turns 13. with his parent's divorce, his family moves from new york to indiana, and he is demoted from "cool-new-york-kid" to "reject-in-appleton, indiana." to top it off, no one wants to come to his bar mitzvah. in order to become the cool-new-york-kid again, he tries to force his way into the popular kids group, abandoning his only real friends: his new next-door-neighbor, patrice, and archie, a crippled boy with a terminal illness.
amidst evan's strife are the classic middle school/high school plots: 2 girls fighting over a boy, a boy trying to get "sheezy" with a girl, mean girls starting nasty rumors that ruin people's lives, and just good ole' drama!
it sounds corny. and it is. it's filled with cheesy jokes, not-so-flashy choreography, and screechy pubescent voices.
but i loved it. mixed in with the awkwardness were some truly genius moments, like this one (the climax of the entire thing, in my opinion):
evan has just been kicked out of the cool crowd, at rock-bottom, when archie and patrice assure him that it really isn't rock-bottom. people will always knock you down, but you have to rise above them, and "put one foot in front of the other...and just keep walking on."
and evan, listening to them, just has this great aha! moment:
"...I'm becoming a man
Maybe all that it means is
I face the world for what it is
And not what I wish it could be
I'm becoming a man
Wanting everything to fall into place
I swing, I miss
I'll get through this
I almost guarantee
One day I'll be thirty
One day I'll be fine
One day I'll make fun of this dramatic life of mine..."
he finallyfinallyfinallyFINALLY gets it! the whole musical, he's been pushing and pushing and pushing for the cool kids to come to his party so that he'll be cool, and missing what truly matters and what has been in front of him the whole time: life isn't about being 'cool.' life is about learning how to be yourself. life is about learning from your mistakes. life is knowing that - no matter what you do or how badly you screw up - it goes on.
i really, really, really enjoyed this musical. despite its fluff, it was a poignant portrait of what it means to be a 13-year-old growing up and discovering life for the first time. it reminds us that, whether we're 13 or 35, we all mess up sometimes. and that's ok.
