I thought well that sounds like it’s going to be the most contrived show possible – – is the sole goal of the show to get its audience to cry?  I know that every review that I saw and every talkshow appearance with the cast on TV always talked about how much you’re going to cry – – how much you’re going to be devastated by this show. It certainly had me curious. To me it’s like a show that sets out so hard to be funny. Just by trying so hard to be funny often it’s not funny at all. Was this going to be the case with The Notebook? It certainly was for me.

I guess I don’t need to mention anything of the plot in that I guess I am the last person on earth who hasn’t who doesn’t know the plot to the show. When it comes to watching the musical one thing that held me at a distance was that I didn’t care for any of the characters on stage. I simply didn’t know them. I know that they fell in love almost instantly, but I didn’t know who they were as people. I didn’t know where they came from, what they struggled for, what defined them, where they saw themselves in the future – – all I saw them as was as love pawns in an endless game of love me, love me more, love me more. When heartbreak came for them, as I knew it would, I could hardly feel upset as I really didn’t grow attached to them.

Sure there were songs with powerful soul-grabbling belts and showering rains on stage but would a bit of character development have killed them. There was some beautiful music and some extraordinary belting but how magical it would have been if I would have cared about the characters.