If And Then Play Analysis

Play Review The title of the play I saw is If/ Then. The music in it was composed by Tom Kitt, and the script and lyrics are by Brian Yorkey. It was produced by Proof Productions, Inc. The play opened with Elizabeth holding something, talking to herself about what would have happened if she had never met someone very important to her, whom she had obviously lost. While walking in a park many years before this moment, she made two decisions that would greatly affect the rest of her life: to go to a protest with her college friend Lucas or to stay in the park with her new friend Kate and the decision to pick up a phone with an area code she didn’t recognize or to talk to an army doctor named Josh who just came home from his second tour. From here, the story split off into two separate possible realities: one where she went by Lucas’ nickname for her, Beth, and picked up the phone before going to the protest, and one where she went by Kate’s nickname for her, Liz, and stayed in the park to listen to live music and talk to Josh. …show more content…
Beth’s story continues after the emergency landing, when she reconnects with Lucas in the park after many years without speaking (in which he wrote an autobiography that included some not-so-flattering stories about Beth) and she finally meets Josh, who had just returned after his third tour. The denouement of Liz’s story, while absolutely heartbreaking, was satisfactory because it wrapped up the story well and tied everything together. It was surprising to the audience that Liz, whose story was so happy, had to end the play on such a sad note, but it showed that things can go wrong right when everything is perfectly on track. I think the end of Beth’s story was more satisfactory because she already had a successful career and met Josh after his career in the army was over and the two of them could live a normal