Natasha, Pierre, Comet 1812 REACT Part Nine FINAL
Added 2025-06-13 16:00:06 +0000 UTCTHIS IS THE END! What a show stopping moment. My thoughts and comments about the show are at the end, along with my FINAL rating.
Comments
The spoken line hits me so hard. It’s Pierre making an active choice instead of reacting to what’s happening around him, basically hammering home to this girl he’s known her whole life that her life isn’t over because of something stupid she did as a teenager, and in return, he’s feeling something other than the overwhelming depression he’s been in for the rest of the show (from dust and ashes: I want to wake up, God, don’t let me die while I’m like this, and the spoken part followed by the comet IS that moment). A decade later and I’m still not over it. Also: I had the pleasure of seeing great comet on broadway, and videos not do the comet justice. The past couple of songs have been in low and/or static neutral to blue lighting, the vibes have been BAD, and then all of a sudden you have this overwhelmingly bright, warm light engulfing the ENTIRE theater as the cast (and audience) stare at it. they’re literally positioned so that you can see at least one cast member from every seat in the house. it’s truly an insane emotional catharsis moment, possibly one of the best theater moments i’ve seen live
itsmiira
2025-08-02 03:06:07 +0000 UTCAs a huge fan of War and Peace, Andrei showing up at the end is basically my Avengers portals scene. Literally my favorite character in fiction showing up for one song then dipping.
Josh
2025-07-01 22:40:10 +0000 UTCWell said! I like the closure in your view. I couldn’t find it as I was watching but this makes sense for a more fulfilling ending
Nicholas Filippides
2025-06-17 04:58:23 +0000 UTCVery insightful! I definitely agree about your summary with my interpretation of her actions. It’s also crazy to hear Pierre and Natasha do get together in the end, meaning it almost is meant to be a happy moving forward ending but that almost seems sadder in some respects. I guess that moment would have meant a lot more if you knew that going in prior with that interpretation but it would be impossible to know that from that line and everything that happened before it haha Still a good show!!
Nicholas Filippides
2025-06-17 04:56:46 +0000 UTCI think the place where you and this show diverge is in the way you view mistakes, morality, culpability, and consequences. The show takes a much less black-and-white view of good, bad, moral, and immoral. Regardless of the way that things are interpreted, I think the audience /is/ meant to feel some compassion for Natasha, not to cosign her choices as good choices, but to feel compassion for her: in Dave Malloy's authorial genius notes (https://genius.com/11891838), he's talking about cutting a song called "Natasha Lost," he said that in cutting it "we found that Natasha’s confusion was actually more acute, and that the audience was actually a little more sympathetic to her plight." I'm not sure if in my previous comment or in this comment I've been able to properly articulate the way I feel about this, but I think none of the "major" characters are purely "good" or "bad," "moral" or "immoral," but rather people who make both good choices and bad choices in their lives, for various reasons informed by the social structures in which they live. (The social structures bit is my interpretation, but I do think it's important that the characters and their actions came out of a 19th century century novel written in the 19th century.) Natasha is impulsive, and shortsighted, and self-centered, but she's also joyful and gentle and full of joie-de-vivre. Anatole shares a lot of the same faults, magnified; not only self-centered but selfish, callous, and manipulative, and the show similarly underlines the "positive" of his lifestyle; "there's a true sage, living in the moment," but the show also suggests he may have some genuine feeling and for Natasha. Pierre is almost a different sort of self-centered; he ruminates and intellectualizes and doesn't actually make connections with other people, but he has that relatable human yearning to make a difference. And, as you picked up on, he envied Anatole's lifestyle until he realized that Anatole was hurting someone Pierre cared about. When Natasha is told that Anatole is already married, her life could easily actually be over by 19th-century terms. Her world is shattered, she realizes that she was unfaithful to/broke her engagement with Andrey, a man who would have been the saving of her family, over a man who deceived her and would likely have abandoned her to a similar kind of ruin. She's NOT being hyperbolic or manipulative when she tells Pierre that she does not feel worthy of his gentle comfort, or that she feels all is over for her. (I believe things would have been much worse for her if Pierre and Marya had not managed to get Anatole out of Moscow and suppress the letters between them.) My clumsy interpretation of the finale is that Pierre, is in a sense, seeing someone who has problems beyond being rich and unfulfilled, blaming and despising herself for something that was, at the very least, not her fault alone (notably Natasha does accept responsibility for her part in things, and Anatole refuses to face responsibility for the effect his action have on others), and he really sees her, and feel compassion for her. Although Pierre and Natasha will indeed marry much later in the novel, I don't actually (personally) interpret the way that he says he would marry her if he could as a true expression of immediate romantic attraction. I see it as a way of affirming her inherent worth as a person and the possibility of a future for her (filtered through an 1812 lens / view of women's value). Pierre gets something he was missing this entire play - genuine human connection and the fact that he did something truly good and useful. He made a difference for this one other human being.
Lydia Brunk
2025-06-17 03:13:07 +0000 UTCYes, in that spoken line to Natasha, Pierre is talking about himself. That's why he says “if I were free” - because he's married to Helene and therefore not free to ask for Natasha’s hand, even if he felt worthy of doing so. Dave Malloy wanted to subvert the typical musical theatre rule of characters singing when their emotions get too big to contain in spoken words, with the opposite - now there is no music left to contain them. It may be somewhat - clumsy? (perhaps as expected) - of Pierre to express his feelings in this way at this moment. But I think that this confession and her grateful response is their awkward way of realizing that despite how unworthy of life and love they may perceive themselves to be, they can still experience compassion and redemption. For Dave, this is a story about the spectrum of humanity, from “trashy romance” to existential searching. And the various musical styles are intended to reflect the various dimensions of human experience. He saw a two-couple character structure in the story that reminded him of classic musicals. Of course there’s Natasha and Anatole, but also Pierre and…the comet? God? Some other mystical relation? For me, the comet is a reminder that no matter how bleak things may seem, there is more to existence, and in being in/with it without narrow perceptions, there can be an opportunity for awe and wonder. Sharing that moment surrounded by actors and audience members, with the comet “Sputnik chandelier” glowing overhead and the music swelling and fading, evokes a feeling of communion that's hard for me to put into words.
berha
2025-06-16 01:37:22 +0000 UTC
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