Singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge has sold millions of albums in her decades-long musical career, featuring such smash hits as “I Want to Come Over,” “I’m the Only One,” and “Come to My Window.” She’s won a Grammy and an Oscar, the latter for her song “I Need to Wake Up” featured in the Al Gore global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth. She came out publicly as a lesbian early on despite the risk it might pose to her career. She survived a fight against breast cancer. And she was on the cover of Rolling Stone for an article in which she publicly identified singer David Crosby as the father of her two children with her then-partner.
All in all, she’s led a very interesting life. And in her new musical, autobiographical Off-Broadway show playing for a limited run of 12 performances at New World Stages, you hear about every minute of it.
For rabid Etheridge fans, of course, sitting through more than three hours of the performer relating the story of her life in an intimate venue while performing solo versions of her hits as well as numerous deep cuts and covers will be an opportunity not to be missed. The more casual fan, however, may find their enjoyment tempered by the evening’s self-indulgence and lack of judicious editing that would have brought the proceedings into sharper focus. Even Bruce Springsteen, whose concerts have often reached marathon-length proportions, knew well enough to keep his theatrical show, for which this seems an obvious inspiration, under the 2 ½ hour mark.
You get a sense of what you’re in for when Etheridge, wearing a rock singer-appropriate wardrobe of t-shirt and jean jacket, begins the evening with an account of her birth in Leavenworth Kansas, complete with baby pictures. She proceeds to tell us how she took up playing guitar at eight years old, and was performing with various bands by the age of twelve, including being part of a variety show that played nearby prisons (cue the inevitable joke about performing to a “captive audience”).
She realized her sexuality as a teenager, beginning a romantic relationship with a “colonel’s daughter” when she was 17. Her mother didn’t handle the revelation well, leading Etheridge to confide a local pastor who kindly told her, “I do not believe that God would make a love that is wrong.”
After dropping out of the Berklee School of Music, Etheridge headed to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of stardom. Not long after, she was discovered by Island Records head Chris Blackwell, who declared, “I believe the future of rock and roll has a female face.” Critical and commercial success soon followed, peaking with her albums Yes I Am and Your Little Secret in 1993 and 1995 respectively. In between, she came out publicly by announcing, “I am proud to say that I have been a lesbian all my life” at a gay-themed ball celebrating Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.
Enduring chemotherapy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she famously appeared bald at the 2005 Grammy Awards, performing a rendition of “Piece of My Heart” as part of a tribute to Janis Joplin.
She has also become an advocate for numerous causes, including gay rights and environmental issues, and suffered a personal tragedy two years ago when her 21-year-old son died of a drug overdose.
We hear about all this, and much, much more in the course of the evening in which she also performs more than two dozen songs in her distinctive smoky voice, accompanying herself on guitar and other instruments. She’s not entirely alone onstage, with a “Roadie” amusingly played by Kate Owens providing silent physical comedy routines and handing her the various guitars.
At age 61, Etheridge sounds better than ever, and her story has undeniably touching aspects. But the show, written by the performer and her spouse Linda Wallem Etheridge, goes on far too long and includes more minute detail than necessary. When Etheridge tells us about her first experience taking mescaline, we’re treated to a lengthy description of the drug’s properties and the misguidedness of Richard Nixon’s drug policies. We hear at length about seemingly every romantic relationship and flirtation she ever experienced, including her current happy marriage to a “truly awesome woman.” An anecdote about overdosing on pot brownies leads to a lengthy segment featuring trippy psychedelic visuals and, of course, a rendition of her song “Open Your Mind.” And when she proudly informs us of her Grammy and Academy Awards, the “roadie” helpfully brings them (or reasonable facsimiles) onstage as props.
Etheridge’s lyrics are often confessional, making the links between the spoken and sung portions of the evening unusually cohesive. But it also results in a certain redundancy, minus the poetical observations that made Springsteen’s solo show such a profound experience. By the end of My Window — A Journey Through Life, you feel like you’ve been on a very long journey yourself, and your mileage will vary.
My Window—A Journey Through Life opened October 13, 2022 at New World Stages and runs through October 29. Tickets and information: melissaetheridge.com
