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My Joy Is Heavy
Like Kahlil Gibran’s poem “A Tear and a Smile,” the Bengsons’ musical memoir My Joy Is Heavy displays the couple’s affirmation of life in contrasts. Great joy can arise while experiencing great loss.
The Obie-winning couple responsible for notable offerings like New York Theatre Workshop’s Hundred Days presents an intimate, visceral series of experiences expressed organically in haunting, beautiful music. Grounded in the audience’s remembrance of the isolation and traumas of COVID lockdowns, the musical depicts the fiery trials Abigail and Shaun Bengson went through during that time.
This powerful cycle of songs and narration, superbly directed by Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown), transports the audience at every moment. Abigail and Shaun invite audience members into their world and a gritty chronicle of emotions, spooling out from an extraordinary mix of folk-rock, punk and gospel that rearranges one’s psyche. Because of audience enthusiasm, My Joy Is Heavy has been extended through April 12, 2026 at New York Theatre Workshop.
An Intimate Production
The couple’s attention to the audience makes the production intimate and heartfelt. It employs closed captions that appear above the stage to capture our attention so we “get” the lyrics. Additionally, the musical duo cuts to the chase when they identify their intention to share a compelling revelation. This centers their memoir when Abigail proclaims, “We’re here to tell you about this one moment, this one moment that happened right there on that bed.”
Lee Jellinek’s set places the bed Abigail refers to in a replication of her mom’s house in Vermont. There the couple and their toddler son stayed during the alienating months of COVID. During that time they experienced an epiphany. Like a shamanic vision, it drives them artistically. Hoping that the expressiveness and power of their story help restore harmony and wholeness, they aim to make us experience a cathartic, emotional release.
A Memorialization
They call upon the audience to reflect upon those lost to the pandemic. Abigail memorializes these individuals with a symbolic gesture involving two audience members. Then the duo plunge into their musical narrative, with choreography by Steph Paul and music supervision by Obie Award winner Or Matias. Throughout, we hear Shaun’s great versatility playing piano, guitar, accordion and more and the expert six-member band directed by Matt Deitchman.
The show rides waves of humor, uplift and sadness, not slowing down until the couple sing the last refrain of “My Joy Is Heavy” to the audience’s rhythmic hand clapping.
We see snippets of Gramma Kathy, Abigail’s mother, and the toddler Louie in home video footage. Chavkin seamlessly integrates these and other projected videos into the narrative to convey and enhance the memoir and to transition to other scenes with different emotional contexts. Some also relay quieter moments of family life in “the calm before the emotional storms.”
As a complement to the home videos, David Bengali’s creative video design, which accompanies the metaphoric song “Underground” and serves as background for other musical pieces, effectively captures the Bengsons’ interior emotions. During “Underground” evocative projections serve the lyrics: “I’ve been underground in a deep, dark cave, doing my best to stay alive.” Alan C. Edwards’ lighting makes the projections pop. Abigail experiences excruciating headaches that she labels PTSD. Clearly, the pandemic causes intense stress when it goes on for months because of skyrocketing numbers of the dead and dying.
With the drama of the pandemic in the background, Abigail and Shaun try for another baby. However, the risk-to-reward ratio in the context of a prior miscarriage plummets them into fear. They elicit help from doctors. When medication and fertility testing don’t seem to work, they watch holistic programs and go through Zoom sessions. Many of the profound songs as well as the humor deal with their struggle to have another baby. Standouts include “River” and “Don’t Hope.”
“River”
“River” strikes with a poignant remembrance of their baby who never makes it into life, a song of love and mourning. This devastating experience five years prior informs their roller-coaster emotions in the present after Abigail discovers her new pregnancy. Though “over the moon,” Shaun and Abigail can’t allow themselves the luxury of celebrating.
“Don’t Hope”
“Don’t Hope” hits home with its simple humanity and perfect melody aligning with the repeated refrain, “DON’T DO IT, DON’T HOPE, DON’T DO IT, DON’T GET HAPPY.” Who cannot empathize with the sentiment that feeling too exuberant will jinx what one wants desperately?
After this amazing song Shaun describes his riotous experience with little Louie on the Santa Sleigh. The humor breaks through the fear and makes way for the song “Veil.” Both agree, they’re doing everything they can do. And this leads to their understanding that they can’t live avoiding their natural feelings, as they decide together in the next song, “I’d Like to be Happy.” Through the song’s uplift they jettison their fears.
By degrees we follow their emotional journey from pain to an expiation of the sorrow of the miscarriage and recognition that happiness shouldn’t be suppressed. Finally, the couple arrives at the epiphany Abigail refers to at the top of the musical.
An engaged, emotionally invested audience has traveled with the Bengsons through flashbacks to experience palpably how joy and sorrow can occupy the same place in one’s heart at the same time. The couple brings the audience to this breathtaking and ebullient understanding with the rousing gospel number “My Joy Is Heavy,” as all stand in appreciation.
My Joy Is Heavy runs through April 12, 2026 at New York Theatre Workshop.
