“This mental discipline does not come easily because you are accustomed to being god of your fantasies,” says my calendar for Tuesday, October 17th. It reminded me of Neil Simon’s, “Jake’s Women,” the play Marist’s Theatre Program brilliantly pulled off Sunday, October 15th.
Before watching it, I assumed the show was about a player who leads women on for sport. Turned out, I was completely off.
The protagonist, Jake, has a hard time accepting his first wife's death. To embrace the fact she is gone, Jake revisits the good times they shared together before she dies. At some point in his life, he decides to marry his current wife, Maggie, to fill the void he feels without his first wife being there for him.
While they are together, he attempts to mold Maggie into acting like his first wife. Maggie takes time away from Jake so he can figure out how to accept his first wife's death. By leaving him, it is easier for Maggie to determine if he loves her or still has feelings for his first wife.
To save his marriage, Jake agrees to let Maggie leave him. While Maggie is gone, Jake has flashbacks of happy times he spends with his first wife and his daughter, Molly. He also re-enters the dating world, only to find later on that Maggie is the right person for him.
As he conquers his demons, he realizes that he is taking advantage of women by focusing on the good moments he has with them. Jake chooses not to focus on a woman's overall character after one heartbreaking experience he shared with his mother. As a child, he warned his mother about his father having an affair with another woman. Seeing his mother suffer when she found out his father's affair made Jake feel guilty about breaking the news to his mother.
The guilt Jake has towards his mother makes it difficult for him to be emotionally intimate with women. As he spent time bonding with his first wife, he found it easier to let his walls down because he saw that she wasn’t afraid to give it her all, even if it meant getting hurt by him.
When he loses that security, he can’t focus on starting over with Maggie. Though Maggie loves him unconditionally, Jake is still fixated on the first woman who taught him to not focus on the possibility of hurting her. Once Jake lost a woman who loved him unconditionally, he could not bring himself to allow another one to love him the same way.
This play made me reconsider how I viewed romantic love. People are afraid to be their authentic selves because they don’t want to lose themselves to those who gave them the courage to be themselves. There are people who continue dating to find what they lost, even if it means fooling themselves or others to get what they want. There are people who do not want to create a trail of heartache for themselves where they hurt themselves and others a few too many times. There are people who are afraid to love because they do not know themselves.
For all people, loving others is the bravest thing we can do. It’s not easy to let go or to begin. There are going to be hit and misses along the way. As long as you focus on building yourself up, you will be more confident in your decisions to trust someone.
It’s funny how fantasy is much different from reality. Fantasy presents love as an unbreakable bond, but reality reveals the fragile people who try to keep that bond alive.
