![]() Sam relaxes on the front porch ( My Kind of Night). Next we see the Coopers in the early 1890s. As that scene ends, three children enter and comment on Susan’s state of mind ( Mother's Getting Nervous), which segues into a ragtime/Dixieland-style dance as a trapeze artist performs overhead. Susan fears that he will be away from home all the time and tells him she wants another child, but Sam puts her off. Sam is about to go to work for the railroad. Now it’s 1857 and the Coopers have moved. Then–in a number dropped from the original Broadway production but commonly performed in revivals–they take a sympathetic look at Susan’s actual life contrasted with her longings ( Susan's Dream). Next a male quartet sings about the conflicts between love and money ( Economics). Susan asks Sam to join her at the springtime dance ( Green-Up Time), but Sam has to work late in the shop. Sam and Susan reminisce about the first chair he made for her ( I Remember It Well). Factories dot the landscape, and Sam decides to close up shop and join the industrial labor force. As the scene ends, a male octet assembles in front of the curtain to sing about the effects of economic development on human relationships ( Progress). Sam tells Susan (previously sawed in half) that he never wants to leave their new home ( Here I'll Stay). Sam, the levitated man from the previous scene, enters and gives an account of himself he has moved with his wife, Susan, and two children, Johnny and Elizabeth, to the town from Boston to practice his carpentry trade. Curious townspeople gather around a new store ( Who Is Samuel Cooper?). The scene shifts to a small New England town in 1791. We learn that the man and woman are married–unhappily–to each other. “Right where you are, in mid-air,” she replies. “Where does that leave me?” asks the man. She points out that her current state reflects her whole life her desires and responsibilities are always uncomfortably divided. The magician saws a woman in half and levitates a man. The Coopers’ ages do not change noticeably despite the 150-year lapse of time. The two types of scenes do not overlap until the end of Part II. ![]() The unusual structure of the show alternates scenes chronicling the Cooper family’s progression through successive periods of American history starting in the 1790s with vaudeville-style acts that comment on the main story. Note: Alan Jay Lerner described Love Life as a cavalcade of American marriage. ![]()
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