(Note from Editing!Josie; This piece of writing represents the feelings of a moment in time - specifically the feelings of 2 to 4am on the 8th of October - not the way I feel now. I’d never feel comfortable sharing this if I was still in that emotional muck. In fact, I’ve recently sorted out a lot of my own shit and I’m now far less interested in texting… anyone that I shouldn’t. That said, if You are reading this, my inbox is always open.)
There's a podcast I listen to whenever I want to text Her. Her, here, being a position held alternately by a high school crush, a Novocastrian, and a two-year long-distance... disaster. Too many Hers.
I hate the word podcast, it makes me feel sweaty, but that's what it is. Podcast. Musical podcast. Is it worse that it's a musical?
I think the word musical is more powerful than the word podcast. It's like flavours - what wins when you put a pickled pepper and a bunch of weird spices in your pasta sauce? No one, usually. Not me. Don't put pickled jalapeños in your mac n’ cheese béchamel. You get reflux.
I've been drinking.
What was I saying?
36 Questions is an experiment. It's a three-part podcast musical rom-com starring Broadway alumnus Jessie Shelton and Jonathan Groff, written by Ellen Winter and Chris Littler.
A successful experiment, I think, if not a repeated one.
Like, okay, so, there's a thing with modern fiction podcasts where the audio always exists in universe as media - like, radio shows, therapist notes, audio diaries. This, of course, is the fault of Welcome to Night Vale, and, by extension, Tumblr, because the first big modern fiction podcast existed in universe as a radio show so everyone just kinda... copied that. That format, obviously, kinda strains at times. 36 Questions, for example, is, canonically, a series of audio notes on a gen 1 iPhone, which is definitely... a choice. It creates interesting plot elements but it's also... it strains the work as a whole.
That's a small chunk of a bigger rant - I got really into fiction podcasts a while back and that trope just shits me. It's also worth getting out of the way because it's the only part of 36 Questions that feels uncertain. The rest is intoxicatingly confident. Shelton and Groff are incredible, stuffing their roles so full it bleeds through the speakers. Winter and Littler’s music has this wonderful sense of force, a mix of speed and weight that hits like a heartbeat and feels like falling - in love and off a cliff. The best parts rival Nora Ephron rom-coms. It's a bit silly and a bit sad and entirely earnest.
It's a rom-com but strange one, the protagonists are married at the start, and the show chronicles not falling in love but a desperate attempt to salvage it.
See, Natalie/Judith (Jessie Shelton) has been lying to her now-husband Jase (Jonathan Groff) since they met, not just lying but living under an entirely fake name and identity. This is her attempt to not only explain who she actually is but why she lied - through the titular 36 questions. This is a series of questions created for a 1997 study that aimed to, essentially, make two strangers fall in love. The questions do this by starting broad and getting steadily rougher and more intimate. You might know these because they do rounds on dating and advice columns/blogs/podcasts every couple of years. In-universe, Jase whipped these out on their first date, and Judith used them to invent and refine the character of Natalie - a "better version" of herself, that doesn't have those "deep, dark, self hating feelings."
This, of course, is actually revealed slowly over the course of multiple acts. It's not just laid out like this in the actual podcast, which, by the way, you should listen to. Lara. If it wasn't clear, I'll be discussing the whole thing, so, standard disclaimer, you should listen to it now. It'll still be worth listening to once you know the full plot, god knows I go back to it plenty, but I legally have to say this. You can find it on all your podcast apps, and on the production company's own website. For free, obviously.
Go.
Do it.
Okay so now you can't get mad when I tell you that Judith's plan doesn't work.
Jase goes along - for a while.
But the truth comes out - he'll never be able to trust her again. And act two ends with her alone, crying, drinking in a motel room.
The next day, the start of act three, now even more desperate and deluded she ambushes him again, tries to force the questions and it... doesn't work. He gets in his truck and drives off, leaving her, alone, again. with her phone. There, she answers her side of the questions, now the rough and intimate ones, alone. She jumps at every gust of wind and distant noise, begging, thinking, hoping it's the sound of his truck turning around. It never is. Alone, she finally decides to let go, leaves the phone in his mailbox and drives away.
For the next 8 years he intermittently listens back through the in universe recording of that night, adding commentary. This feels weirdly prescient, y'know? Nowadays so much of our relationships exist as media, text messages and archives and it's hard not to... listen back. Or read back. I've done that more times than I can count. With Her, and with Her, and definitely with Her. The siren song of pages and pages of old messages. The pressure builds until he can't take it, and he sends her an email - his answers to the questions.
This is also, embarrassingly, something I've done, in part inspired by this musical, actually. Also, notably, in one case inspired by me getting COVID (it felt like a good excuse at the time). I don't know, there's something that feels... safer about emails. Or letters. Easier to manage, harder to ignore, maybe. I sent Her a letter, and I put one in Her mailbox, and I sent Her an email. That last one was when I had COVID. The only way I could excuse it. And they meet, eight years later, in a noisy diner. She introduces herself as Natalie. Jase brings his kid, Cooper, from his second marriage, and presents his answers, heavily, anxiously. He can't read her, now. They don't know each other, but they do. That lovely, horrible paradox. There's an addendum to the study, now, from the original scientists, after the last question they have to look into each other's eyes for four minutes.
So he answers, and while they look into each other's eyes, they sing, because this is still a musical,
It ends on uncertainty, on questions. It ends mid sentence, somehow messy and resolved in the same moment. I've only reached that point with Her. Sadly he has left Her messages on delivered, and she has stopped reading Her emails.
What 36 Questions captures is that uncertainty, that hope, that desperation, that feeling of if [s]he didn't love me anymore, why the hell did [s]he open the front door, of knowing what you're doing is stupid, of having everyone in your life tell you it's a bad idea but feeling driven to do it anyway. Of the weight that can sit in sending an email. Knowing it's a kind of self harm, but desperately wondering "what if?" Because you can't not try.
Because I am, I have been every player in this story. Hell, I'm doing that right now, because my plan at time of writing (Editing!Josie, here. That time was approximately 3am.) is to post this publicly and hope it pops into Her feed, because I saw Her account in my Instagram story views the other day. Because I am still little delusional ol' me. Because a part of me hopes this whole "Her" gimmick will be enough for Her, the one who sent me a surprise midnight email months ago telling me she was in town and asking me to coffee, before immediately ghosting me, will be curious enough to wonder what parts are about Her. Because I did similar shit back when I was 15 and I had a really bad, really repressed crush on Her and I wanted Her attention. Because Her whole thing has been so confusing that, even though I thought I was over it, she’s just stuck to my mind. Because I need to know if she was drunk when she sent that. Because I need to know if it broke Her like it broke me. Because I’m confident enough to admit I had those feelings, and I need to know if it was mutual. Because I don't get how I could be so wrong if...
I probably shouldn't post this, then.
Digital hygiene, and all.
Goddamnit.
Part of why I love 36 Questions is that it asks these things, it gets all messy and complicated and just sits in that. It doesn't get a happy ending. In duet, they sing the truth is... and sit in that pregnant pause till the recording cuts itself off.
We don't learn who Judith has become in almost a decade. Jase asks about her job and she tells an obvious lie. He picks up on it, this time.
I've only really resolved things with Her. We talked, a bit. Told the truth, that we would always love each other at least a little bit, but that we were bad for each other. Maybe it was more that I was bad for Her, but she did take two years to decide if she had romantic feelings so perhaps it's a bit mixed. She didn't, by the way. When I was going through that, the line about how you and I, spent two years of our lives lost in your lie, far from reality, hit me quite hard. The line that comes to me most, though, is the one at the top. I think about it whenever I want to send a text (or email) I shouldn't. Sometimes I post it on Insta, or send it to my Vasily Arkhipov-themed group chat, just so my friends can tell me I shouldn't before I do it anyway.
I try to avoid the line immediately after, because that one goes
Which is, um-
So I suppose this is a diary entry. This is me coming out as a theatre kid. This is me telling everyone who knew me as a teenager that I was, shockingly, a bit of a mess. That part of why it was a mess with Her was the aforementioned incredibly repressed crush.
I still want to text Her. And Her. It’s settled with Her. I still want to post this publicly, covertly beg for attention, but I know that would be a bad idea, considering my entire extended family has now found me. Maybe it'll end up on my Close Friends story, I don't know. Maybe she'll send me an email anyway, and ask if I've written about Her, and I'll have to show Her this. Oh god.
I know, at least, it was a good idea to write this instead of another email.
Guess I'll just sit here, for a while.
36 Questions can be found, free, on all major podcast listening services, and on the website of Two-Up Productions, which is probably where they get the most ad revenue. Click here.
All inserts are screenshots of the script, which can be found free, officially, online here.
You can also listen to the soundtrack alone, by going to the places you find music, or by clicking on the inserts, but listen to the actual podcast first.