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"Jagged Little Pill", the musical based on the album of the same name by Alanis Morissette released in 1995, was closed Sunday at the American Repertory Theater , and no one is sadder than Sol Kim Bentley . Really, maybe nobody.
Kim Bentley saw the show eight times, and she would have been at Loeb Drama Center a few more nights if she had not been pregnant as well.
36 weeks, "she says with a laugh.
Originally, his interest in the show came from his fondness for Morissette's iconic album, released just prior to Kim Bentley's last year at Yale, and coinciding with his first major romantic break. The song "You Oughta Know" resounded intensely at the time.
"It was very therapeutic for me," she says.
But Kim Bentley, a trained opera singer who currently works at Harvard, has finally recovered and she has not listened to the album for 20 years. When she read that the ART was producing a musical based on the LP, she thought she had to see it.
She was right. The show was well reviewed and was sold at all 79 performances, with the amazing performance of "You Oughta Know" of the actress Lauren Patten who won a standing ovation at 79 performances. (This is unusual for a song buried in the second act, trust us.)
Kim Bentley saw the show for the first time while it was still previewing, and she had an emotional "hangover" afterwards. I did not expect it to be a visceral experience, "she says. "The fact that I did not listen to the album for so long, it was like I was 19 or 20 years old and I felt all the emotions again."
But she recovered and left. And back. And back.
"Because I come from a performing arts background, I was studying the show and the craft," she says. "I like to see what the actors do with the lines, and how the chemistry between them is every night."
Over time, cast members, including Patten, knew Kim Bentley – this helped that she was hanging around. She took a few steps to say hello – but her husband was more or less puzzled by the effect of the musical on his wife.
"He said," Why do you keep going? She said, laughing. "It was just a truly cathartic experience – and I had a lot of pregnancy hormones."
She does not have any more. The daughter of Kim Bentley Jovie was born a few weeks ago, and the 8-day-old baby accompanied her mother to a champagne toast with the cast before Sunday's closing night. (Patten and ART Artistic Director Diane Paulus held the baby.)
Asked if she will be in the audience though, as seems likely, "Jagged Little Pill" is making her way to Broadway, Kim Bentley says Yes.
"I would like to see how that has changed," she says. "At this point, I have the show pretty well memorized, so I would do the whole trip to see him."
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