In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on

Host: The theatre was almost empty now — rows of velvet seats glowing faintly beneath the dim amber lights. The stage stretched out before them like a sleeping ocean, its polished wood still gleaming from the morning’s rehearsal. Dust floated lazily in the air, swirling through beams of fading light that cut across the curtains like suspended memories.

Jack stood at the edge of the stage, his hands in his pockets, staring down at the scuffed floorboards where a thousand dancers had once dreamed in rhythm. Jeeny sat in the front row, her notebook open across her knees, her pen idle, her gaze locked on him.

The silence had weight — not the silence of absence, but of something sacred, remembered.

Jack: “It’s strange. Standing here feels like trespassing in someone else’s heartbeat.”

Jeeny: “It’s more than that, Jack. This place is alive — not in body, but in memory. Every pirouette, every stumble, every applause still lingers. Like echoes too proud to fade.”

Host: Her voice drifted gently across the theatre, soft but charged. The air smelled faintly of rosin, paint, and old fabric. Somewhere backstage, a single bulb flickered, humming like a restless thought.

Jack: “You sound like one of those critics who fall in love with the thing they’re supposed to judge.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “That’s exactly what Robert Gottlieb said once — when he wrote about the New York City Ballet. He said it was ‘very scary, writing about something he loved so much and had such strong opinions about.’ And I get it. Love makes honesty dangerous.”

Jack: “Dangerous? No. It makes it biased. You can’t be fair to what you adore. Every word becomes a betrayal — either too soft or too sharp.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what makes it real? To love something enough to risk misunderstanding it? Gottlieb wasn’t afraid of bias. He was afraid of failing it — of not doing it justice.”

Host: The spotlight above flickered to life for a moment, casting a single, narrow beam across the stage. Jack’s shadow stretched tall against the backdrop, fractured by the wrinkles of the curtain.

Jack: “Justice is overrated. The moment you write about something you love, you turn it into an artifact. You dissect it, freeze it in language. The Ballet lives — you trap it on paper.”

Jeeny: “But without words, it dies in silence. Don’t you see? Writing about it isn’t dissection — it’s preservation. Gottlieb wrote because he didn’t want to lose what he’d witnessed.”

Jack: (turning toward her) “Or maybe he wrote because he needed to control it. To define it before it defined him. People do that all the time — with art, with love, with memory. We can’t stand the unknown, so we write borders around it.”

Host: A soft creak echoed as Jeeny rose, stepping onto the stage. Her shoes made small, deliberate sounds against the wood — like cautious punctuation marks in a sentence too fragile to finish.

Jeeny: “And yet, every border you draw lets someone else find their way. Think about it. The Ballet isn’t just movement — it’s story. Music, discipline, emotion. Without critics, choreographers, and writers, its spirit would vanish with every closing curtain.”

Jack: “Or maybe it would finally be free. Free from interpretation, from history, from people trying to explain it. The dancers already said everything with their bodies. Why do we need words?”

Jeeny: (softly, with fire beneath her calm) “Because movement ends, Jack. Words remember. A dance is a flame — writing is the ember that keeps it alive.”

Host: The light dimmed further, drawing them into a smaller, more intimate circle of illumination. The world beyond the stage seemed to dissolve into shadows and soft breathing.

Jack: “You ever write about something you love that much?”

Jeeny: (pauses, then nods) “Once. A man.”

Host: Her voice cracked slightly at the edges, like old vinyl catching on emotion.

Jack: “And did you do him justice?”

Jeeny: “No. But I was honest. And sometimes, that’s the most love you can give something — to see it as it truly is, not as you wish it to be.”

Jack: “Honesty’s cruel.”

Jeeny: “Honesty’s kind. It’s what stays when illusion breaks.”

Host: A silence unfolded between them — heavy, alive, unhurried. The kind that feels like two souls listening to the same invisible music.

Jack: “So, what do you think scared Gottlieb more — loving too much, or being too truthful about it?”

Jeeny: “Both. Because when you write about love, you expose what it’s done to you. You reveal what part of you it broke.”

Host: Jack’s eyes glimmered under the pale light, not cold now but thoughtful, wounded in quiet recognition.

Jack: “You know, I always envied critics. They get to live off other people’s passion. No risk of failure — just commentary.”

Jeeny: “That’s not true. Real critics bleed with what they review. Gottlieb wasn’t sitting safe behind a desk — he was wrestling with his own devotion. Imagine writing about something you’ve spent your whole life watching, something that shaped you — and knowing your words could never equal it.”

Jack: (slowly) “That does sound terrifying.”

Jeeny: “It’s the same terror we all face when we try to describe love. Or art. Or anything bigger than us.”

Host: A faint melody began playing from the rehearsal room beyond the stage — a piano testing the chords of an old Balanchine piece. The notes floated like distant memories, fragile and pure.

Jeeny: “You hear that? That’s what he meant. The fear of trying to capture something perfect, knowing you’ll fail — but still trying. Because the attempt itself is the tribute.”

Jack: “So failure becomes the highest form of love?”

Jeeny: “Yes. To fail beautifully is to have tried sincerely.”

Host: Jack looked out into the darkened rows of seats, the ghostly outlines of the audience that wasn’t there. His voice softened.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why critics and artists hate each other — they’re both afraid of the same thing. To be seen through the eyes of someone who loves them enough to be honest.”

Jeeny: “Or to be misunderstood by someone who never tried.”

Host: The piano music grew stronger, filling the empty theatre with echoes of life long gone. The floor beneath them seemed to hum with memory, the kind that doesn’t fade — only shifts shape.

Jeeny: (whispering) “Do you think he ever looked at his piece and thought it was enough?”

Jack: “No. But that’s the beauty of it. He didn’t write to finish something. He wrote to keep it alive — inside himself.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Then maybe all love is like that. Unfinished. Continuous. Like a dance that ends only when you stop remembering it.”

Host: The music swelled — slow, melancholic, and radiant. Jack took a step toward Jeeny, standing beside her in the pale light, their reflections merging on the polished floor.

Jack: “Maybe we’re all just guessing, like he was — trying to make sense of what we can’t let go of.”

Jeeny: “And that’s what makes it art.”

Host: The spotlight dimmed, then faded, leaving only the music — soft, eternal. The stage returned to darkness, but the air still shimmered with something tender and defiant — the ache of having loved deeply enough to fear speaking of it.

Outside, the rain began to fall — light, rhythmic, like the sound of distant applause.