Naomi Girson | opinions editor

This weekend I read an article from The New York Times titled “Why on Earth Have I Seen the Same Broadway Show 13 Times? An Investigation.” It was written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a features writer for The New York Times Magazine.

Brodesser-Akner shares her story about going to see a broadway show — “Operation Mincemeat” — once, and then twice, and then all of a sudden the curtain was rising on her dozenth show at the same production.

It started with seeing it innocently, then suggesting it to a friend and accompanying them, taking her son on a day off from school, then taking her other son who felt jealous he wasn’t invited.

But it was more than that, Brodesser-Akner truly loved the show, she loved the soundtrack, met some of the audience and was completely immersed in the concept of the story.

And suddenly I felt like I was missing out. Not on seeing “Operation Mincemeat,” in particular but just the concept of wanting to keep going back to the theater to see the same show again and again.

I’ve never had something that brought me back 13 times or even close to that. I’ve gone back to the movie theaters to see the same movie twice, at the most. And I don’t think I’ve done that since “Spider-man: No Way Home.”

So I’m pretty far off from Brodesser-Akner’s level of obsession, but what I found so enthralling about her tale was how hard she was searching for the answer to why she had suddenly become this person.

She felt, and I agree with her sentiment here, that there are certain kinds of people that see shows and movies over and over again, and there are people who do not. But Brodesser-Akner was a convert, the exception, not the rule.

That’s what bewildered her so much, and why she felt the need to write about her niche obsession.

While trying to figure out her impossible to pin down diagnosis she asked around at the theater, and she met people who had seen it more times than her. But they were the fans who had also seen “Les Miserables” dozens of times, or were repeat “Hamilton” viewers, and this show was just another in a long list of repeat offenders they had burned into their brains.

I couldn’t help but wonder what my “Operation Mincemeat” is.

Or if I would ever be able to find it.

My hesitation with the concept of seeing a movie even twice is the daunting ticket costs and the lack of true enjoyment from within.

Maybe it’s less a personality type and more like being struck by lightning.

I think the best “Operation Mincemeat” kind of things are found when you least expect them, so I am certainly not going to decree that I am out looking for it. However I do feel a certain FOMO on not having this special feeling I’m sure you can only feel after the curtain raising on a show you love so much for the 13th time.

I’ve obviously thought about the story a lot since I read it this weekend. I hope I have as much capacity to enjoy things the way other people do, I hope that I can love things as much as the people that go to the theatre night after night, even though they already know how it ends.

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu