Theatre.storiez

I don’t think that many people know that I have a playlist that I write to.  I cannot actually produce anything great without pure silence, or without typing steadily along to the music of my “That Mood” soundtrack.  It’s more or less a combination of songs that make me feel reflective and provocative, lyricless anthems.  Anyway, that’s what I am writing to now.  The song Dancing by the artist Elisa is currently playing.  Also, this is highly irrelevant!

I have stories to tell!  So I guess that’s nice.  I have stories about the last few days in London, little moments that have really ‘stuck in my craw.’  (Ten points to anyone who understands this reference that isn’t my mother.)

SO, right, I’m a natural storyteller, and it only makes me sense that I should share my gift with the world.  God, I wish I were that cocky/confident to be able to write/say such things without actually rolling my eyes and laughing at myself.  I hope that no anonymous reader ever feels like I am the prickiest prick in the world because I am definitely nothing but kidding when I compliment myself.  It keeps me on my toes, being self deprecating.  Anyway, all of them somehow involve the theatre, which I didn’t notice until just now.  Oddballs!

Story 1:  An Empty Seat

It’s Tuesday evening and I have been granted the rare opportunity of seeing a show on Press Night.  Typically this is the evening where all of the Theatre hotshots flood the art world centers with pens and paper, ready to evaluate, critique, deconstruct, compliment, and everything in between.  However, my playwriting professor, Marina Calderone, was unable to use her comp tickets for the performance (Which I just realized I haven’t mentioned!  It was An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre) so she gave the three of them to Jamie, Jenny, and I.  What a gem, right?  Originally she had just received two tickets and was going to give them to the girls, but asked if me if she should enquire for an additional ticket.  I was quite taken aback; what a friendly gesture right?  So, we arrive to the theatre only to discover that our seats were in the third row, center of the dress circle.  They were what you might call some of the best seats in the house.  Definitely not going to complain!  The performance of the first act dragged a bit, to be honest.  It was a little slow and quite melodramatic.  I can’t tell, still, if it’s the writing or the production that is at fault here.  Maybe a little bit of both?  Anyway, I notice after the first scene that the theatre is packed full.  To my right, however, there is an empty seat next to a string of three people.  Odd, no?  The three of us, then an empty seat, and then three more people.  You’d think they would have just put all six of us together in an unbroken chain.  I thought it was a little strange. 

So, intermission comes and I need to pee and need a snack.  My lack of supper and very limited movement through the first act—OMG the rows were so close together!—had made me a bit restless.  I noticed that Jamie had left though already, so I hung back to wait with Jacque.  It was then that I turned to the family on my right.  There was an older lady closest to me followed by her son and her son’s girlfriend.  I turned to the woman, dressed to the nines with a small hat in her lap, and asked if she was expecting someone in the seat next to her.  She smiled and closed her eyes. 

“Well, yes.  I always buy a seat for my husband, you see?  He passed in 2007.  But, I know he would not have wanted to sit on my lap for the entirety of the show so I always buy him his own seat.” 

Her response came off so focused, so profound, that I hardly knew what to say.  “That’s a very nice, loving gesture.”  I turned back to Jacque who was busy with her phone, so I looked to the safety curtain instead.  I realize how dramatic this must sound, believe me I do, but I teared up a bit.  How often do you have the chance to share a moment like that with a complete stranger?  I felt so grateful that she felt like she could open up like that and so fortunate that we shared such a nice moment.  When I looked back to where she had been sitting, I noticed that she had left with the rest of her group.  They didn’t return after the interval.  Halfway through scene four, I found myself wondering if her husband was enjoying the show.

Story 2: My Romantic History

We saw a new play last Thursday called My Romantic History.  It premiered this past year at a festival in Edinburgh.  (I cannot get that city out of my life!  It’s even in the novel I just finished and the one I am currently reading…Sign much?)  It received great, great reviews and I was so pumped to see some not-so-known theatre.  On our way to the venue, a little black box place right outside of an O’Neil’s, we happened to pass some high school students that were playing on a playground in the middle of a park.  It was dark, so it struck me as odd that they would be playing, puttzing at such a chilly time of day/night. 

We got to the theatre and laughed SOLIDLY for the duration of the 90 minute show.  It was uproarious.  The funniest part for me, however, was during an early scene when one of the characters, Tom, is talking about the horniness we experience in adolescence and relates it to each boy having a “spunk shooting water pistol.”  I was dying of laughter at this point, and the actor playing Tom realized it—and he should have, I was sitting in the front row, RIGHT behind him—and he turned to me and finished his aside while making and maintaining perfect eye contact.  I nearly passed out of laughter.  I love when the fourth wall is broken and you become the victim; it’s character building.

After copious amounts of laughter and a great feeling of satisfaction upon leaving the theatre, we set off for our journey home.  Along the way home, in the same spot that the high school aged kids were hanging, a police car’s sirens were whirring and an ambulance had parked in the grass. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with the obvious hooligans we saw earlier climbing on the play ground equipment.  Guess we’ll never know?

Story 3: The Woman in Black

The title of this story is also the name of the most terrifying piece of anything that I have ever heard/seen/read.  That’s all I have to say about it.

Good story, no?

Right, so I am preparing myself to go see Deathtrap with Jonathon Groff tonight.  And some other actors, I'm sure, but they're irrelevant right now!  Team Jesse, bitch!  I guess that means I will have seen four shows in a week. 

Jealous? :)