We are mid-way through a four show week.
On Tuesday, we saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical,
a nice fun romp across the Australian Outback in a bus with 3 drag queens, heading for
Alice Springs, where they were hired to so a show by the wife of one of them, so he could
meet the 8 year old son he'd never seen.
I had seen the movie when it came out, in 1994 and loved it. It
had glitz and glamor and pathos and it really tugged at the heartstrings. While the
stage show is long on glitz and glamor, it's not quite as long on pathos and while the
story is there, it gets kind of swallowed up in all the dance numbers and those fabulous
costumes (some 500 of them in this show!). But I did enjoy it--just not as much as
the movie.
We got home at 11:30 and I started writing the review, but was so
sleepy, I went to sleep and got up at 3 to finish it, submitting it to the paper at 5:30.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle a day later when there was a misunderstanding about
what time I had submitted it to the paper, and also about the photo chosen to run with the
review. I haven't thrown a hissy fit in a long time and even though it was an e-mail
hissy fit, it was indeed a hissy fit and I threatened to quit. But it's all blown
over now and things are back where they should be. The photo disagreement was solved
by the paper just running the review with no photo at all. Sigh.
Today was shopping day. I went for a "quick" trip to
Michael's craft store and, of course, there is no such thing as a "quick" trip
through Michael's. It's also impossible to pick up "just a few things."
Each time I come out feeling like I'm going to have to mortgage the house. I
went there because I'm shopping for the family we are adopting for Christmas and one of
the girls is into arts and crafts and I wanted to make that her gift. And a good
half of what I bought was actually for her. We won't discuss those other little
things that happened to make it into the cart.
The good thing is that I had very good coupons and so I saved $20 on
the total price, so it's almost like it was a bargain. Of coure the better bargain
would have been if I hadn't gone at all...
From there I spent an hour or so wandering around Costco increasing
the amount of that mortage I was going to go home and take out. There were good free
samples, but I had just eaten lunch and actually, other than a couple of things, I passed
up most of them.
By the time I got home, though, I was exhausted and while Walt
unloaded the car, I read the mail, then put away perishables and climbed into my recliner
to go to sleep. I woke up 2 hours later (I should also add that last night was one
of those nights where I was unable to get to sleep, so was running on about 2 hours of
sleep and the nap was definitely needed!)
Tonight's show was Oliver! to which we took my mother.
It took several phone call reminders and she still didn't remember, and she must
have asked a dozen times what the show was and whether I had ever seen it before.
She remembers seeing Paul in it (though she never did). But nonetheless, I think she
enjoyed it.
Reviewing this theatre company used to be sensitive in the past.
They did excellent shows...and they did embarrassingly bad shows, but the people
who run it are some of our oldest friends in Davis and there are lots of people in the
community for whom this is their only chance to see musical theater and who love it, and I
always tried to be very careful with how I wrote the reviews, so that I was encouraging,
but not overly effusive if a show was not very good.
It has been such a delight to realize that in the past few years, I
have not really had to be careful about my reviews. The quality of performance has
improved dramatically. Tonight's was outstanding and it will be a pleasure to write
the review. They have done shows in the recent past that have blown me away with the
quality of the final product. There is still a show or two that sneaks in for which
I have to be cautious with how I word things, but 90% of the time, that is no longer a
problem.
My mother slept through some of the show, but seemed to enjoy what
she did see. I don't think I'll take her to an evening performance again, though.
I think it's too late for her.
Tomorrow night we are seeing a show called Crazy Horse and Custer,
about which I know nothing other than what the title might tell you! I always enjoy
shows at this theater and have no reason to think that this will not be another enjoyable
evening.
And then on Sunday, we go to San Francisco for the Lamplighters Gala
that I wrote about a couple of days ago. This is a busman's holiday, because I don't have
to review it and can just sit back and enjoy it. It always starts with a silent
auction at which a lot of Lamplighters memorabilia goes up for bid, along with crafts made
by members of the company and other donated items. I never bid on anything because I
have so much Lamplighters crap in this house already, I don't need any more (in fact, some
of the very things that are offered for bid are sometimes hanging on my walls here at
home!)
One year they auctioned off two copies of our histories and I don't
think anybody bid on them. Talk about embarrassng!
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