Spring Forward

So we are now in Day Light Savings time.  I have been listening to all the complaints about it, about how much the loss of an hour of sleep has ruined someone's life ("I woke up this morning and my face was all puffy").  While I am sympathetic toward anyone who suffers as a result of the time change, I can honestly say that I never notice it, other than having to change the clocks, of course.  Even Polly hasn't seemed to notice.  She came to me at 4 p.m, like she does every night, to try to get me to feed her....even though her body clock would have been at 3 p.m.  I guess I'm lucky.

We went to three shows this week.

The first was Book of Mormon, the traveling Broadway show.  It was the third time I'd seen it and I still love it.  That it has such an enthusiastic following is always a puzzlement.  The story is so...well...dirty.  It's the story of 2 Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda to convert the natives.

The natives are starving, most of them have AIDS and they are angry with God and not at all interested in hearing about religion.  The men with AIDS feel that the way to cure their disease is to have sex with a virgin, but since there are so few virgins available, they turn their attention to babies.  Now, you wouldn't think this would be fodder for a light, funny show, but it is.

"Hasa Diga Eebowai" is a rant against God which is one of the more fun songs in the show and the missionaries are aghast when they discover what the song translates to.

In the end, the nerd missionary finds a way to get through to the natives and they find their way to God after all, even General "F**k a Baby" and it gets a standing ovation.  You watch this show amazed at the things at which you laugh and applaud because the message is so uplifting and I guess redemptive.  I gave it high ratings.

Two days later, we saw Heaven Can Wait, performed by the little theater in Winters.  I love this theater for several reasons.  They are amateur and don't pretend to be anything else.  There are good performances and bad performances, but they make it work.  And they give the audience cheesecake and champagne on opening night.

Heaven Can Wait was a 1974 movie with Warren Beatty and James Mason, based on a couple of earlier movies.  It's the story of a boxer on his way to the championship who is about to crash his airplane when a Messenger from Heaven decides to take him before he actually dies.  Only he wasn't supposed to die.  He was supposed to win the championship and live another 60 years.  But his manager had his body cremated and so there is no body to return him to and "Mr. Jordan," the guy in Heaven who is in charge of such things, is responsible for finding him a suitable body so he can return to earth.

Performances were uneven, with a couple of smaller roles downright bad, two good and one very good.  The rest were ordinary.  But I always give that theater good reviews because it is the true definition of "community theater" where people in the audience are there to see their friends and nobody thinks they are better than just what they are:  amateurs, doing it for the love of it.  And we had a great time.

As for the third show, Bachelorette, Walt and I left the theater asking "what in the hell was that???"  Critics in New York and Chicago gave it good marks.  I gave it one star, and that only because the performances were so good.  Best way to describe it is to print my review here (this is why it's not always wonderful to be a critic!):

Is the new form of entertainment to be as crude and disgusting as you can be? Is that what passes for art these days? I cannot deny that I disliked Leslye Headland’s Bachelorette, now at Big Idea Theater. I disliked it a lot, though it was peopled with six talented actors who portrayed their highly unlikable characters very well -- its only redeeming quality!


It is set in a New York hotel suite, decorated for a wedding, with stacks of gifts and an offstage bathtub filled with bottles of champagne. Into the room burst Gena (Leah Daugherty) and Katie (Taylor Fleer), both very high and laughing. Every sentence contains the F word. They discover the champagne and each take a bottle and begin to drink, as they trash the apartment. Regan (Taylor Vaughan) arrives. She is the maid of honor but hates the bride (Shelby Vockel) and has invited the other two because she knows the bride does not like them. The word "fat" is used many times which I, as a fat person, found distasteful. I hurt for the bride. (The word "retarded" is also used a lot, which many will find offensive.)

Two men, Jeff (Russell Dow) and Joe (Jacob Garcia) that the girls picked up at the bar arrive. Simulated sex and possible rape is added to the drugs, and alcohol. There is vomiting on stage.

Maybe this is the wave of the future, but I don’t want to be entertained by watching the worst of people, especially women.