(no subject)

For a multitude of stupid and silly reasons I feel a bit at odds with my life tonight. Like I'm always outside looking in and no one will answer my knocks on the door. I feel like that too often and I am rather tired of it.

So I am doing my best to ignore that feeling and talk about something else.

Yesterday was a day filled with theater. Local production of "Waiting for Godot" in which I knew everyone except the kid. I had not seen it staged before, and I guess I can say my friends did an okay job. Parts of it were distinctly moving, and other parts it was clear how intimidated they felt by the weight of this IMPORTANT PIECE OF DRAMA. Ultimately I think there was more good than bad, so although my tush and my back got tired during 2 1/2 hours of sitting, I had a pretty good time.

Then dinner with the two friends I saw the show with, which was nice, although mostly I listened to them gossip the production of "Much Ado About Nothing" they're in that's had MAJOR cast turnovers. I think they're on their third Benedick and Beatrice. I would like to be doing a show with them, but my clusterfuck alarm kept going off over this production and I ended up not auditioning. I think I'm glad, but of course I miss my friends.

Then friend one had been given two free tickets to Saturday night's show performed by some summer theater camp kids (run by the Much Ado director actually). They found it to be adorable. I was kind of horrified. I keep thinking about it and trying to figure out if my standards are just way too high. The kids did a series of three fairy tales, loosely tied together with some intervening bits. The first one was a Native American Cinderella-esque tale. I dunno. Fringey tunics with fluorescent feathers stuck all over them, and a pup tent with a fake animal skin over the opening do not an Indian tribe make. Plus there were about a bajillion giant flats, cubes, platforms, and fake campfires that had to be shuffled around continually. That was a common theme throughout the whole thing actually... it was a show about moving krappe around. (And I confess I hate shows that masquerade as yard sales)

At the end of each story there was a whole company "dance." The Native American one was sort of cool with all the campfires on stage with some of the kids playing flutes and drums.

The second one was a English folk tale with a crafty fox. The kid who was the fox was the oldest boy, and really good. It was cute overall, but the kids had been "taught" (I gathered) various English accents and they mostly were really bad at them. The second theme of the evening was, even mic-ed, you mostly couldn't understand anything the kids were saying. But we will not soon forget the fox trying to stuff the kid in the very puffy chicken suit into the giant burlap bag. Had we paid for our tickets, that would have been worth the price of admission alone!

Then they did an English country dance that was like watching the English country dance episode of Are You Being Served Again. Hilarious, but not exactly in a good way. Done well, it would have been lovely...

The last bit was what I think was a Chinese fairy tale (there was a dragon charging around) ... and the son in the story is credited as K'O'li which unfortunately was constantly pronounced as Coolie. Visually it was rather an Asian fusion of Japanese, Chinese, and Thai. The closing dance was definitely Thai. It was probably the best of the dances on the whole.

I found the whole thing problematic, but I suspect I'm being a big fat theater snob. If the kids at the camp had a good time, and enjoyed putting on their little plays then who am I to object to the final product. I prize process over product anyway. So I try and ignore how clunky it all was and just concentrate on the kids and their joy in performing...

So I don't know. I remain conflicted.