This is what’s happened over the past three days. My, has it been an exciting three days.
Monday, I gave my review of “The Velveteen Rabbit” to my friend, Michael. The only other theater review he’s read that was written by me was my review of “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
He presently has two running jokes with me. One is that I’m Jewish (I’m not), the other one is that I pan every show I see in Waterloo and Cedar Falls (“Earnest” was the first).
Upon seeing my review he said in an aghast manner, “Monica, you panned a show at the children’s theater?”
I looked over my sandwich–oven-roasted turkey breast, baby swiss and Gray Poupon on a whole wheat bagel–and said, “Have you read past the first paragraph?”
“No.”
“I actually raved about it.”
Speaking of reviews, everyone in Cedar Falls that didn’t get pissed off over my review of “Importance of Being Earnest” suddenly discovered my blog.
I was actually approached by someone in the lobby during the intermission of “Guys and Dolls” that thanked me for “growing some balls and panning a show.”
But, mainly, people have read my review of “Guys and Dolls.”
When there is a fine arts event that my friends that are involved with want me to go to I approach it in the following manner:
Do I have a play to see? If no, do I have a copy of All About Eve nearby? If no, is it a Monday? If the answer to this is also no, then I should go.
(The comment about Monday’s refers to the fact that Gossip Girl is on Monday nights.)
WIth this reasoning, I went to the pops concert for Cedar Falls High School Tuesday night. Most of the seating was that of four chairs around tables that had a candle in the center and two baskets of popcorn on the table.
The concert was lovely, amusing. One of the bands played a piece, “House of Horrors,” that was a medley of different numbers. With this there was a “Name that Tune” game that involved writing down the different titles. There were prizes to be won (notably, Jane Fonda’s workout album).
If I had written down the titles and overcome my strong hatred of audience participation, I would have tied with Steve Cita, the band director at Waterloo West High School.
Yes, I could have won Jane Fonda’s workout album if I didn’t hate audience participation.
On a more interesting note, one of my friends who has long wavy brown hair and a beard appeared on stage, during the concert, as Oprah to try to deal with the two hosts problems over one of the hosts wearing Spandex (to be precise, Under Armour).
The host that was wearing Spandex was also standing behind me during intermission. Directly behind my seat which made turning my head at one point very awkward.
(The friend that appeared as Oprah said that I should have held the candle near his butt, but I pointed out that I’m not that cruel.)
And on another note, I’ll be review “Fences” at Theatre Cedar Rapids next week. I told you I’d be making a comeback with reviews.
At least the people that read those reviews aren’t intimidated by the length, unlike those that read the publication I write for.
Fragments 