Deadly Furniture

Sometimes life takes over and a month passes and you realize that you haven’t posted anything on your blog since you saw that Woody Allen film. Elizabeth and I haven’t been living in strange solitude doing nothing but staring at a blank wall, but we’ve actually been doing stuff. Lots of stuff. Which has left little time/energy/drive to actually sit down and write anything here, on Deadly Furniture. But, because the bookmark has been guiltily staring at me for the past week, I thought that it was time to…you know…write. And what better way to make a grand re-entrance then with plays?

Because Elizabeth and I have seen a lot of them lately. It’s perhaps one of my favorite things about New York City. If you aren’t afraid of lines (which we aren’t) or spending your day in them (sometimes

your entire day), you can get relatively cheap tickets to Avenue Q or How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and then walk home afterwards. To say this is how I’ve been spending most of my limited funds (funemployment for the win) is pretty accurate.

So to say that Elizabeth and I felt pretty lucky that we could actually see a play that everyone in the country was talking about is to put it mildly. The Book of Mormon is a musical that is on the verge of changing everything about Broadway and the plays it produces and Elizabeth and I, New Yorkers, got to see it. And it was incredible.

The Book of Mormon

Ever since I was a child I tried to be the best
So, what happened?
My family and friends all said I was blessed
So, what happened?
It was supposed to be all so exciting to be teaching of Christ 'cross the sea,But, I allowed my faith to be shaken.
Oh, what's the matter with me?

The thing is, plays are harder to write about than television or movies. At least for me. The Book of Mormon is an experience that I can’t describe to you in anything resembling a fair review. Whenever I listen to the soundtrack, I think back of those moments of me standing in the back of the orchestra and hearing “I Believe” for the first time or watching “Turn It Off.” It was a singular and unique three hours of joy and laughter.

The same can be said of my experience in Stratford, Ontario. Elizabeth and I can’t seem to quit the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (we’ve been there eight times) and these past experiences build on each other until we have all these memories of past plays as we watch new ones. We both have our favorite actors (Geraint Wyn Davies and Tom Rooney!) and so we’re almost guaranteed to love whatever they’re in (within reason. I’m not totally blind to bad plays).

It’s easiest to just say that Camelot forced me to perform my best impression of my mother on Easter Sunday...

Camelot

Yes, Camelot, my boy!
Where once it never rained till after sundown,
By eight a.m. the morning fog had flown...
Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.

...And Merry Wives Of Windsor made me really want a buck basket.

And then there’s Jesus Christ Superstar. The original soundtrack doesn’t do justice to the wall of sound that was this rock opera. And it was incredible. At times holy. Tim Rice writes his heart out here and the actors sang out there’s.

Jesus Christ Superstar

I dreamed I met a Galilean
A most amazing man
He had that look
You very rarely find
The haunting hunted kind

I asked him
To say what had happened
How it all began
I asked again
He never said a word
As if he hadn't heard

There. I have written another blogpost, bookmark. Now stop making me feel all guilty. I have plays to go to.