Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Producers

I just got home from ...

I can't do it.  I can't write about this funny, funny production of 'The Producers' at the Village Theatre.  I'm just too tired.  I was out of the house this morning at 9:00 am.  I got home for a half an hour this afternoon at 5:15 before I left to meet Rachel to go to the play.  I'm past tired. 

Let's just say that these players were so good that they got us laughing when no one on stage was saying anything, just a pause, a slight adjustment on stage and we were all laughing again.  The way Franz Liebkind's eyes didn't quite track correctly drew a horse-laugh a couple of rows behind us during his song Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop.

I have to go to bed.  Today was limo day for five fifth-graders, including Nick.  Imagine that, fifth-graders getting into a limo.  I felt faintly ridiculous taking pictures of them. 

I'm beyond telling you how Leo Bloom was able to fall down, to roll, to take a hit as if he were Charlie Chaplin in a silent movie, and the way he could raise one eyebrow after another got more than one horse-laugh from the audience.

I went to Nick's assembly this morning.  The kids from jump rope club spent at least twenty-five minutes showing us their tricks.  It was fun, but when a kid misstepped or lost the swing of the jump rope, they'd leave the stage only to pop back on later.  Some of the kids came back onto the stage three or four times, hoping, no doubt, that they'd be able to do it better than they did the last time.  They usually didn't.  I was far enough away that it was hard to see the jump rope so sometimes, so it just looked like a kid hopping really fast on the stage.  One girl just started dancing behind another who was having trouble with her rope.  I think I laughed when I shouldn't have.

In the play, Roger Debris, dressed in drag in a Chrysler building strapless dress, made me snort out loud.  He was better dressed as Hitler, still very classically gay for the song 'Springtime for Hitler.'  Oh this should have been offensive.  It wasn't, at all.  I can tell you I get uncomfortable even seeing a swastika, but when they're all sequins and glitter lights, it takes away the sting.  I was not offended.  Maybe I should have been.  I didn't stop laughing to think about it. 

This afternoon, Nick's class had their fifth-grade celebration.  I was pinging between people, trying to dodge someone.  What do you do when your son wants to hang around with someone who's parents just don't have the same views you have?  What if you don't want to talk about President Obama because you like actually him and they liked W?  What do you do if you don't want to participate in a conversation about how bad the school is when you like the school and the president of the PTSA is standing ten feet away?  What do you say when you see this person's daughters spitting on each other and their mom is right there, never asking them to stop?  I'm a coward.  I have trouble telling Nick that I just don't want to be around that more than I have to.  How do you tell your boy that you can't choose his friends, but you can choose for him not to be around them very often.  It was a farce.

So it was a good night for an outlandish comedy, something just so far off the beaten track that I could laugh when it was inappropriate, laugh because the play worked to layer one inappropriate snort onto another.  I could laugh because these people on stage were just so much fun to watch. 

Oh, just go see the damn play, especially on a night when you need to laugh you ass off. 

Thank you for listening, jb

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