Whoopee!

Guess what, I have good news – I don’t have any more coverage for the foreseeable future. Do you know how good that feels? It feels really good. We’re also going on vacation this week. Also very delightful.

I’m not going to fill you in on the weekend, I was asleep so I don’t really know what Shad did all weekend. Last night we had a very…interesting experience.

Jen’s mom is in town for a month long visit. Jen’s mom wanted to attend some sort of play while she was out here. Jen told me this a few months ago and I suggested a few of the companies in Salt Lake thinking she wanted something great. Apparently any play would do, including something at the local community theatre. Shad and I had the pleasure of attending with them. Without further ado, I bring you my review of Whoopee!

Okay so going into the play there was quite the discussion prior at work as to what it was about. Many people guessed Whoopi Goldberg, they would be wrong. The description on the playhouse website told of singing cowboys and flashy costumes. Okay, I asked Jen if it would be like High School Musical but with cowboys, she told me yes – As a side note, after the play was over we soon realized we were thinking of different high school musicals. Me, the delightful Disney production filmed at East High, Jen was thinking of her actual high school musical. She grew up in a small town and in order to have all necessary characters for the play, girls had to play men. Very different mental pictures.

The program explained the play was written in the 1920’s about the time when musical theatre was just getting its start. A possible excuse for the spectacle to come? As the theatre started to fill, it became apparent the mid twenty age range was not their target audience-more like seventy. Jen assured me we would be in the majority once the cast was on stage. Participating in community plays is all the rage amongst our demographic, right? With the opening chorus, it became apparent we were still not in the majority. And that’s where things went wrong.

Now, I felt bad for the actors because I know my facial expression showed my moderate disgust as they poorly danced around the stage and sang. We were in the second row and I knew they could see it, but I was too appalled to hide it. Things took a turn for the confusing about the time of the third scene. A character was talking to the “love of his life” begging her to not marry Sheriff Bob and run away with him to live with “his people.” With his effeminate gestures, orange spray tan and loafers, he clearly wasn’t straight. I was confused why he wanted to bring Sally back to “his people”. I mean the lace wedding dress she was wearing was a bit unfortunate but not enough to call in the Queer Eye guys, right? I turns out he was supposed to be an Indian (loafers=moccasins). I thought Waninis was just a new trendy name, kind of like spelling Tom with a th. I’m glad Jen was there to help me figure out what “people” he was referring to. It was still pretty distracting. I know gay actors and have seen them act absolutely convincingly straight on stage. Were the pickings that slim? Jen didn’t help with her chuckles and comments.

Things got better once Sally and Harry? (Herbert, Walter, Chuck – I don’t remember his name) ran away. Now those two actors were surprisingly wonderful. If the play had just been them for the remainder, we wouldn’t have solved anything plot wise but it would have been a good experience.

I think Jen’s comment after the play sums it up nicely, “In high school we had girls playing men and they did a better job than that guy.” It was a very entertaining night, but not for the right reasons.