I don’t know how it happened. It’s never happened before, and I hope it never happens again. It was terrifying and frustrating and nauseating all at once, like being force-fed Spaghetti-Os straight from the can by Jocelyn Wildenstein with an advanced case of leprosy (if silicone can fall prey to such ailments).
You see, Sunday afternoon I had an allergic reaction to theatre.
When I awoke that morning, everything seemed fine. It was a beautiful day, I had plenty of bagels on hand, and a new copy of National Geographic lay on the pillow next to me (an odd substitution for my vacationing boyfriend, but whatever). I took my time getting out of bed (6:30am–sheer decadence), read some email, watched a little TV, headed for the gym. Little did I know…
At 3:00pm, I hopped on my bike and rode to our friendly neighborhood theatre to see a collection of new works written and mounted by some friends. The crowd was surprisingly big for a Sunday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend–especially since most of ’em were homos and according to their contracts with the Fraternal Order of New Orleans Homosexualists (aka FONOHomos), they were required to be in Florida for the weekend. (Smart cookie that I am, I signed Jonno’s name, so I’m able to escape every year). I grabbed a drink, sat my ass down, and waited for the house lights to dim.
Now some of the pieces were quite good (including one by a local authoress recently turned playwright): dialogue snapped, fully fleshed-out characters crackled, and knuckles popped (a terrible habit I have). To employ some overused critic lingo, it was, by turns funny, tender, nihilistic, poignant, and morbid. Not bad.
But one piece. One piece was so…insipid. So foul. So poorly written. So poorly directed. So smarmy, reactionary, condescending, offensive, gratuitous, facile, polemic, and predictable, I was shaking–no, seriously, shaking–in my seat. I was embarrassed for the cast. I was horrified that someone in the audience might think this is what passes for good theatre in New Orleans. But mostly, I was furious to the point of vomiting: furious that I–we–were being forced to sit there and watch that painfully self-indulgent train wreck. I now understand Jonno’s preference for visual art: at least in a museum, you can come and go as you please.
Luckily, the pieces were short, and I didn’t have to endure that one for too terribly long. Also luckily, I didn’t see the author afterward. I mean, I was taught to say “yes sir” and “no sir” from the time I first opened my mouth, but I might have made an exception that afternoon…
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