Lovely Indescribable Responses

82. Sometimes I walk out of a play thinking “I have no idea what I just saw. What the hell were they thinking? That was utter garbage!” Other times, I walk out thinking “I have no idea what I just saw, but it was incredible.” (Sadly, the former occurs more often than the latter.)

So last night I went to see Farewell Umbrella (Au Revoir Parapluie) at Chicago Shakespeare Theater with my friend Anna, and it definitely fell into the latter category. I bought our tickets a month ago, because my Shakespeare instructor raved so heavily about the last show that James Thiérée (great-grandson of Eugene O’Neill and grandson of Charlie Chaplin) had brought to CST (she said that within the first five minutes she was openly weeping, and that it was the single most moving theatrical experience of her life, and that she had to see it again). I’m seeing it again tonight, because I got a free ticket when I attended a workshop on physical theatre last week (awesome).

You know a show is going to be bizarre when you can’t understand the director’s note in the program (a taste of it: “Well, what’s the story about? It’s a story about a story (about a story about a story about a story…) that cannot be told”). It was very moving, and gorgeous. It involved a great deal of aerial dance and circus work, as well as mime, dance, music, and some things that I can’t explain. It was really more about imagery than a story, although there sort of was a story, but there were also giant fishhooks dangling from the ceiling suspending long ropes. And then they ripped up the floor and planted reeds. And removed a tarp from the stage and turned it into a circus tent. And by the end of the show, it was raining shuttlecocks on stage. To try to explain it would be impossible. I'm still processing what I saw (I love it when the arts make you think). Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.

83. I decided a couple of years ago that the word “lovely” seems to follow me around. I played Mrs. Soames in a production of “Our Town”, and she says lovely/loveliest at least ten times. I played a stepsister in “Cinderella” and had to sing “A Lovely Night”. I was once described as lovely in a review of a show. I could go on, but you get the idea. Somewhere along the line, I decided to embrace it. So if you’ve noticed that I frequently use phrases like “lovely and wonderful” in life and in blogging, that’s why. It’s my signature word, if there’s such a thing.

84. I have developed a Pavlovian response to classical music. It’s completely involuntary. My father loves classical music, and is a terrific pianist. When I was a child, there were two times that I heard classical music. The first was at night as I was going to bed, because that’s when my dad chose to practice. The second was on long car trips, as that’s when my dad would drive, which was coincidentally also when I was most likely to become carsick. To this day, hearing classical music often makes me either fall asleep or feel physically ill. This is completely tragic, as I enjoy classical music very much (I was, after all, a cellist for eight years and a pianist for five). I think I'm slowly growing out of it, but it's not gone. When I was home for Thanksgiving I played page-turner for my dad. And he kept playing random things and then trying to get me to guess the composer (which, um, I'm terrible at... unless it's Mozart... I can do Mozart. But I don't know Schubert from Liszt).