I had a nice, relaxed day, ate at home - and set out with a mild degree of trepidation. I mean, if there'd been terrible traffic delays, and I'd been late and not gone, I'd have been expelled from this club! Or, God forbid, if I'd been in an accident. Annoyingly, my bus was leaving as I approached. But no, all went well in the end - and that bus (which was always a useful one when I was living near Clapham Junction) goes from just up the road to - gee, right outside the theatre! Which looked strangely familiar, although it's not listed in the blog - maybe not, then.
It occupies one of the railway arches around Vauxhall - the lobby is a bar, with the theatre in a room behind. The box office is combined with the bar - so, since I was nice and prompt, I ordered a drink as I was asking for my ticket. Which I drank inside - pitying the brave souls who took their drinks outside, on the coldest day so far this winter!
We were handed out programs as we went in - just as well they were free, considering how little information is in them! Cast and crew information, but nothing at all about the play itself. We do discover that it's set in New York City, and although the date is never specified, it was written and set in 1998 - they're still generally using landlines. Our two main characters are a young woman who's been living in New York since she came there for college, 11 years ago, and another who's just moved there, to the immense disapproval of her family, from St. Louis. An attraction begins to grow between them when the out-of-towner contacts the longtime city dweller to be a catsitter - that's hilarious, BTW, as the cat only appears in the first scene, and never emerges from the cat carrier. (I'm guessing puss was stuffed.) They do subsequently spend some time wondering where the cat has got to.
But they really do have more to be worrying about, as their attraction grows, and the New Yorker starts to question her feelings. Spoiler: she finally decides to act on them by kissing the other girl, in the wee small hours of the morning, in a park. Very silly thing to do, of course, and of course some idiot nearby starts to comment, makes lewd remarks, the out-of-towner retorts with something rude, and he kicks the **** out of them both. Although the poor St. Louis girl comes off worse, and ends up in a coma, while the other girl has to deal with the fallout, and wonder what on earth she actually wants from this.
It's decent - although the delivery is, from the start, exhaustingly frantic. Which put me on edge, and prevented me from engaging too much with it. The regularly passing trains overhead fit in well with the gritty inner-city in which the play is set. I did find the police officer who questions the victim (the one not in a coma) far too aggressive - for heavens' sake, you'd think he suspected her of perpetrating the attack herself. The plot does develop well, and the ex - who arrives from St. Louis to "look after" the girl who broke up with him to come to this big, bad place - is deliciously irritating. Runs for about 1hr 40 mins, without interval - and to be fair, I didn't get bored. Runs until the 1st.
Afterwards, my stop was right across the road - and vexingly, I had to make a massive detour to get to a crossing! The road is too wide to do otherwise. And wouldn't you know it, as I was doing that massive detour, my bus came. Again. And was, of course, long gone by the time I got to my stop. And I had a 12-minute wait for the next, in temperatures so low I didn't dare stop moving to sit down. Hey-ho, when it did come, there was some amusement with two German-sounding ladies of a certain age, who hadn't a clue where to get off, but were having great fun trying to figure it out..
Tomorrow, back with the Crick Crack Club (CCC) for 1001 Nights, at the British Museum. Mea culpa, I recently told people that this was The Embers Collective - nope! Turns out it's not. Ah well.
On Monday, back, after a week, with Up in the Cheap Seats for Falsettos, at The Other Palace. An aisle seat, as usual - legroom is poor, here.
On Tuesday, back with them again for Acosta Danza - Evolution, at Sadler's Wells.
On Wednesday, Anthony's Cultural Events and Walking Activities Group is off to a performance entitled Virginia Woolf - Killing the Angel, at the LSE. So I'm going on my own, and saving the Meetup fee - I haven't had that much luck with socialising with them, anyway. And now that Meetup is full.
On Thursday, back with Spooky London - the John Snow Pub. Then another weekend in Ireland.
On the 25th, the CCC is back with Rebel Children, at the British Library. Ben Haggarty & Jan Blake - ooh yeah!
On the 26th, my annual trip to Winter Wonderland - heading to Cirque Berserk and the Ice Kingdom, as usual. Someone said he might come along.
On the 27th, the first night in ages with North London Friends! We're at A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, at Trafalgar Studios.
And on the 28th, our ex-company's social group's Christmas meeting. We had a tiff about the venue - the organiser decided on Thai Square, which I think is overpriced and underwhelming. So he started to grumble about the difficulty of getting somewhere before Christmas - which will take a group, and doesn't cost the earth. Still though, he came up with an alternative - we've decided on the Warwick Castle pub in Little Venice. Lovely area, the pub sounds nice - with a Christmassy open fire, and a room we can book - and hey, it's a pub, which won't throw us out as quickly! Must get on to booking their wine deal.. 10% off if you order at least £150 worth. Which I'm sure, among the dozen or so that are coming, we'll manage to drink. And gee, he's had us choosing what we want off the menu. I also asked for the wine list - and now am waiting impatiently for someone - anyone - to get back to me with an idea of what they'd like to drink!
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