My Fair Lady and Other Sins...

Hello again. I realize I haven’t posted in a while, but not much has changed. I moved. The new place is much better. I’ve had a few more dating mishaps – none as f*cked up as previous posts. I went on a date with a disinterested hipster. He was too cool to be into anything, and then I got stood up by another guy for a date the following day. The hipster was really disappointing, because we seemed to have a lot in common over the phone, and I made the mistake of getting my hopes up. It’s okay; I’m used to being alone. I wish I could be as happy as other people and meet someone, but I’m coming to accept that it’s probably not in the stars for me – at least not for now.

Moving on, I’ve recently been exploring Birmingham more and more. This city actually has a lot to offer. It’s not San Diego, Los Angeles, Detroit, DC, or even Columbia – but it beats the Hell out of Jackson, MS. The parks are beautiful. My new favorite spot in the city is in the Highland neighborhood – Rhodes Park. It’s quiet and shady with weathered aggregate fixtures oozing with charm.

The zoo is small, but nice too. I was worried that the animals would be all cooped-up in tiny forlorn cages (I had read some negative reviews on-line), but the habitats were large, and the animals seemed happy and well-adjusted. I went with my fellow boat stealing pirate friend Mandy. We had a blast watching the sea lion Splash Show, and we got to feed the pelicans by tossing fish into their beaks. While we were feeding, a family with a little girl came up and started feeding the pelicans as well. The little girl loved it, but the mom complained the whole time about how her daughter’s hands were going to smell. She admonished her daughter for touching her hair after she had touched the fish, and continued to fuss at her at the hand-washing station. Listen parents… LIGHTEN UP! Give your kid a bath when you get home, carry hand sanitizer with you, but if you are going to bitch about the dead fish – DON’T LET YOUR CHILD FEED THE PELICANS, or don’t take them to the zoo. Your child – and everyone else around you – would be better off if you stopped being an ass. If, however, you are going to allow your child some childhood joys – you should be prepared and not complain. Yeah, her hair might smell a little, but isn’t that a small price for a pleasant life-affirming childhood memory?

Anyway, I got a call from Mandy Friday night. She had scored some free tickets to see the National Tour of My Fair Lady at the BJCC. To say that this show was bad would be an understatement. It was officially a train wreck atop a hot mess with flies on it. I am a scenic designer by trade, so I am always excited to see the designs for professional shows (especially shows – like this one – which have received a ton of hype on local television). I wasn’t expecting ground breaking design; I assumed it would be a lot of wagons and drops – nothing terribly innovative, but solid with sound paint technique. When the main drape opened, however, I found lackluster perspective painting with minimal shading that was almost completely bleached out by the overly white lighting. The drop was supposed to be realistic, but it failed greatly, and bordered on the cartoonish – but it even somehow failed at that as well.

As I suspected, it was a wagon and drop show, but the wagons were very poorly constructed. One in particular looked as if it were about to collapse every time it rolled into position. The molding at the top of the unit didn’t line up as it rounded a corner, and the side wall was leaning in on itself. This wagon had been constructed in forced perspective to resemble the forced perspective drop. The wagon, however, was not forced as strongly as the drop – providing an odd disconnect.

It should also be said that this particular wagon and drop were the only units in forced perspective. The show lacked any sort of design cohesion, and looked as if each scene had been designed by a different designer, and then constructed by a team of mentally challenged marmosets. The paint made me cringe, and all I could hear was my graduate mentor yelling through his thick monotone Russian accent in the deep recesses of my brain: “Shit. Shit. Shit. This is shit; do over.”

The lack of any aesthetic sensibility within the set was actually the least of the show’s troubles. The actors – or should I say Schmactors – provided very few believable moments, and were slow in picking up their cues. They were not, however, afraid to bathe the scene in affectation and grandiose gestures, all while slipping in and out of their Cockney and proper English accents. At many times, it was painful to watch - especially when the tac-tastic costumes and atrociously bad wigs were calculated into the equation. I have seen first time undergraduate designers achieve more cohesion and style than this.

Worry not dear reader, I had an incredible time. It doesn’t hurt that I find bad theatre hysterical, but the company was glorious, and I don’t just mean Mandy and the other people I arrived with… There was an elderly couple sitting two rows behind us. They began repeating the lines: “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” as if the good (read “sexist”) professor were asking them to improve their personal diction. Nothing would get them to stop repeating the lines. Not even when I announced: “Well at least someone can do it,” and the whole row broke into laughter. They remained gloriously ignorant that their comments, such as: “I told you this was better than anything on the TV,” were the source of far more entertainment than what was on stage. It was our own private mystery science theatre – or that old crotchety couple from the muppets.

Once the last scene ended, we rushed out of the theatre before the curtain call. And we weren’t the only ones. While we were the first out the door, we precipitated a mass Exodus of somewhat Biblical proportions. Patrons were flocking toward their vehicles from every designated exit point. Very few were staying for the curtain call. I think we, however, were the happiest. While we had just witnessed the worst professional show I personally have ever seen, we hadn’t paid a dime, and we had been entertained. And that makes up for a multitude of sins.