Company 157 put on a production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" with four performances from Thursday to Sunday, and since I couldn't make it to the first two shows (studying for my history midterm on Thursday night, and MAROON 5 CONCERT on Friday night), I was really excited about going to the Saturday matinée. Watching an absolutely FREE musical on my birthday? How much more awesome could the day get?
Four cast members, a two-girl orchestra (one on the keyboard and the other on the violin), plus a small production crew, put together the entire musical. They were all so talented and the show was fall-out-of-your-seat hilarious - I could not believe I was seeing it for free!
When I first walked into the theater at Galbraith Hall in Revelle, I was surprised to see how small the room was and a kind of three-sided seating with the empty floor space in the center as the "stage" and the audience seating along the peripheral of the room. The close, intimate theater setting really worked well for this musical. I didn't get there early enough to get a seat in the seating section facing the center of the room, so I sat in the front row of one of the side sections.
I had no idea that sitting that close to the "action" was going to get me more than just a close-up view of the cast members as they performed.
All of the vignettes were hilarious and the cast members all did a GREAT job with the singing and acting, but the "Scared Straight" vignette with the prisoner-priest and the forced marriage of the two over-thirties was probably one of the most memorable parts of the show for me.
Why? Because I was laughing so hard at the scary prisoner-priest's performance that he came over to where I was sitting, put his face right in front of mine, and SCREAMED at me for laughing.
"YOU THINK THAT WAS FUNNY?? HUH?? THAT WAS FUNNY TO YOU?? STOP LAUGHING!! SAY IT WAS NOT FUNNY - SAY IT!!"
He was SO in character that his outburst freaked out my suitemates, who were sitting on the other side of the room and watched all of this happen from the distance. Even though he practically seemed like he was ready to shake me in my seat for continuing to laugh, the entire situation was so hilarious that I just couldn't stop laughing!
After a few minutes, he continued on his rampage and ran up into another section of the audience to drag a guy, who was wearing a Giant's cap, onto the stage to yell at him for supporting the Giants ("THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES, YOU IDIOT!"), insulted a guy for wearing unfashionable shorts, pointed out a couple sitting in the back and told the girl that she was too good for the guy, hit on a girl wearing a tank top, and threw two people out of the audience.
I was laughing so hard that I was literally crying.
Even my friend, who claimed to "hate musicals," enjoyed the show, so it's a definite must-see!
What an amazing way to spend a birthday!
No comments:
Post a Comment