Saturday, 11 June 2005 12:43 pm
Lights out
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deckardcanineThe Arena Stage has finished its season with Anna Christie. After Anna Karenina and Anna in the Tropics, I have to notice a pattern.
I like plays, in writing or performance, more than I first thought. When I read bios in the program, I see a new play name and automatically want to check it out, with no exceptions that leap to mind. No other medium is like that for me, perhaps in part because I know more movies, TV shows, comic strips, video games, paintings, etc. than I know plays. But the apparent fact remains that plays interest me most consistently.
But last impressions must be at least as important as first impressions. As Howie knows, an especially bad final 20 seconds can sour your memory of a movie in a way that 20 seconds in the middle could not. This is not always the case: I love Fantasia despite the ending (beautiful and spiritual as the music is) being the dullest and least characteristic part of it. By the same token, a very good ending often but not always makes you consider overlooking the earlier lameness.
This time, certain factors were not in the theater's control. My supervisor told me to go home 1.5 hours early, but I didn't feel like walking in the heat, so I stuck around half working and half bumming online until 5:30, after which I took the Metro with reminders of where to transfer. Despite this being my third time going straight from work to the theater, I have a habit of taking the wrong line on a track that alternates two lines. The Metro also was unusually crowded due to Friday night and the Nats game. Nevertheless, I arrived more than an hour before my parents and adult friend did (we all usher). Our friend came first to tell me that my mom had forgotten to bring my dinner. There were exceedingly few dining options in walking distance. I went to the other theater, which I could have done a while before, and got the last of the salmon salad, the only main course I could eat there and not very tasty.
The other factor was that all four of us were tired, perhaps me especially as I get up at 6:10 (as long as our cat doesn't insist on getting fed 25 minutes earlier than that) and have not entirely worn off my college-spawned habit of staying up late. We agreed beforehand to leave as soon as the ushers were allowed to sit down, unless the play was too engaging. Instead, we left before we were told to sit down, and well before the late seating break (40 minutes in!) for customers who trickle in, which is theoretically the soonest the ushers would be allowed to leave. Kind of a good thing the play was already over-ushered with no more than 60% of the seats sold. What little we saw did not feel at all fresh in humor, tension, or theme, and the stage setup was unusually minimal and therefore blah for that theater.
In short, as much as I've enjoyed my time as a free spectator, I have mixed feelings about volunteering to usher next season. There's a certain sense of obligation, like I don't want to repeat my 11-year-old self who kept quitting things for free time. Sloth is almost certainly my biggest sin lately, which is why I'm trying to enjoy mowing the lawn right before a jog. But sometimes it's hard to tell if a job's inconvenience is petty.
I like plays, in writing or performance, more than I first thought. When I read bios in the program, I see a new play name and automatically want to check it out, with no exceptions that leap to mind. No other medium is like that for me, perhaps in part because I know more movies, TV shows, comic strips, video games, paintings, etc. than I know plays. But the apparent fact remains that plays interest me most consistently.
But last impressions must be at least as important as first impressions. As Howie knows, an especially bad final 20 seconds can sour your memory of a movie in a way that 20 seconds in the middle could not. This is not always the case: I love Fantasia despite the ending (beautiful and spiritual as the music is) being the dullest and least characteristic part of it. By the same token, a very good ending often but not always makes you consider overlooking the earlier lameness.
This time, certain factors were not in the theater's control. My supervisor told me to go home 1.5 hours early, but I didn't feel like walking in the heat, so I stuck around half working and half bumming online until 5:30, after which I took the Metro with reminders of where to transfer. Despite this being my third time going straight from work to the theater, I have a habit of taking the wrong line on a track that alternates two lines. The Metro also was unusually crowded due to Friday night and the Nats game. Nevertheless, I arrived more than an hour before my parents and adult friend did (we all usher). Our friend came first to tell me that my mom had forgotten to bring my dinner. There were exceedingly few dining options in walking distance. I went to the other theater, which I could have done a while before, and got the last of the salmon salad, the only main course I could eat there and not very tasty.
The other factor was that all four of us were tired, perhaps me especially as I get up at 6:10 (as long as our cat doesn't insist on getting fed 25 minutes earlier than that) and have not entirely worn off my college-spawned habit of staying up late. We agreed beforehand to leave as soon as the ushers were allowed to sit down, unless the play was too engaging. Instead, we left before we were told to sit down, and well before the late seating break (40 minutes in!) for customers who trickle in, which is theoretically the soonest the ushers would be allowed to leave. Kind of a good thing the play was already over-ushered with no more than 60% of the seats sold. What little we saw did not feel at all fresh in humor, tension, or theme, and the stage setup was unusually minimal and therefore blah for that theater.
In short, as much as I've enjoyed my time as a free spectator, I have mixed feelings about volunteering to usher next season. There's a certain sense of obligation, like I don't want to repeat my 11-year-old self who kept quitting things for free time. Sloth is almost certainly my biggest sin lately, which is why I'm trying to enjoy mowing the lawn right before a jog. But sometimes it's hard to tell if a job's inconvenience is petty.
