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Slices of Something, Not Life
May. 12th, 2017 12:08 amTonight's after work adventure was a trip to The Pear Theater§§ very close by, for a series of short locally-written plays billed as Pear Slices. They have done this every year since the theater was founded, as part of a project to help develop local playwrights. When it started, and for many years after, the plays were fresh and well honed and mostly very enjoyable. Once in a while there was a clinker, of course, but they have all been watchable.
Not this time
Two of the plays bored me to tears. None of them held my attention or made me want to see it made into a full length play. None of them left me laughing.
There was one about a high school girl whose grades are in the toilet because she imagines she is a super-hero, and goes out with her gang of super-heroes at all hours to fight multi-tentacled aliens. It had promise, but the playwright decided she was just a plain girl, when he had a chance to show us she really did have a super power. There was even an opening toward the end which would have made the audience think "hmmmm". But he blew it.
A spoof on the convoluted twisty plots of detective stories started out well, but got way too repetitive, and in the end made no sense at all.
One could have wowed me, had it not been written by someone whose social sense was in the 1900's. It was about a marriage proposal, and in 2017 the premise did not work at all. It was the last play of the evening, and came closest to entertaining me.
One of the problems I had with this year's production is the casting. One cast member in particular just rubbed me the wrong way in all his roles. None of the others made me want to see them onstage again. In past years I have fallen in love with at lest one cast member.
Back to morning. I think I slept well, but got up a couple of times way earlier than usual. Spook abandoned me until I got up. All she wanted was to get into the shower after me.
101 all the way to work, traffic was slow at first, but lightened up near the exit.
Lots to do at work, finished testing the latest box, tomorrow I need to send a note to the manager explaining that some crashes were not as bad as they looked.
Lunch was pot roast, had the place to myself. Break time the hot chocolate machine was broken, so I just read from the latest book. Trixie And Me is trashy free sci-fi, and so far is promising, but he's taking a long time to get them out of the organic alien ship where we found them held captive, and his description of their escape route is murky. But any day now they will get to his ship and I think things will become clearer.
Called the contractors at 2:30 for an ETA, got their machine. Did not hear back.
5:30-ish I parked in the garage and plugged in the car, went upstairs to play on my laptop but it was freezing in the main cafeteria, so I went across the complex to another one, where it was warm. Had to leave at about 6:45 as the hoardes attacked (the food line opens at 6:30). Drove down the block to Starbucks, bought a mocha & coffee cake, and at 7:30 drove another block to the theater.
§§The Pear started out as the Pear Avenue Theater, a tiny black box in a warehouse space at the end of Pear Avenue. They did not expect to do well, or have to move. They did well enough to expand to the next warehouse space, and then someone, probably Google, bought the property and they had to move. Somehow they found $$ to move one block over to La Avenida St., across from Microsoft, into a building which they share with a Pilates place. They at least doubled their auditorium space, and have two real restrooms (before they had one tiny one shared with the cast). The Pear is still a reasonable name, because La Avenida is one-way and one has to use Pear Ave to get to the theater.
No dinner, snacked a lot today.
No mail, no deliveries. Re-mounted the car charger which I'd taken down for the quarterly inspection.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Whatever
Maybe plan a fishing/photo trip for Saturday.
Not this time
Two of the plays bored me to tears. None of them held my attention or made me want to see it made into a full length play. None of them left me laughing.
There was one about a high school girl whose grades are in the toilet because she imagines she is a super-hero, and goes out with her gang of super-heroes at all hours to fight multi-tentacled aliens. It had promise, but the playwright decided she was just a plain girl, when he had a chance to show us she really did have a super power. There was even an opening toward the end which would have made the audience think "hmmmm". But he blew it.
A spoof on the convoluted twisty plots of detective stories started out well, but got way too repetitive, and in the end made no sense at all.
One could have wowed me, had it not been written by someone whose social sense was in the 1900's. It was about a marriage proposal, and in 2017 the premise did not work at all. It was the last play of the evening, and came closest to entertaining me.
One of the problems I had with this year's production is the casting. One cast member in particular just rubbed me the wrong way in all his roles. None of the others made me want to see them onstage again. In past years I have fallen in love with at lest one cast member.
Back to morning. I think I slept well, but got up a couple of times way earlier than usual. Spook abandoned me until I got up. All she wanted was to get into the shower after me.
101 all the way to work, traffic was slow at first, but lightened up near the exit.
Lots to do at work, finished testing the latest box, tomorrow I need to send a note to the manager explaining that some crashes were not as bad as they looked.
Lunch was pot roast, had the place to myself. Break time the hot chocolate machine was broken, so I just read from the latest book. Trixie And Me is trashy free sci-fi, and so far is promising, but he's taking a long time to get them out of the organic alien ship where we found them held captive, and his description of their escape route is murky. But any day now they will get to his ship and I think things will become clearer.
Called the contractors at 2:30 for an ETA, got their machine. Did not hear back.
5:30-ish I parked in the garage and plugged in the car, went upstairs to play on my laptop but it was freezing in the main cafeteria, so I went across the complex to another one, where it was warm. Had to leave at about 6:45 as the hoardes attacked (the food line opens at 6:30). Drove down the block to Starbucks, bought a mocha & coffee cake, and at 7:30 drove another block to the theater.
§§The Pear started out as the Pear Avenue Theater, a tiny black box in a warehouse space at the end of Pear Avenue. They did not expect to do well, or have to move. They did well enough to expand to the next warehouse space, and then someone, probably Google, bought the property and they had to move. Somehow they found $$ to move one block over to La Avenida St., across from Microsoft, into a building which they share with a Pilates place. They at least doubled their auditorium space, and have two real restrooms (before they had one tiny one shared with the cast). The Pear is still a reasonable name, because La Avenida is one-way and one has to use Pear Ave to get to the theater.
No dinner, snacked a lot today.
No mail, no deliveries. Re-mounted the car charger which I'd taken down for the quarterly inspection.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Whatever
Maybe plan a fishing/photo trip for Saturday.
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