Sunday, September 07, 2008

There is No Underwear in Space

Because, apparently, George Lucas went to space and looked around and saw that there was no underwear.

I did know that gaffer tape was used to support Carrie Fisher in the first Princess Leia costume, but I did not know about Lucas' indisputable reasoning for it until last night.

It took us longer to get to the theater than we had anticipated, but we were still well on time. Have any of you theater-goers noticed that buying tickets online means the computer chooses what it thinks are the best seats available? This is a hit or miss kind of thing, the computer may choose wisely, or it may choose poorly. We lucked out, I think. Here's a view of the stage, post-show, from our balcony. And this theater is great: while available, any seat in the house is $12 for people under thirty. I picked from the most expensive groups of seats, still only $12 (the ticket price list indicates $10 seats with a $2 "facility charge." Just call it $12, people, you add those two bucks to every ticket!) for $76 seats. Wee!



I read a comment from someone who had seen an earlier version of Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking. This person said that she looked old (she's almost 52) and fat and her autobiographical one-woman play was all "boo-hoo, my parents were terrible and that's why I've led such a terrible life." I don't know what show that guy went to see, but I did not get that impression at all.

I think she spoke rather fondly of the people in her life; her parents, ex-lovers (she was married to one of my favorite singers, I didn't know that!), and even crazy, gaffer-tape obsessed directors. Her conversation was both frank and lighthearted. I call it a conversation, because it was really more like that than a play. There were several times when the house lights would come on -proper cup of coffee- so she could see and interact with the audience. She spoke with clever humor and the unique ability to laugh at herself.

Pretty much like everyone in the theater, I wanted to see this show because she starred in one of my all-time favorite movies ("if not, why are you here?!"). There is something about seeing American royalty in person that makes that far away place where film and television magic happens -proper copper coffee pot- seem not so far away. There was reality in it, especially in her upfront manner of speaking about the tragedies and accomplishments in her life.

No, it wasn't all doom and gloom. It was raw and funny, witty and candid. I'm glad I got the chance to see it, and I'd see it again if the opportunity presents itself. I'm glad Phoenix came with me too. We're hoping to do more things like this though, next time, we'll have to better judge how long it takes to ride the Metro into town.

Forget cold coffee eyes, I'll take rainbows in the high desert air.

And here's a little bit of Carrie's advice: vibrators make good stocking stuffers.

No comments :