As We Stumble Along

My plans were to go to the Quaker meeting house for music. No, seriously.

But then a review and a play dropped in my lap and my evening took a southward turn.

My friend Moira shared the meal with me before returning to work for a photography assignment while I felt my way through the dark to Swift Creek Mill theater, a place I'd never been.

I'm directionally-challenged in broad daylight, so at night, I'm at a complete loss when looking for someplace new to me.

Let's just say I allowed 45 minutes to get someplace that was 20.5 miles away - and 17 of the miles were highway so I was going 60 miles per hour.

In my defense, I got stopped for a train (coming and going, now what are the chances of that?), had to stop and ask for directions twice (once at a 7-11 where a young guy who'd just bought a 40 ounce leered and asked if he could drive me there) and made it to the theater with five minutes before curtain.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, I joined a couple of guys on the elevator up to the theater, listening to them rave that the elevator was the highlight of the renovation.

Explaining that it was my first time there, one of the men extended his hand and introduced himself as the president of the Mill.

I found out during the introduction of the show that the theater's grand re-opening had been just last weekend.

"Make sure that while you're here tonight you pee," the director (I think) told us to great laughter. "You can actually turn around now. And the new elevator is an uplifting ride."

How about that? Brand new to SCM theater and I'd already managed to experience its strengths.

"Act like normal people tonight so the actors can find out where the laughs are so we'll be ready for the paying customers tomorrow night," he added.

All I could do was try.

With that, the dress rehearsal began with a dark stage and a voice intoning, "I hate theater."

The Man in the Chair talking was a key character who narrated the play, set in 1928, deconstructing its story and characters for us throughout the show.

First we were instructed to listen to the overture ("a musical appetizer, a pu pu platter of tunes") and then he explained a few things.

"The Drowsy Chaperone" was his favorite musical and he liked to play the two-record set when he was feeling a non-specific sadness.

So he begins playing the record and the story comes to life in his living room. It's everything a musical-hater hates about musicals. It also won a Tony award and played on Broadway for a year and a half.

The drowsy chaperon of the title was a hilarious character, a seasoned woman who liked to drink despite it being set during Prohibition and the one responsible for ensuring that the bride did not see the groom before the wedding.

When asked if it wasn't a bit early in the day to be drinking, she responds, "I don't understand the question." When asked if she'd ever been married, she says, "No, I drink for pleasure."

Her big showstopper of a number is a rousing anthem about alcoholism.

The groom and best man have a tap dancing scene where they are joined by the narrator, also tapping, and eventually the older butler, who does full on turns and almost steals the scene.

It's been a while since I've seen any tap dancing.

Even more impressive was the scene where the bride ("We spooned briefly, then he proposed") explains that she's willing to give up her show biz career to be married to the man of her dreams.

During the course of the song "Show Off," she sings, "I don't wanna change keys no more, I don't wanna striptease no more," while doing cartwheels, handstands and splits. Oh, yes, and Rockette kicks.

Truly impressive.

Evan Nasteff, as one of two gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, had some of the cleverest wordplay of the evening, not to mention their ability to flip trays of pastries mid-dance step. Then there was their masterful jazz hands as they danced in flowered aprons over plaid knickers.

The bride's Feldzieg Follies producer is determined to stop the wedding so he won't lose his star, so he begins plotting.

"I need someone with loose morals," he muses. "I need, what do you call it? A European!"

Enter Adolpho, played by the always brilliant Matt Shofner, this time in a black pompadour wig with a white streak, a mustache and as full of himself as any Latin lover.

His broad comedy and thick accent had the audience in stitches every time he was on stage.

During intermission, I took my second trip to those fabulous new bathrooms, where I heard several women say they'd seen the play before, including one who saw it on Broadway.

All of them agreed that the play was great entertainment and the notion of a "musical within a comedy" was awfully amusing.

When the show resumed, our narrator asked if we'd enjoyed intermission because he hadn't, didn't like the interruption of reality.

"Whenever a character is in crisis, they sing and dance. That's musical theater!" he said, cheered up that the second act was coming.

Like a good Shakespeare play, eventually all the romantic problems are sorted out and all of a sudden everyone is in love with someone and wanting to marry them.

One of the most hilarious moments comes when the chaperone announces that she and Adolpho are in love. Smiling and putting his hands over her ears, he mouths, "Help me!"

But he doesn't really want help and before long there are four marriages in the offing, with the hostess and her butler singing "Love is Always Lovely in the End," she citing lovers as examples and him reminding her they all ended badly.

"We'll all get married in a clump, like they do in Utah!" they decide.

The nuptials are done on a plane which also flies up (and kind of away), a nice effect, to symbolize happiness and honeymoons in Rio to come. And, musically, the end of non-specific sadness.

Just goes to show you where alcohol and spooning can lead.