Saucy Plays and Love Trains

The last time I saw a high school play I was probably in high school.

And while I don't recall the specific play, I feel absolutely certain it was nowhere near as good as the one I saw tonight.

Maggie Walker Governor's School was doing a preview tonight of "Twelfth Night (Or What You Will)" and I couldn't think of a single reason to pass up free Shakespeare.

I was completely unprepared for what a fabulous theater the school had but not entirely surprised at the fine set dressing.

Clearly talent abounds at this school.

A big, fat, yellow moon hung over the back of the stage with a charming flower-covered swing in front.

These clothes are good enough to drink in and so be these boots, too.

There's a certain kind of amusement that comes from hearing a line like that come out of the mouth of a teenager.

The young cast had clearly been well-rehearsed by director Billy Christopher Maupin and came across sure of their dialog and confident in their movements.

His casting was also cleverly-executed, with a guy playing Maria and a girl playing the beleagured Malvolio, he of the grim smile and yellow cross-gartered stockings, which in this production were black fishnets over yellow tights.

Shall we set about some revels?

There's a line the essence of which rang plenty true coming out of a high-schooler's mouth.

A scene where Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek begin dancing together got big laughs when Toby's hands migrated south to Andrew's butt. You know, like at a high school dance.

I heard you were saucy at my gates.

That's the kind of line that makes me want to work saucy into conversation and not in relation to food, either.

Fact is, I've seen "Twelfth Night" as much as I've seen any Shakespeare play performed, but I never get tired of seeing it interpreted well, as it was tonight.

This was a cast who understood the words they were saying and not just parroting language. Music was incorporated into the play at the beginning, middle and end demonstrating some talented musicality on the part of the cast.

Love sought is good but given unsought is better.

If they haven't yet had the life experience to understand that one, they will.

In the meantime, they're putting on a decidedly excellent production that'll make you forget they still get big X's on their hands at shows.

Once the play was over and I left the high school, where better to go than a dance?

Balliceaux was hosting Mexican band, Sabrosa Sabrosura, playing their cumbia/funk/reggae dance music for our Wednesday night pleasure.

When I got there, I found a friend at the front bar and since the band was running late, sat down with him to chat for a bit.

He'd already heard about the band's delay due to driving up from New Orleans today, but had had been told they were expected within the hour.

We moved to the back room to await their arrival and there I found the jazz critic and settled in to chat with him.

He had great stories, like one about seeing Pat Metheny at a Broad Street venue with only ten other people, including a very young Bruce Hornsby.

The best one happened at a family reunion last year in New Jersey where a young female family member from California who goes to school in New York told him how much she loved Reggie Pace.

That's one far-reaching trombone.

Finally the band - a guitar player, a key-tar player and a slip of a woman playing the cheese grater-looking guira- arrived some time after 11 and set up quickly.

As a bonus, Richmond's own Giustino Riccio was playing congas for them, resplendent in a red shirt and enormous bell-bottom jeans, an ensemble he'd changed into in the basement of Kuba Kuba after his shift tonight.

"Sorry we're so late!" the singer/guira player said. "We're on Mexican time! Get ready because this is dancing music!"

The second they began playing, no one in the good-sized crowd (which was full of jazz musicians) who'd waited around cared how long they'd waited.

But then, before they even got to the end of the first song, something blew on the sound system and there was a break while it was fixed.

Boy, these guys were having a hard time of it tonight.

They began jamming without amplification and soon the guitar player was peeling off his shirt.

"Looks like strip cumbia," the critic joked as we waited.

Soon the guira-playing girl started talking to audience members about papayas, which seemed odd until the critic leaned down and observed, "I think they're talking about genitalia."

After the song "La Papaya y el Despapaye," sung in Spanish we had no more of a clue until she announced, "Since we all come from papayas..."

Genitalia it was.

The band was totally interactive with the crowd, maybe just glad to be out of the car, perhaps grateful that we'd stuck around for them, and challenged us, the guitar player saying, "The Mexicans say if you can't dance, you can't make love right."

Guira girl promptly got off the stage and started a conga line, which the guitar player called a "love train" and which snaked around the room for the rest of the song.

The critic finally looked at me and stood up, saying, "I'm gonna go home and play my own cheese grater."

I have no reason to assume that was a euphemism or related to genitalia.

He missed out on more high-energy dance music.

Saying that they'd driven for more than ten hours and been caught by the police, the band announced a ten-minute break.

Unfortunately because of the late start, many people had to leave at the break, but if they'd stuck around they might have been as surprised as I was that the band actually took a ten-minute break.

Clearly they were not on jazz time where 10 always means at least 30.

Another guy who'd been dancing a lot took over conga duties after the break, leaving Giustino to dance in front of the stage, first alone and then with a girl who asked him.

When the song ended and he went to retrieve his drink, there was some sort of collision and it shattered on the floor.

"You can drink my blood, but don't spill my tequila," the lovely guira player called out.

So now we better understood Mexican priorities.

Giustino returned to the congas where he was less likely to spill something and more likely to wow the crowd with his sure-handed playing.

The guira girl kept leaving the stage to pull people up to dance, or maybe she was trying to ascertain who knew how to make love right.

I felt pretty confident there. That's the part that made it way better than a high school dance.