Kiss and Tell

Humor is always part of the program at Richmond Triangle Players.

When Mac and I arrived, we found the lobby full of people but the theater not yet open. Curious about this unusual situation, I asked an usher what the cast of "It Shoulda Been You" could be doing back there.

"Maybe someone's got cold feet about getting married," he joked about the play's wedding theme. They both should be, I pointed out, we're talking about marriage.

"Someone had to say it out loud," he quipped, testifying to my point with a grin and raised eyebrows.

We scored a bag of gumdrops from the bar, part of a wedding-themed array - Mexican wedding cookies, mints - tied to the production. The usher who led us to our seats was immediately familiar to me and I realized it was because we'd both taken the VMFA's Docent training a dozen years ago together. She was amazed that I remembered her.

We weren't in our seats long when a couple joined our row, looking for their seat numbers. It only got more confusing when another couple - one I recognized - showed up and it became clear we were running out of chairs in row D.

As they tried to enter the row, I put my leg across to the next row, effectively blocking the people I knew from coming in. Because they hadn't looked at who was already in the row, they had no clue I was playing with them. When she finally looked around and saw me, she laughed, admitting that she was wondering, "Who is this woman blocking my way?"

Just another devoted theater lover, friend.

It was only then that Mac and I looked at our tickets to discover that we'd been seated in row D rather than row B so the fault was all ours (with a smidge going to the usher who'd not had her reading glasses with her).

We vacated row D to the gentle mocking of friends and neighbors, our bag of gumdrops in hand.

To get to our correct seats, we had to mount the stage and once there, we found someone in one of our seats, although her husband was in the far seat at the end of the row. Hmm, don't people usually sit together when they go out?

I asked how long they'd been married that they'd sit on opposite ends of an empty row of seats. Turns out 9 years legal and 5 years before that. When I asked about kids, she admitted to a 6 and 4 year old.

Wow, they were deep in the parenting trenches, I pointed out. "My life is hell," she said, sharing that this was a rare date for them. She asked if we'd mind switching seats so she could sit by him and we happily agreed, politely not pointing out that she was sitting in our seat anyway.

"It Shoulda Been You" was a delight, a well-acted musical about the elaborate wedding machinations required to legally acquire a steady lay. It touched on the futility of relationships where the couple don't make each other laugh (don't get me started) and, like a good Shakespeare comedy, ended with multiple lovers about to get married.

We laughed through it all from our second row seats, occasionally getting a glimpse up an actress' skirt during a spin because of our proximity and low slung vantage point.

It made me laugh enough that if it were a suitor, I'd marry it. If I were the marrying kind, of course.