A Tale of Two Theatre Experiences

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of creating life-long memories. It was the age of requiring an adolescent boy to give up one night of hanging with his friends in order to hang with his mom at something as far from copacetic as a ... play, and a Shakespearean one, at that! It was a season of grand opportunities. It was a season of foolish boys who cannot recognize grand opportunities.

From the time he arrived home from school, he began begging not to go. He was also giving detailed examples of the number of phone calls he had received with offers of far better social stimulation than I was about to provide him. However, I stood resolute. He would be spending the next whole day with a friend at an amusement park. He could certainly forfeit one night of time with his friends, in order to spend one night out with his mother. I reminded him, "You're doing this for me, not willingly, but still, for me!"

Although I don't like driving somewhere new, I do love the city. It felt a tiny bit like driving into Chicago. The lights. The people. The traffic. The beautiful buildings. Once we located the theater, we tried to find a parking facility. The first one I pulled into ended up being the valet parking for a ritzy hotel. After securing two free theatre tickets, I wasn't about to pay $25 for valet parking. So, I merely asked the valet if he could tell me where I could find the cheapest location for parking. Thankfully, he graciously directed me towards the $1.50 (3 hour) parking at the Circle Center Mall on the next block over.

The stage was fairly small and bare. The only props consisted of a leafless tree strung with chains and a triangular structure supporting a balcony. I'm sure the stage could have been used interchangeably with several Shakespearean plays. Three women dressed in black danced, knitted and gestured on-stage.

In the meantime, I began educating my son. I explained what a "playbill" is. I located the bio-sketches for the actors and actresses and pointed out two who were middle school students. In the car, I had already primed the pump by asking, "If you went to a fortune teller and she told you that you would win a big Guitar Hero competition, yet weeks later another boy from school continued to best you, what would you do?"

Thankfully, the first scene opened violently (and I was expecting the three witches, but they came after the chase, attack and murder of a traitor). This is always important when introducing an adolescent boy to a theatre experience. A few times, I leaned in to explain small bits to him, trying not to offer up too much and thereby ruin everyone else's theatre experience. Surprisingly, it took 45 minutes before he asked to see the time on my watch. I had told him it would be a 90 minute performance and he was thrilled to be half-way through.

I'm not really sure how much of it he understood. He did notice several things. His first observation, before the lights dimmed, was that everyone else there was a theater geek. I asked how he could tell. He explained, "by the way they dress." I tried to point out three other boys in the audience with their parents, but he was nonplussed.

He also noticed that the main actors (especially, Macbeth) seem to spit a ton. Our seats were on the left hand side of the stage and reams of spit were indeed visible in the stage lights. At one point he asked, "What's the point of the tree?" Good question, my lad, but not an opportune time to discuss it while the play is going on.

He also wondered why the theatre was on the fourth floor of the building (he insisted on taking the stairs, so I can claim a work-out in the date-night as well). I explained that this was a smaller production and the main stage for IRT productions would be larger, with more elaborate props.

When I explained that tickets for this production normally would be $34 per person, he couldn't believe it. No doubt, he was thinking, "Why would anyone blow $34 on a gay play?" (Mind you, he didn't mean it was happy and I'm sure he didn't even notice that the atmosphere of the play was dark and dismal.)

Key question: Did he ruin it for me? NO! I thoroughly enjoyed the play, including his responses and his eventual confiscation of my watch so that he could note the time. There were moments when, even though I know the play (have read it, seen it, taught it), certain lines elicited a snort or chuckle. Plus, I couldn't help but recite some passages under my breath (the sleep soliloquy, the "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" lines, etc.)

I'm sorry that he could not appreciate his first experience with Shakespeare. I'm not sorry I took him. I had a wonderful time introducing my son to something I enjoy. I do think taking my younger brother to see "Cats" back when I was in college, was a much smarter move than taking my son to see Shakespeare. He needed a more timely tale. He needed more props and cool stage effects. He needed something more along the lines of "Starlight Express" (this was a play I saw in London, where the characters spent a good portion of their time roller-skating at break-neck speeds around a circular track on stage). Plus, my brother was actually interested in endearing himself to me by feigning mutual interest.

It was wonderful to be downtown Indianapolis with my son. We saw people taking carriage rides. Everything was lit up. It made me want to head back downtown with my husband and sons when the Christmas season comes because they just have to experience walking city streets when the streets are in their ultimate glow. I doubt they'll appreciate the urgency.

At least I made it worth my son's while by stopping off for a Dairy Queen Blizzard on the way home. I'm sure he is thinking "it would have been a far, far better thing my mother had done, if she had merely taken me to Dairy Queen alone instead of Macbeth and Dairy Queen!"