A Ramble that Leads to Joy

Last night, we had tickets to see "Old Friends" a Sondheim tribute of sorts at the Ahmanson.  

I dreaded the 2 hours it would take us to travel 51 miles to downtown Los Angeles due to painful and inexplicable traffic.  Further, I had run out of Celexa the night before and so I was going in to the event compromised.  Bob was irritating me by breathing.  The clothes I had planned on wearing were in the laundry and not, as I had expected, ready to pull out of the closet.  This made me scramble at the last minute to find something suitable.  There was failure toward that end.  I slipped on a jacket and a glance in the mirror showed me the final effect: matronly over weight woman who has done all her clothes shopping on Amazon.  Looking in the mirror with disappointment,  I could literally hear myself asking "Who AM I"? 

Driving down our hill, we noticed what has been a growing population of coyotes who have, after many years of hiding in the hills behind us, begun to walk the streets of our neighborhood as if they have decided to take back their land.  A particularly healthy one crossed the street in front of us and gave us a look as if to say,  "what are you looking at?"  Bob continued to drive down the winding road looking at the animal and I had to scream to keep him from running straight into a Mercedes parked on the street.  

I just wanted to go home.

Starving, since the only thing in our cupboard was an open bag of stale tortilla chips, we had to drive-thru a  McDonalds for a hamburger and fries - not exactly pre-show dining - before picking up our friends.  Once there, I asked for aspirin.  Linda looked amazing, as always.  She is a former Dean Martin Gold Digger and, just inside her 7th decade, looks 20 years younger than any of our friends.  Not from surgery.  From self care.  Damn her.  

We arrived without incident.  With headache gone, and a small plastic cup of inferior wine purchased in the lobby, we walked to our seats, passing a wide array of sophisticated looking theatre goers, along with a large contingency of homosexual Bernadette Peters fans dressed to be "noticed" from across a football field.   Very "extra" but I loved them.  (Thank you for loving so much the Broadway icons of my youth.)

Finding our seats, I was struck by a what seemed to be a tectonic shift in the process of getting ready to just sit down.  Am I crazy or did sitting down used to be just a function of bending knees and lowering your body without thought or interruption of conversation?   Tonight , it seemed so  - complicated.  Walking down the narrow row to find my seat required concentration.  I felt like I was on a balance beam. "Can you hold my program as I hold on to the arm rests and carefully lower myself to my seat while grunting which has suddenly become a default utterance that I believe will somehow help support my arthritic knees?  Can you hang onto it one moment more while I try to adjust my jacket so it doesn't feel like it is strangling my left shoulder"?  Again, "who AM I"?

Scanning the program, I looked for people I knew in the show.  In my past, there were always at least two or three people I actually knew or were at least familiar with.  I looked at the cast list.  No one.  ("God, I hope these people are up to the task.")

The set was lovely and melancholy.  Flanked by beautiful photos of Steven Sondheim exuding the
tremendous love for his own work, I found myself stricken again with sadness that he had died just 3 years ago.  I am passionate about the theatre.  Specifically musical theatre and more granularly, Sondheim musicals.  My soul misses him tremendously.  I waited for the lights to dim to see another lovely Sondheim music fest which would no doubt meet my standard expectations.  To be honest,  I'm just not "feeling it" these days and I could have easily stayed home.

The show began and our two headliners - Bernadette Peters and Lea Solanga - came out to open the show.  Then the entire cast of people I had never heard of came out to sing  "Comedy Tonight" .  And it was fine.

But THEN...

Forgive the gush but seriously - one jaw dropping performance after another from the most exceptional cast of  uniquely talented artists I can recall ever being assembled in one show.  Each one of them could have carried a show on their own and there were three mid-show standing ovations - I've never witnessed that before.  I was brought to tears six times during the course of the evening.

I watched their feet.  I remember vividly what standing on the boards felt like.  It's not at all the same as standing on a regular floor.  And through that memory, I lived vicariously through this ensemble to the point where I nearly felt like I was up there with them.  I silently mouthed the words to nearly every song but my heart was singing wildly.  

And then I realized that this evening was so perfectly beautiful that I felt something I haven't felt in quite a while.  Joy!  And through my tears I also realized that I need to feel more of that.  

We all have passions that feed our soul and bring us joy.  For some, it may be baseball.  Or poetry.  Or math.  For me, it is this.  The very best in Broadway musical theatre.  Thank you Mr. Sondheim.  I still need you.