if I can dream
Mar. 14th, 2010 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aamcnamaraYesterday was the first day of spring break. Getting off-campus in mid-morning was a relief; I'd been around since early January with not much of a break. Leaving the five-college area was a relief, too. My father and I wandered into Boston by mid-afternoon, checked into our hotel and looked at theater listings for the evening.
Othello was sold out, sadly. However, as Boston is not a one-theater town, there were plenty of other options. We decided we would go and see We All Will Be Received, which was up in the South End at the Boston Center for the Arts.
All the times I've been in Boston, I've been in cars. So while I have faith unto the skies that Boston is awesome, I never quite like it as much as I feel I would on foot. Neither of these feelings were changed by the half-hour we spent circling blocks in the vicinity, looking for a place to park. (In the dark, in the rain.) However, once we did find a place, it was a lovely walk to the theater despite the wet, and we were only fifteen or twenty minutes late for the show.
Which was also lovely. The website had said it was about a road trip and drag kings and Elvis and Dolly Parton and gender identity construction, and it was all of those things. It also incorporated several elements of different media. The three performers--the members of the road trip, two drag kings and a filmmaker--did scenes live on the stage; there were videos and, at one point, a kind of powerpoint presentation displayed on a screen behind it; and at least once the filmmaker's camera was used to put live footage from the stage onto the screen in real-time. The production company involved, Queer Soup Theater, has a stated mission of "using laughter to smuggle ideas across society's borders", which I can definitely agree with as a tactic.
At any rate, it was awesome to see some real live theater, see some queer theater, see people doing fun and interesting multimedia things that actually worked within the context of the show. And it was also great to walk around a little bit of the city at night. The rain made everything look more glamorous: it smeared the light down the street, pooled underneath the curbs so that flying leaps were necessary to reach the sidewalks.
Today is the St. Patrick's Day parade, so we purpose to avoid that part of Boston, but I am glad we went.
Othello was sold out, sadly. However, as Boston is not a one-theater town, there were plenty of other options. We decided we would go and see We All Will Be Received, which was up in the South End at the Boston Center for the Arts.
All the times I've been in Boston, I've been in cars. So while I have faith unto the skies that Boston is awesome, I never quite like it as much as I feel I would on foot. Neither of these feelings were changed by the half-hour we spent circling blocks in the vicinity, looking for a place to park. (In the dark, in the rain.) However, once we did find a place, it was a lovely walk to the theater despite the wet, and we were only fifteen or twenty minutes late for the show.
Which was also lovely. The website had said it was about a road trip and drag kings and Elvis and Dolly Parton and gender identity construction, and it was all of those things. It also incorporated several elements of different media. The three performers--the members of the road trip, two drag kings and a filmmaker--did scenes live on the stage; there were videos and, at one point, a kind of powerpoint presentation displayed on a screen behind it; and at least once the filmmaker's camera was used to put live footage from the stage onto the screen in real-time. The production company involved, Queer Soup Theater, has a stated mission of "using laughter to smuggle ideas across society's borders", which I can definitely agree with as a tactic.
At any rate, it was awesome to see some real live theater, see some queer theater, see people doing fun and interesting multimedia things that actually worked within the context of the show. And it was also great to walk around a little bit of the city at night. The rain made everything look more glamorous: it smeared the light down the street, pooled underneath the curbs so that flying leaps were necessary to reach the sidewalks.
Today is the St. Patrick's Day parade, so we purpose to avoid that part of Boston, but I am glad we went.