Playing Nicely

Storytelling. Live Theater.  Movies.  Streaming programming.  The News or the news.  What draws us to this and why do we engage.  The elements of engagement have to do with how our emotions are toyed with, provoking reactions or responses to something basic in our own story.  When we examine and dissect something dramatic  or something humorous and take the story to heart, it becomes a piece of our understanding human to human.

The photo is from the  live production of The Lion King.  The first moments of the musical play captured the audience with joy and wonderment.  Our senses were surrounded  with sound and light and movement.The audience was primed for excellence and our hearts were open to feel. Children and adults were enraptured as we collectively held our breaths to be transported to something familiar, yet something new.

All our emotions surfaced.  Tears of happiness, moments of angst.  A good story that sapped our energy and left us with a sense of being a witness and  a part of something we understood.  It’s been a few weeks and I can recall the thoughts of what the components are that make us feeling that psychological connection with something we remember.  What makes a good story is what has always made writers write.  The elements are simple and include the obvious love, hate, jealousy, power, conflict, intolerance, going away, coming back, ambivalence, loss and found, inner turmoil, justice and might and the list goes on.   Shakespeare designed his works this way, as did the Bible.  We writers write the same story over and over again.   “The disclaimer at the end of the film refers to firms: The events, characters and firms depicted in the photoplay are ficticious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual firms, is purely coincidental. … Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”  But is it coincidence?

We all feel the same feelings at one point or another.  Do we tell our story or do we act it out?  Do we hide the truth, more from ourselves because we can’t or aren’t ready to face the truth, first to us and then to others.  We are certainly complicated.  We have Golden Rules, Ten Commandments, and all sorts of moral compasses to direct us. Yet we get lost, we break some rules, a few commandments and such and we live our lives to re-set and try again another day.  We live in the gray.  We justify our choices and outcomes until they don’t work anymore, and then we create alternative explanations.  This seems to be a human foible.  The cat can knock over the plant, and walk away.  Does she try and clean up the mess? Not in her lifetime or mine.  Do I forgive because she is a cat?  Neither. I just know that she is not malicious and I am her caretaker.  Do I get emotional about the plant or the mess or the cat. Sure, because I am a human.  Yes, we are complicated.  Cats are less complicated. Maybe this is why we surround ourselves with animals and see a show about the animal world which has all the elements of humanity.  Maybe we can take our lessons from puppets and animals that speak of things we also don’t do well as humans.

I recognize that to be entertained is to try to simplify a story on one level and on another to provoke the human experience and make us wonder, look inward and then outward.  It all wraps up in a satisfactory ending for the moment.  It is the circle of life.

 

Rude in My Head

I miss civility.  I was hardly raised by royalty nor am I Victorian in my dreams.  It is just my hope at some point, during my lifetime, that people who have the opportunity to be sitting near me during a performance they chose to attend and paid quite a bit of money  for,  would just behave.  Have you every wished that you could buy all the seats in a concert hall or movie, not for the cool factor of a private screening, but just in the hope that you could really listen and take in all that goes with a great show or film and not have to stew in the desire to turn to the woman behind you and give her a slap and a glare.  Granted the energy surrounding a great performance is generated by the vibes of those in attendance, in a synergistic effect with the musician.  Was the performance ruined by “that woman”?  Well, let’s just say she took up a bit of space in my head, as I conjured up comments to say, things to do (like a voodoo doll) or evil wishes…may her skirt get caught in the seat as she leaves and she is left in her undergarments for all to see. Okay, maybe that is over the top.

Last night, my FHB and I went to see Diana Krall perform in Providence. It was  in a beautiful venue that, according to my FHB, had, in  his youth, been a rundown movie theater in the downtown,  which had undergone a transformation and  became an elegant place to hear a magnificent musician.  She is so talented and her interpretation of songs is well thought out and powerful.  Listening and witnessing a live performance is so good for the soul. The music rests in your being and you can really stay in the moment.  The hyena and her date talked and laughed during most of the performance, as she apparently was counting how many people got up during the show to do what people do, when the show is two hours long without an intermission.  Her laughter led to shrieking and shaking  the back of my seat everytime she counted more people.  I did turn on two occasions, and gave her the hairy eyeball and she would stop for a minute or two.  I used all my powers of self control to focus on the music and not the madness behind us.

Twice, when my sister and I went to see shows in Boston, we were seated near people who felt they could make suggestions that would improve their viewing or enjoyment at our expense.  During the  first show, “The Sisters Rosensweig”, I had unfortunately gotten some type of eye infection which made bright lights really hurt me, so I wore sunglasses to the performance.  That apparently made the people next to us assume that I was blind and possibly deaf, and  thus they spoke to my sister and not directly to me, and inquired if she wouldn’t  mind switching my seat, so they could see better.  She told them, in a very nice tone, no chance.    I glared at them, not that they could see my eyes through my glasses.  We were somewhat incredulous as to how obnoxious people could be.  The second show we saw was “Spamalot” and the man seated to the right of us, told my sister that her chewing was bothering him and his enjoyment.  She hissed at him and said something “snarky”.  I actually think as we left, she said something appropriately nasty in the hope that he knew it was directed toward him.  We have good manners!

In movie theaters, people seem to feel it is necessary to carry on conversations both during the previews and the movie, in what would be considered normal, not hushed tones as in “do you have a kleenex, this is so sad” but rather “So I said to ..fill in the blank…that if she thought….fill in the blank….” and so on, as though  the movie was secondary to her conversation.  I’ve had children pull my hair, people sit next to me despite the theater being empty (that’s another story for another time) and then there are the kickers.  I really hate the kickers but not as much as the people who guess out loud what is going to happen next.  You know who I am talking about…they are also the same folks who sit next to you on airplanes.

Enjoy the show.