In office day today. Quiet/dull, but NO FRONT COUNTER SCHEDULED, woot. I worked slowly all day. I did get free yarn and hung out with Rachel at lunch, but otherwise I have nothing much to say about 9 hours of tedium. You know it's a dull day when I actually go through most of my personal emails, 90% of which are mailing lists.

Debbie wants me to entertain Rae on Saturday afternoon. I suggested going to the UFO exhibit, but apparently that might give her nightmares and I got asked if I know of any live music going on. I was all, I am not the person to ask about who has live music. It's not my thing--"oh look, random band I've never heard of is playing, I have no idea if I'd like their stuff, let's get off butt and go!" is ...not happening. Sigh. I kind of don't want to because I want to focus on the audition, but I was absolutely free and had no excuse not to, so. DMTC is having their free show night at Woodland on Saturday, but I can't go because the audition is at 6. Sigh. There's another night of it on Monday, but I have doubts I can make it all the way there by 6 p.m. on a weeknight, so....

Tonight, per Make This Journal Not Boring Again, I went to see "The Last Wide Open" at B Street Theatre. My, my. I don't know what to make of this, exactly? I'm not sure how playwrights do it when they do something particularly tricksy. This is not the weirdest play I've ever seen or anything, but it does certainly break the fourth wall and the main characters talk to the audience and each other and go in and out of the scene off and on. We're told this is "three different yet parallel realities" with the same characters in Frankie's Trattoria on Cinco de Mayo ("yes, we're closed on Cinco de Mayo, it's an ITALIAN restaurant"). I'm unclear if they're all the exact same Cinco or not. The key difference between each "movement," as the characters call them, is Roberto, the Italian guy's, amount of English/how long he's been in America.

Some things are same from movement to movement, with Lina mentioning she saw someone in her apartment complex die earlier that day (though she has different interactions per each time), there was a lady in there who threw her pasta around after her husband said he wanted a divorce, and that the girl Roberto loved is Anna (who fell in love with his best friend) and the guy Lina is/was with that she didn't love is Todd, varying situations with that. There's various songs that the characters play on guitar/ukulele in between movements. There is a "stagehand" that has no lines, but walks in and out of the restaurant and plays piano on one side and harp on the other. At one point she plays "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" by Celine Dion and I cracked up at this, and then Lina starts doing solo karaoke alone to it and I'm thinking, ME TOO, LINA, ME TOO.

In Movement A, Roberto has been in America 5 years, he and Lina have been working together for 5 years, but this is the first night they've really had any conversation because Lina is lying-on-the-floor level of depressed and lonely and has no dude. She talks about wanting to be a nurse. It ends with her throwing forks at him and landing on the floor.

In Movement B, Roberto's freshly landed in America, doesn't know much English, she's been working there two years and is going to marry Todd in a week, even though she thinks he's a Neanderthal and doesn't like the situation at all. They attempt to do translation on a tablet. Roberto clearly gets sappy/romantic at her in a veil, they dance, rose petals fall from the floor, but that doesn't get anywhere either.

In Movement C, Roberto's been in America 15 years, gotten his PhD and teaches, and he's helping out at the restaurant for the night when Lina walks in--she last worked there when he first arrived, then after a touching 80's montage (complete with the stagehand in trench coat dancing around with a boombox in the back, LOVED THIS) in which they Have A Moment while dancing to "Time After Time"), she moved to Phoenix to become a nurse. Now she's back and Todd cheated on her so she's single. Usually Lina is the grumpy pants in these scenes, but this time it's Roberto, who had kids with Anna and now she's in love with his best friend and he burned himself and Lina breaks out the first aid kit. As they're getting cranky at each other...

Then it REALLY breaks the fourth wall, with her stomping off into the audience and yelling and going all around the theater and him asking people in the audience if they believe in true love and her asking, does love suck? I'm the only one who raised a hand at that and she's all "YESSSSSSSSSSSS!" to me and he's all "This is YOUR FAULT!" to me and I about DIED LAUGHING THIS WAS GREAT. Roberto resolves it all by demanding that they go back to Movement One (also plays a confession song), where Lina finds out that he's had a crush on her all this time by reading his notebook, and they finally kiss for good. Audience goes "awwww!"

I will note that I think both of them were working in different voice tonight. Clearly Roberto is Very Italian and I'm going to presume the actor himself probably isn't. But the actress playing Lina...she's one of their regulars that's in almost every show (per the program, a Core Company Member, last in Charade), and I was thinking, "I've seen her in other shows...her voice isn't usually breaking glass like this, right?" Like HOO BOY WAS SHE EVER HIGH PITCHED AND SHRILL (and very loud and yakky...) in this one. I don't think she sounds like that ALL the time because I think I'd remember THAT voice, but man, that's gotta be hard to do that voice for like, 2 hours a day every night. (I say this as imagining myself doing Kate Monster in a show....yeah, right.)

Anyway, I enjoyed it, but it 's quite odd. I did laugh my head off, though, so yay for that. And eventually, there's a happy ending.

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