The show went well last night! I can officially put this on my theater resume now :) Nobody I knew went (a few people made noises about going and then flaked, but...y'know, that's life.), but whatever. Jan said there were something like 150 tickets sold but it looked like less in the audience--maybe 40-ish-50-ish but I can't exactly count noses in the dark so well after awhile. However, Jan (in the audience) reported that the audience was really happy to be in a show, they were saying they'd forget about the masks and that didn't matter. And the only people that walked out after intermission was the guy who brought two small children, to which everyone was all "This is a long show and not for kids." Or to quote Joe (Arthur) last night, "it's about adultery and a menage a trois." So, no judgement there from us on the leaving early.

I am happy to report that Roman, the guy who went home sick yesterday, was back and feeling fine. Musta been the fires/heat/whatever else these days.

At one point some kind of fireworks-y popping noises went off around the end of "Follow Me," which freaked everyone out, but we never did figure out what it was and it didn't repeat. Eventually it was all blamed on the dog, Mrs. Bigglesworth :P (okay, nobody really knows). And someone's cell phone in the audience went off (even worse, it yelled out the person's name somehow?), I saw the dramatic reaction Steve had to that one!

I saw former castmates Arianna and Andy afterward, that was nice! Eventually after the show folks went out to Woodstock's (another situation in which there was outdoor seating but they all went for the indoors....upstairs, very few people) and hung out, and I heard theater stories about stuff like: (a) Someone in My Fair Lady freaking out because her hat fell off on the night the reviewer was there and calling Steve in the middle night to panic about it, and Steve just hung up and went back to sleep. (b) The official theater ghost is apparently Paul Sykes (note: minor local celebrity who died under weird circumstances years ago, I saw him perform once and it was memorable). Danette said at one point she was in the theater and the lights went out and she yelled at Paul to stop it, and then the lights went on.

As for the next musical after Mary Poppins, Titanic: Jan said this one has 50 PEOPLE in it. I was all "Is that usual? I thought y'all usually had like 18-20-ish." I guess it varies. She said it's online, so I'll check it out.

I didn't get home till after 1 a.m. I am happy to report that my body actually slept 8 hours after that. I did have a conversation with Joel (Pellinore) backstage about wanting to sleep in tomorrow and probably not being able to manage it and waking up at 6 a.m. anyway, though he said in his case it was the dogs. Happily, didn't happen to me! No weird noises (phone, Lawn Guys) went off until after I woke up.

As for today, I (a) went to a CVS to get more hairspray and Execdrin and ended up buying a hair contraption that is supposed to be a combination hairband and mask. This is about as dubious as you'd think it was, but the colors were pretty. Oh well, still cheaper than impulse nail polish buying. That said, I got home and tried to use the hairspray and it literally WON'T SPRAY and I can't get it to come out of the bottle. Grrrrrrrrr.

Then (b) I went over to Marty's house (a Craft Center person) as she wanted people to help her clear out her stash. I literally took half of her stash because she likes colors like I do, and she gave me a few books as well. I checked out her looms and projects and whatnot and we had a nice chat for most of an hour before I headed out to the movies.

Then (c) I went to the Tower Theater in Sacramento to go se the movie Coda. I hadn't actually gone to a movie at this theater before and it is small and very fancy. And weirdly enough, NOBODY was checking to see if I bought a ticket. Like nobody at the front, nobody scanning anything, and I pushed a button and found out that my movie was in theater 1. Hmmmmmmmmm. Anyway, I counted at the end and there were about 28 people in this movie. I sat on the right side far up and by myself, but was shocked at how many people were taking off their masks and eating popcorn. (Then I thought, "You fucking hypocrite, you ate indoors last night." Admittedly, they didn't have big enough space for us all to eat outside and the upstairs had the least people in the joint, but I went along with it, you know?)

The movie was spectacular. I loved it so much. THIS IS THE DIRTY ASL MOVIE OF MY DREAMS, Y'ALL. The Rossi fam is very blunt, very honest about sexuality, and the kids like to call each other dirty nicknames. I want to buy this movie on DVD and memorize all the dirty signs. ("I love being able to use dirty sign language, It's not often that gets depicted in movies." says Troy Katsur in this interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhP9BqSAhqk)

When I say "very honest about sexuality," I am referring to the following:

(a) Ruby is forced to accompany her parents to the doctor where her dad explains in great visual detail about how his balls are itching and on fire. You can watch this yourself. (b) Ruby brings her duet partner, Miles, over to the house to practice. Her parent start having very loud sex during this, which Ruby interrupts to get them to shut up. Somehow her parents (I assume they assume Ruby is also a horndog), especially her dad, start to go into The Sex Talk and how to wrap up one's little soldier. In again, graphic visual detail. (c) The insults Ruby and Leo throw at each other involving pooping. (d) Mr. V the music teacher tries to learn "Nice to meet you" off the Internet and signs "Nice to fuck you" accidentally. The family is, of course, amused as heck and her dad says "Nice to screw you too!" Mr. V loves these people.

Okay, so that's not for everyone, but I was delighted. Anyway, the plot's pretty simple: one hearing child in a family of deaf adults, has to be "the hearing one" to translate for them all the time and basically the family business literally can't run without her. This becomes awkward when Ruby wants to audition for Berklee* and her parents are baffled as to why she's into something they can't relate to. But they gamely give it a try and support her.

I'll note that every time they brought up Berklee I kept thinking of Scott's friends who went there and how dismal the career prospects are for Berklee grads...oh well, she's going on scholarship and it's not like she can't go back to the family business after graduation if she has to.

Anyway, it's beautiful. Ruby signing how she loves to sing is beautiful. Ruby's signing "Both Sides Now" is beautiful. Miles is gorgeous and well, the pale pretty boy singer type I like to go for (sigh). Marlee Matlin is never not awesome. This movie is delightful. It is hilarious. It is very sweet and supportive.

The only things I have issues with are:

(a) The movie never clarifies what's going to happen with the family business. Ruby, ticked at the family, doesn't show up to work on the day that they have an inspector on board the ship. Nobody has ever told the inspector that they're deaf, apparently, and they get In Trouble because nobody's around to hear when their boat is getting hailed. They get charged $2500 and they are already in financial straits for having to pay $800 a day for the inspector, plus whatever financial gouging is going on with selling their fish. (I note that the family gets fed up and starts a fisherman's co-op.) And the dad's license gets suspended so they can't go make money to pay it. (And then throw in the vague possibility that one of the kids wants to go get advanced schooling on top of that....) If Ruby isn't going to be there translating for free, they need to somehow hire a deckhand that can fish and knows ASL, and with what money? This last bit is never resolved that we see, though we see that the Rossis are somehow getting on better with the rest of the fishing community at least.

(b) There is a wee little sideplot about Ruby's best friend Gertie boinking her brother Leo. I feel like maybe some stuff got cut on this topic because we never see Ruby finding out about the boinking and the one thing we see is her kinda rolling her eyes as she walks by them making out later. I presume she would have had some objections to it, since she originally objects when Gertie brings up that her brother is hot and when she asks what to sign to tell him that she thinks he's hot, Ruby tells her how to sign that she has herpes. Mostly I'm fine with the relationship because they're cute, what you see of it anyway, but uh....Gertie's most likely 17, right? Leo's definitely older than 17? Ruby's the only one with a confirmed age in the show, but still, isn't that kinda not so legal right now?

(c) This is a catty as shit remark and I admit it, but the dad in this movie is...not an attractive dude. (Well, I've seen photos of him without the scraggly beard and he looks better...but the beard is really super bad. Authentic for character, though.) He is a super craggy, face like a slab, and I'm all "how the hell did he get with Marlee Matlin?" every time they are being affectionate. Like....dude's nice enough but he's definitely a crude horndog hothead pothead. Okay, so her character is all of those except for the pot herself, but I seriously wondered. Good thing the kids take after her in looks, I guess.

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