It's Always the Guys

Wow! An unexpected (Monday) night off for the guys. As Don said in his email, "A rare occurrence." Normally us guys are there, seems like, 24/7, or at the very least every night. I keep waiting and hoping for an opera, or at least a scene. where the men aren't involved and, thus, get to come late or leave early. I think the last all-x-chromosome scene we had was in Flying Dutchman, way back in 2000. I suppose in an art form that is largely male-dominated it's to be expected. But it would be nice for the guys to occasionally get a night off while the women toil away. Since I don't see Dialogues of the Carmelites being performed in the near future, I guess I'll just have to dream. (Trust me, you thought Salome was a snoozer!)

Here we are in the second week of staging and we haven't even met the full principal cast yet. What kind of opera did Verdi think he was writing? Granted, tons of chorus numbers have been cut to get the show in under the three-hour musician's union "service" time allotment, but this is just plain weird not knowing who your co-performers are. Wouldn't it be strange to not have met a principal until opening night:

"Excuse me, you don't look familiar. Are you hear as someone's guest?"

"Oh, no. I'm so-and-so and I'm playing so-and-so."

Awkwarrrrd!

Ah, well. Hard to believe we'll be moving into the theater and doing the stiz this weekend. I see we're doing the sitz on Sunday at 2:45 and then Teching the first two acts at 8. Waitaminute! The only chorus in the first two acts are the men! Great planning! Superbowl Sunday, perhaps the most masculine holiday (C'mon! It's time we admitted it) of the year, and us guys are going to be at opera while the womenfolk sit at home and attempt to ignore the next to last vestige of football until August (the Pro Bowl being the last). I mean, it's being touted as an incredible mismatch and, statistically, will probably be a rout, but a bad day with an uncompetitive game on the tube is better than a good one without a game.

Besides, as a Vol fan, you gotta feel some kind of genetic kinship for Eli, and even if you're not comfortable with that, he's a former SEC player. Surely Eli won't embarrass himself any worse than he and Peyton (and Archie and Olivia) do in that goofy "Double Stuff (Oreo) Racing League" commercial. (Cooper and the dogs, apparently, were the only family members with enough sense to bail on that one.)

Well, opera time. Gotta go. Sorry about the spazzed-out entry.