Opening weekend...

The kids are in bed, my stomach is full, and I am moderately content. I spent yesterday fighting back the front lawn, which had gone waaaaaaaay too long without a shave. How long? My father saw it on Thing 2's birthday and commented 'your neighbors are going to kick you out of the neighborhood.' My dog would run through the grass, and I would lose sight of her. I felt like Allan Quatermain, hacking through some tropical locale with a machete.

Today I played around in the back yard, swept the patio off and set out the outside furniture in a way I thought might be appealing. And I actually sat on one of the chairs with a Sunset magazine (one of my favorite publications in the whole wide world) and dreamt of other things I might do to/with the garden areas whilst sipping my morning coffee. (Yeah, the Manhunter's comment hit home a bit, thank you very much.)

The big news, though, is the show, of course. The Blue Room opened this weekend, and I was pleased with my performance, overall. The show is a real challenge, artcraft-wise. There are two actors playing five characters each in ten scenes (get a math tutor if you need help figuring that out). The play is about how we, as people, are--the things we crave, the way we modify our behavior based on who we're with, and the mistakes we make. I hate to use the word "real", especially in this context, as it is overused and therefore undervalued (like the word "awesome" has become). But the show is especially interesting in that, instead of external obstacles like an antagonist or some time deadline, the barriers these characters face are primarily internal. It makes for quite a challenge, overall.

We opened this weekend opposite a huge commotion in the mainstage theater--there was a benefit with a big name actor doing a one-man show. But we still had reasonably seated houses, and a GREAT audience today. This was a particularly nice surprise, since the Sunday matinees are usually an older, quieter crowd. But for whatever reason--Denise thinks it may be because the show is so real and they have all "been there"--this was the liveliest house we had all weekend. They were ooing and ahing and commenting all throughout--it was fascinating.

I had a wonderful evening with my sons, eating and watching Shrek, which we hadn't seen in so long we forgot all the subplots. (If you have kids, you know the wonderful, refreshing feeling that comes from that--instead of watching the same movies over and over again.) Now I'm going to take a gander at Saving Private Ryan, which just came on, do some laundry during the commercials, and fricken relax.