Church and Olives

I hear there's another Methane Sisters show coming. I'll go see it. Otherwise, I extend my apologies to the San Antonio theater community. Postdated to Monday, January 07, 2008

Why don't I like live theater? I have a dread of it. The parents of the boy's best friend run a prestigious theater company in town, probably the most highly-acclaimed, and I can't attend even one of their shows, because I know it'll be agony for me. It has seriously injured our friendship.

And like previous prejudices against Brussels sprouts and organized sports, I know I might try it and discover that I'd been a fool to stay away so long, it's wonderful! Then again, I still don't like olives or church, and no amount of "c'mon, maybe this time it won't be horrible" is going to change that.

Of course, live theater isn't like those things. It's different each time. But so is film, and I can endure hours and hours of bad movies (and god knows, have). Maybe it's because I feel an obligation to performers when they are there in front of me. I've sat through many a movie I'd just as soon have walked out on because the filmmaker was in attendance.

The Jump-Start Performance Party was Saturday night, with loads of events on one stage, one after the other, and I was sure that there'd have to be at least an average that made me glad I'd come. But the first half of the evening reminded me all too clearly of why I don't hit local theater more often. Lots of "gosh, we should be on Broadway!" showtuney stuff, tepid torch songs and dancing girls, the sort of routines where you're expected to applaud just because they're attempting it. (There wasn't a kick-line, but why are we supposed to applaud kick-lines? I've never seen one screwed up, can't be that complicated...) There'd be a gem here and there to remind you that not everyone is trying to be someone they aren't (Shimi flying over the stage on her silken scarves, an experimental film piece with puppets and hotdogs, a fun little Mexican song played on what I'd have sworn was a six-string ukele, but that couldn't be, could it?), but far too little in between to keep my interest.

But in the middle of Act II, things started to loosen up. A comedy troupe called La Collectiva, which I totally expected to stink (having been conditioned from earlier in the night to cringe for the worst when a woman appears in male drag), but they made me laugh. Big belly laughs, in fact, which hurt my cold-riddled lungs and probably caused concern in those around me. A few musical acts that I found very entertaining. An exerpt from the Vagina Monologues by my pal Mellissa Marlowe that had me giggling and speculating about bringing an all-male version here -- come on, you telling me Roy Thomas couldn't do a rant about tampons and vaginal speculums that'd have you in tears?

And then they wrapped up the second act with Urban-15, the local dance troupe-cum-drum corps that ended with much of the audience invited up to dance and giving me reason to fear for the structural integrity of the stage. It was the first time I'd seen my lovely (and newly engaged) costume-maven Michelle LaHomme perform, and I was fortunately far enough back that she couldn't see me to drag me up there. She did spy Erik and Alston up front and pulled them into the melee. I feared that'd be the last I saw of Alston -- I knew Erik could escape, just tuck his glasses away, lower his big head and charge if it got right down to it, but she's a slight little number, easily trampled. George Cisneros running the band and his wife Catherine leading the dancers, and I can't imagine what an effort that must've been with all that confusion going on, but it was tight. There was an elderly fellow down the row from me (well, from where I stood, it was standing room only in there), and he was whaling away at imaginary drums to the beat. Air-drumming in his seventies. That's how much fun it was.

And then Act III arrived. I'd almost forgotten by then that the main reason I'd come was because the Methane Sisters would be running the third act. And they were everything promised. Outrageous, offensive, decadent. Maybe not who you'd want managing your investment portfolio, but everything I look for in an M.C. They kept it fun even when the acts weren't the best. Although some of them were the best -- Comedia A Go Go did a fantastic sketch which took them so long to set up, I won't bother trying here. Suffice to say, it's the sort of thing you could only experience live, go see their show. I was a little upset that my friend Rodney Garza's "Pazchuco" character came a few minutes before I got in (I stopped to pick up a twelve-pack of Shiner for Annelle, whose Methane Sisters show starting this weekend needs donations of beer for them to sell), so I was pleased to see him in the third act as part of the "Peace Posse." A phone call took me away from the next introduction, and that's a damned shame because I walked back in on a great monologue about backpacking into a revolution that I'd really like to hear more of. Guess I need to start paying attention to the Jump-Start website.

I was about to slip out the backdoor (which is what backdoors are for, aren't they? No one steps boldly through a backdoor) when the fire-eaters started. Seems like tempting fate to be in a crowded theater when open flames are factored into the equation, there's a reason they used to make the curtains out of asbestos. But then I saw the fire-eaters. They were dressed up in their beaded and bow-tied finest, and all of them were middle-aged or older, one old woman had to be in her eighties. You don't see Margaret Dumont picking flaming embers from her dentures everyday. And all of it, for reasons I couldn't fathom, to the tune of "There's Got To Be A Morning After" by Maureen McGovern. Then, as they wrapped the number, a film began to show. The climactic scene in "The Poseidon Adventure," George Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen and Shelley Winters looking concerned as the floor begins to tilt, and soon they're all screaming and flying spectacularly through glass and being crushed by pianos, and the fire-eaters (having by now thankfully extinguished all their snacks) all flew across the stage as if in the movie. (There'd been an "ocean cruise" theme to the night's festivities.) And then I remembered that "There's Got To Be A Morning After" was the Oscar-winning theme to "The Poseidon Adventure." And I laughed.

The Methane Sisters show starts this weekend. Go see it. You need to.