Carolyn, my REGgie (Random Event Generator), surprised me again last night. We were discussing going out for dinner and not wanting the usual. The sky was dark with threatening clouds although the sun continued to peek through every once in a while. Did we really want to get caught in the rain?
The Carolyn suggested taking in the play "Laughter on 23rd floor", playing now at the Davis Musical Theater Company. "A play?", you say. "But the DMTC puts on musicals, not plays. That USED to be true but the DMTC is trying out some different ways, thinking outside the box(office).
Everyone should be warned that this isn't your usual DMTC fare in more ways than the fact that there's no band on site. The language is what you'd expect in a room full of men who haven't been taught that profanity cheapens speech. There speech is therefore about as cheap as it gets. But they're not speakers, they're writers and their show is threatened by budget cuts and changing public perceptions. So they tear into each other in frustration spouting comedy lines faster than their secretary can get down on paper.
The set time of the play is also interesting - March through December 1953, the period which includes some of Senator McCarthy's worst abuses and his eventual downfall in the public eye. Niel Simon uses the main character Max as his vehicle for saying how wrong he sees McCarthy's pogroms or "death by insinuation". Careers are trashed, friendships demolished, suicides subtly encouraged by this witch hunt, and Max, even while eating into his own paycheck to pay for his writers, finds place in his emotional world to rail against the totalitarianism that keeps raising its ugly head.
There a plots and subplots keeping the play moving all the way to the end. We thought the show was well worth the $10 tickets. It is not one of the regular shows in the season so attendance has been poor - a real shame for such an excellent performance.
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