Thursday, August 27, 2009

Try to Remember....


Just saw a delightful version of The Fantasticks last night at the Ampitheater in Layton--a perfect night, cool and starry, with a huge orange half-moon. We tried to see this charming play years ago when we were in NYC, at its original home in the little off-broadway Sullivan Street theater, but it had closed. The show ran there for 42 years. Jerry Orbach (of Law & Order) played the first El Gallo. Now both he and the theater are gone. They have since torn the old building down, and put in a new GAP store (which closed 6 months later). I don't know what is there now.

Michael Ballam, whose classes at BYU Education Week I am devoted to, and attended all eight faithfully, two weeks ago, said when he last saw the old Sullivan Street Playhouse they were in the process of tearing it down. There were huge garbage dumpsters out in front and they were tossing stuff in. He asked if he could rummage through them, and found a tambourine, which he donated to the Utah Festival Opera. Apparently the Smithsonian has the magic trunk, and some other institution has the girl Luisa's little blue dress.... Things change. We live in a time where we are entertained most often by big-budget films with lots of loud special effects. A quiet little musical like Fantasticks is overwhelmed, is something of a dinosaur, I guess, with no special effects but a little colored confetti, a magic trunk, and a cardboard moon....

Anyway, I went home humming Try to remember a kind of September when grass was green, and grain was yellow....

I also spent a week in blooming California with my son Chris and his family. They flew to Salt Lake, and rented a van. It's a l-o-n-g drive through lots of desert. When we finally reached a WalMart in St. George, my six-year-old grandson Isaac said, "Oh, thank goodness, there are people here!"

Let me tell ya, there were people at Disneyland! -- Hindus, Bikers, Goths, white-bearded Sihks in turbans, Muslims, Lesbians, Jesus-people, people wearing ball caps and Mouse ears, saris, T-shirts that said Out of Order, Lucky, Dead Men Tell No Tales, USA, FBI, Dodgers, STeelers, Michael Jackson Forever, Beatles Forever, Grumpy, Ezekiel, Chocolate Rain, Kids for King Jesus, I Piss Excellence, Sugar Water Purple, Marge in Charge, and Murder the Government. I thought I saw Wanda Sykes coming back on the ferry from Tom Sawyer's Island, and Alec Baldwin in the Toy Story gift shop, Carrot Top in the parking lot, and Sonja Sotomayor, and Santa Claus...but maybe not. Isaac defeated Darth Vadar handily with his light saber at the Jedi School, and Keenan mistook me for the witch who gave Sleeping Beauty a poison apple....

Let me tell ya, I saw more cornrows, and dreds, and beads, and frozen lemonades, and baby strollers, and wheelchairs, and more Jazzi and Rascal electric mobility chairs than I could count. I lost my red hat in the Haunted Mansion, my son lost his sunglasses at the Pirates of the Carribean...people, people everywhere, looking for water, looking for shade, for ice cream, for a place to sit down for a while. We threw pennies and made wishes, watched absolutely fearless sparrows gobble up spilled popcorn, and generally had A GREAT TIME! Fantastick!

Wish you had been there! (Photos in my FaceBook)

9 comments:

Jo A. T.B. said...

Cool Joyce, glad to see you're enjoying your summer too! Kick off your shoes and dance sweet lady!

christine said...

I love the cast of characters you saw at Disney. Life is good.

Jo said...

LOVE your poem in Canopic. It's astonishingly fine.

Jo said...

eek, that was button-fast me

slickdpdx said...

Loved reading this post. Nice writing.

Dick said...

For those of us across the pond, this vivid evocation provides a beguiling glimpse of West Coast America!

Patry Francis said...

I love your bio description. Teachers used to tell my parents I was spacey too, and of course, they were right. I consider it part curse, part blessing. We see a lot of interesting things staring into space, don't we?

petra michelle; Whose role is it anyway? said...

The visuals were Fantastick, Joyce!

You're so right about the smaller being taken over by the larger trend. The last mom and pop store in my neighborhood closed recently.

The more intimate the better! The pendulum swings as they say!

I hope you and your loved ones are well! xo

Pris said...

Oh wow!! You saw it?? I first saw it the summer of 1963 when I lived there before grad school. Saw it around 10 years later when down on a trip from Boston, then last in 1988 when visiting a friend who lived in Manhattan. The clown kissed me on top of the head at that performance:-) I've loved it every time.

I didn't know that charming old theatre had been torn down. I feel as if I've lost a friend i just never see anymore.