Love My City, Part One

Last week the old man, along with Steven and his lady, went to see a play on a boat. The boat is the decommissioned Lilac (a former Lighthouse Tender) and resides tied to a pier in Manhattan. The play was a rather sloppy, uh, thing inspired by Herman Melville's The Confidence Man. What was incredibly fun was that the play took place all over the boat--little scenes here, little scenes there--and attendees were allowed to walk about the boat, as many scenes were happening simultaneously. The audience was split into different groups who had to follow different docents and if you stayed with your docent, then you could follow one story line throughout the ship.

Besides being free of charge, something I liked about the play was that it couldn't really decide if it wanted to be old-timey or current-timey. Some characters were dressed in fashionable shorts and t-shirts while others wore vests and dresses from a different era. This amalgamation seemed to affect the language of the play, inspired by different times, but captivated by the pressures of now.

Oddly enough the docents were almost a little better than the play. (The docents were actors. They use their hands when they speak! They say funny things! They speak loudly without losing their voices!) Our docent was a chirpy ribbon-clad pony-tailed comedian who began fighting (like I'm never sleeping with you again and you're a bad actor fighting) with one of the actors, who in turn ridiculed her after each scene. She had this quirky way of telling jokes as though she were just sort of talking to us (listen, she said, for the secret word and you will win a prize), so no one really knew if we should laugh or not. But then we laughed and she invited us to pick up flyers for her comedy group's performance.

A play on a boat. It's such a great idea. I loved the swaying and rocking and the smell and the tiny staircases that I had to climb backwards. I'm really glad I went, but I was wondering how come I haven't been to any poetry readings on a boat.