speak no evil

Wow. Interesting show last night. About five, maybe ten minutes before curtain we get told that a group of say, fifty 12 and 13-year-old kids have arrived and are on their way up. They had pre-purchased the tickets, and so that part was no problem.

However, while the show is by no means 'R'-rated, there is some humor that is at least suggestive. I would have to say though, that with the word ‘shit’ being the most blatant thing actually spoken aloud, for most middle school kids there isn’t much here that they haven’t seen or heard on television or on the interwebz a million times before, parental naivete notwithstanding.

Turns out, naturally, that they are a group of kids from the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Orchestra. Dunno why they were up here; hopefully they had some other event they were going to, and decided to join us to cap off the evening--because they didn’t return after intermission.

I laughed so hard. Now, it’s certainly possible that the Nurse from Romeo and Juliet with ‘her’ (plastic) boobs hanging out was the problem, or that Brooks and Mike simulating a violent, airborne childbirth did it, or that one of us uttering the word ‘shit’ was what put it over the top. Or maybe it was the suggestion that a riff on ‘Midsummer Nights’ Dream’ ends with a ‘bisexual bestial orgy.’

This is what a google image search for 'bisexual bestial orgy' turned up. Go figure.

But I’m betting that if they were honest with themselves, the real problem came at the outset, with my opening monologue. It is written in the style of a manic televangelist, and in the speech I suggest that the three of us were sent by God--and the literary muse--to slay the demons of ignorance about The Bard.

Oh yeah, and I also call out Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin.

At any rate, if their walking out is NOT due to religio-political leanings, then they have no one but themselves to blame. The show and the script have been around since like 1987. If I were in charge of taking a bunch of conservative (presumably, since they walked out; I hate to judge the whole lot of them, but the results speak for themselves) kids to a play, I would make DAMN sure of what it was I was bringing them to see.

By the way, the kids, the vast majority of them, were laughing their asses off.

Fuck the adults if they can’t take a joke.

Stay tuned: I'm very much looking forward to the letters-to-the-editor page in the Coloradoan this Sunday.

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