Blankbaby

Becky, of Good Grief! fame, and I saw All Wear Bowlers today at the Mum Puppettheatre in Old City. It was the perfect opportunity for me to get a little exercise, and shoot some pictures as well, so I decided to walk to 1st and Arch from Blankbaby Manor.

As we all know I enjoy snow more than I probably should, so I particularly enjoyed the invigorating trek across Philly. Take a gander of the pictures I took to and fro.

As for the play, I enjoyed it. The Mum Puppettheatre is very small, and since the weather wasn’t great (well most people didn’t like it, but I did) and the Eagles were playing the audience was very small as well.

There were perhaps 14 rows of chairs in the place; Becky and I were the 3rd and 4th into the place so we pretty much had our choice of seats. However, neither Becky nor I had very strong opinions about where should sit so we dithered for a few moments. Finally Becky said, ‘I don’t want to sit in the front in case there is audience participation.’ I pointed out that given the size of the audience there was no where to hide, and I had no idea how right I would be.

Anywho, the basic premise of the show is that these two Laurel and Hardy types some how leap off the celluloid and into a theater full of people (i.e. the audience), and as they try and get back into the film they deal with life without the 4th wall, and eggs figure into it somehow as well.

This is where the audience participation comes in. The two characters crack open two hard boiled eggs, but instead of hard boiled deliciousness they find rolled up in each shell a ticket to the very show that they are in (but they don’t know that they are in). So they come into the audience ask people what these slips of paper are. The first person they asked was a little boy, and he wasn’t interested in playing along and waved them away (which, in itself was funny). The second dude they asked for some reason told them he didn’t know what the tickets were. I saw the actor looking at me, and I knew that he was going to ask me next. So much for not sitting in the front of the theater.

He asked me what the tickets were, and I told him they were tickets. He seemed fairly happy with that answer and then told me I was sitting in his seat. I was a little confused, I must admit, and he repeated his assertion that I was in his seat, so I did what any civilized gentleman would do. I said, “Would you like to sit here?”

Of course he did want to sit there, and so I moved and he sat down next to Becky (I am not sure how Becky felt about that though). And then he just sat there, while his friend (the other actor) stood there. Becky then told the actor sitting next to her that the ticket was a ticket to HIS show. This seemed to set something off, and the two actors proceeded to take every chair from the row Becky was in put two on the stage and throw some into a pile which they then asked some other audience members (those in the front row) to hold.

It was very odd, so I just stayed in my new seat for the rest of the show.

Overall, I thought the play was very good, but their were parts that I felt were added in the mindset that, ‘Hey we got a grant, so here’s some artsy stuff for ya.’

Go see it, it is running until Feb 6th.

After the performance it was decided that hot chocolate (or cocoa, is there a difference?) was just what the doctor ordered. We proceeded to Old City Coffee with all hasted (why did no one tell me they had free wifi? Of course, our conversation might have suffered had I been blogging while talking with Becky), to get our hot beverages (and I got a cookie!).

Things started off on the wrong foot though. Becky asked the guy behind the counter if they had hot cocoa and he said, “Do you mean hot chocolate?” with just a hint of attitude. Becky was like, ‘Umm I guess so” and he was all like, “Yes we do, do you want one?” Becky, though, wanted some sort of mint hot chocolate and let the guy know, and he didn’t seem so thrilled.

A rather delightful young woman helped me, and gave me my hot chocolate sans attitude, but plus a heaping helping of whipped cream. Becky wasn’t offered any whipped cream by the dude, and was offended even though she would have declined the offer.

Women. 😉

Anywho, Becky told the dude that our order was together and then she conveniently couldn’t find her wallet, so I paid for it. Becky joked that it was all an elaborate ruse to get free hot chocolate. I laughed, but secretly I think it was all a ruse to get free hot chocolate.

Becky then told me that she is always nervous talking to me because she never knows when I will quote her out of context on my blog (like I did in the paragraph above). I assured her that she had nothing to worry about, and I agreed with her that I am very sexxy indeed when I drink hot chocolate. She then pulled out a stopwatch and timed a variety of things for some reason.

So, that is how I spent the majority of my Sunday. Not a bad use of time, if you ask me, which you didn’t but this is my blog so I can write about whatever I like, so take that!

UPDATE: You can read Becky’s reaction to the play here, I must mention she does say that I liberally misquote her in this post. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not that is true.