Dear Diary: Do I Have To?
Thursday night already! Why isn’t it, I ask, a greater satisfaction to know that the weeks pass so quickly because I’m engaged and busy? Perhaps because I was longing for disengagement all afternoon. I didn’t want to do anything. I certainly didn’t want to deal with the backlog of stuff that has piled up around my desk since the beginning of October. Just thinking about it filled me with despair. I wanted it to be fitted out with cement shoes, carted off to a dock on the Passaic River, and dumped in the water. Sayonara, paperasse!
That was one of several things that didn’t happen today. Here’s another: I never did figure out how to get out of going to the theatre this evening. Not that I tried very hard. It’s a very familiar tune. In the old days — up until ten years or so ago — I would mount mini-rebellions, and not go to concerts and plays for which we had tickets. I blush to confess it! And when I think of the shows that I missed, “blush” is not the word. If this site serves no other function, it gets me to the church on time. I didn’t try to wiggle out of going to the theatre because I couldn’t imagine how I would ever explain passing up the chance to see Rosemary Harris and Jan Maxwell in The Royal Family.
Which is something else that didn’t happen today: I don’t have to explain not going. I went because, in the end, it was the easier thing to do. Fifteen minutes ahead of time, I stopped fiddling around and got dressed. Then I dawdled a bit, so that I wouldn’t be too early —they don’t let you into the theatres until about 7:30. But the trains were great, and I walked into the old Biltmore at 7:40. Done. If they had canceled the performance, I’d have left not only with a clear conscience but a sense of mission accomplished. The idea wasn’t so much to see a play as to show up in time for it — an achievement completed twenty-five minutes before the curtain went up.
It was one of the great nights. Jan Maxwell, whom I adore more and more, delivered a boffo second-act finale. Rosemary Harris, who played Ms Maxwell’s role the last time the Kaufman-Ferber property was revived on Broadway, floated about with magisterial serenity, as though she were the embodiment of the title. (Indeed, her performance was a reminder that modern royal families are all functional thespians.) But more about that anon. I hope.
Right now, it’s time to get ready for Friday morning.