The Theater

I went to the theater last night on a mystery ride with my mom for my birthday (a gift from my mom's boyfriend). Mystery rides have been around in my family as long as I can remember; I'm pretty sure they were started by my grandmother. It's about getting into the car and going somewhere and only the driver knows that destination. We all enjoy going on or planning one of these days or nights and are quite happy when we can pull it off.

So, last night, I met my mom for dinner in the theater district of Boston, so I knew it was a play of some sort. Course, the thing about the theater district is that there are at least 8 theaters so one can read the marquise and not know which one is theirs. We ended up at the Shubert Theatre at the play Tea at Five, which is a one-woman play based on the life of Katharine Hepburn.

**I have to interject here that the show was not sold out, so they offered to move our seats from the highest balcony to the orchestra level. But, there were several groups of elderly people in front of us complaining that the seats they had been placed in made it difficult to see. So, my tiny mom got up into the ticket girls' face and said, we paid for the first row of the balcony, we want to sit in our seats. The management complied and a nice usher was assigned to bring us up to the hightest balcony. We climbed at least 100 stairs and entered the nosebleed section of the theater, one of the steepest in which I have been. I dizzily followed my mom to row A and we sat, completely alone in the entire balcony, and prepared to watch the play. The usher settled herself in one of the rows above us, since there is some kind of policy that people can't be in the balcony unaccompanied. As the usher shifted uncomfortably, my mom and I settled our chins on the thick, wooden banister (thick enough that I couldn't see down, just out, thank god). As the time ticked by, the usher harumphed, got up, sat back down and got up again. Finally, she approached us and said, "The actress will be an ant from up here. Are you sure you don't want to sit in the mezzanine or orchestra section??" We looked down at the mezzanine section, saw empty seats in row A there and acquiesed. Down the 100 stairs, back to the lobby, somewhat hanging our heads that we had made this poor woman accompany us to the top of the theater, and back to the manager who agreed to let us sit in the mezzanine level. We climbed another 25 stairs, and were ushered to row B. When the usher left, we moved to 2 empty seats (out of many) in row A, once again settled our chins on the wooden banister and prepared to actually be able to see the play. A great move, in my opinion. Good thing we showed them who was in charge.

The actress who played Hepburn is Kate Mulgrew, famous for playing the first female commander of the Enterprise on one of the newer iterations of Star Trek. I have never seen her act before, but she perfectly embodied the look, voice and actions of Hepburn; it was pretty amazing. My mom and I have always had a bit of a fascination with Hepburn so it was fun to watch her come to life and tell all of the anecdotes and tales that she became famous for (she was quite a whippersnapper). I love going to the theater and watching people, or in this case, a person, completely transform and melt into another life. And I marvel at the remembering of so many lines. My mom and I both agreed that Boston is a vibrant city and the theater is still a great place to lose oneself for a few hours.