On the Road Again...

It twas off to Cincinnati to see the lovely and talented Melissa Bennett in the Clear Stage Cincinnati production of Romeo and Juliet yesterday. For those of you who have no patience whatsoever, let me summarize the following post in a simple series of words: show - good, seeing Mel - better, Cincy streets - confusing.

The production itself was very well done, performed in a shockingly small theatre before an even more shockingly small crowd. Imagine the Joe E. Brown cut in half with a couple of balconies added and you've got the general idea of what was going on. But even then, the performance was only about half full, with no one sitting in the balconies. Talks with Mel afterward revealed that publicity has been pretty weak for this production, as well as crowds being drawn toward, of all people, Patti Lupone performing in the big theatre next door. (I've never forgiven that woman for totally ruining the Sweeney Todd in Concert with her sub-par Mrs. Lovett. Give me Angela, or give me anyone but Patti!)

Even finding the theatre might be another issue. The driving directions I printed offa Yahoo Maps seemed too simple too be true, and darned if I wasn't right...after an easy 3+ hour trip down to Cincy taking 75, it took another hour of circling the streets and two or three calls from Mel to get myself parked and inside. Then again, it might just be my ineptitude at navigation at work - when Amanda called to let me know that she was about 50 miles away, an hour before the show, I said she'd never make it in time. 50 minutes later or so she arrived, found the same garage I was in, and made it to the theatre in only about five minutes, tops. I bow to your superior driving skills, mi amiga.

As said, the show was good overall, and brought to my attention some aspects of the show I had never even considered before (which is good, since contrary to popular belief I find R&J to be one of Willie's weakest pieces). The most disappointing part, sadly, was what Mel was given to play with as Tibalt. I know I'm Mel's friend, so my view is naturally biased, but it seemed as though, through strong focus on undercutting her character's importance and by demeaning her, the show managed to make the main villain of the piece seem virtually insignificant. Name me another production of R&J where Tybalt is slapped on the butt by Mercutio three times.

Afterward, Mel, Amanda and I hit Arnold's bar with quite a few of her castmates, who all seemed like very good peeps. (Shout-out to Ruth, who rode with me in the car post-bar, as we went to a diner to grab some grub. See, I remembered your name!) Then it was off to Mel's beautiful home, for a good night's sleep, after a long late-night convo between me and Mel about the show. (Amanda, sadly, could not join us, as she had to be on the road earlier than either of us and just went to sleep almost as soon as we arrived.)

On the whole, a very good trip, and if anyone happens to be swinging through southwest Ohio next weekend, I would highly recommend checking the show out. For more info, head to:

http://www.clearstagecincinnati.com

Hey, anything I can do to help out the publicity campaign... :)

P.S. - Thanks again, Mel!