Weapons of Class Destruction

Now, I like ballet. I felt the need to state that outright, so you wouldn't think this was some kind of reverse snobbery on my part. My family used to go see the local company Dance Alive's production of The Nutcracker every year, and while it was hardly like going to the Met, it was nice and relaxing with some good dancing. So, when my sister got free tickets for Gainesville's other ballet company's rendition of Cinderella, I told her I'd go with her. Sure! I said. Sounded like fun, and it'd been ages since we did something so festive together! Besides, we both remembered the Danscompany of Gainesville being better than Dance Alive. Oh boy, this was going to be fun!

Yeah. Our first mistake was that we ignored the fact that all of my sister's friends had commented on how long it was. After all, it was a real show, what did they expect? We reckoned it was probably two hours at the most, just because it was locally choreographed and kind of a rinky-dink production in general. Oh, how wrong we were.

First off, let me set the scene for you: Behind us, sat the most restless little girl on the planet, kicking both our seats and asking incessantly and loudly all through the first act when Cinderella was going to put on her pretty dress and how she didn't like this performance or this one or this one... In front of us was an unusually tall Emeril Lagasse, meaning his head and neck were not only of an unusual thickness but tall as well, which guaranteed that the both of us only ever saw about one third of the stage at any given time.

Not that there was much to see. Thankfully, the daughters of my sister's friends were all good, so she didn't have to lie about that; one was one of the show's absolute standouts. The other dancers... weren't so fortunate. With all the grace of a corpse with rigor mortis, the others flopped about the stage; the groups were about ten seconds off from being in sync with each other and every time they landed you could feel the THUMP! Cinderella herself had no charm and was about a foot taller than Prince Charming when she was on point. The Fairy Godmother was a "twenty year old frump," my sister's phrase, and had four fairies of the season who showed up every time to throw glitter in a dramatic fashion as if this would make up for their sub-par performances.

The dude who played the Prince's Jester was amazing. Fluid, graceful, he had precisely one solo and the only explanation we can find for him not playing the Prince himself was the fact that he was black.

So, the first intermission comes up and my sister's friends descend upon her, as usual ignoring me and making me feel uncomfortable, especially when Ann didn't step into the aisle to talk to them and they had to talk over me; they kept glancing down at me uneasily. And then one mentioned that, at three hours long, most people are turned off coming, but they make it worth it! Hold on, back up there a second! Be kind, rewind! Three hours?! My sister and I just looked at each other, like, "Did I just hear/lip read that correctly?!" Oh yes, we did indeed. And two hours lay ahead of us still. Two hours of chair kicking, commenting about "boys with no shirts on" from the little girl behind us (during a truly bizarre interlude where the Fairy Godmother has different acts entertain an appropriately bemused Cinderella who I imagined just wanted to bugger off to the ball at that point.) What appeared to be Tarzan and Jane pranced onto the stage during this, threw each other around stiffly and then left. Which is not stranger than Canada being including in the groups of countries entertaining the Prince in the second act, along with India, Thailand and Spain, identifiable only by their red jumpsuits. What, no maple leaf? How am I supposed to know these things?!

Oh, and in the audience to our left was Posh Spice! Or she wished. Seriously, she wore a black strapless dress with a puffy skirt that came down to her thighs at the very most. She wore large black patent leather heels and had her hair cut and dyed in the same exact fashion. Her boyfriend, certainly not David Beckham, wore only a crappy t-shirt and jeans and was eating through most of the show, chewing like a cow on cud. They stood out because, well, it's only natural to notice, isn't it, when someone's being so tacky but also because they seemed to be friends with most of the cast, who pointed them out at any given chance. Now they were class with a capital 'K' and pretty much represented what I thought the audience for this atrocity should be.

I have to point out that we were there for great justice to begin with. There was a sign language interpreter and apparently no one deaf ever shows up (reflects better of the deaf community, if you ask me). So my sister was given tickets by the women who runs the sensitivity meetings at the library, because her daughters were also in it. The deaf interpreter was the most entertaining thing about the show: she was funny, outgoing and friendly. My sister's since been invited to see a production of The Wiz interpreted by this woman as well. I told her she can invite someone else for that one.

Hell, my friends. I somehow managed to keep it together, not with just a little guilt as I made for the doors at the end instead of staying to mingle with my sister's friends, which she pointed out to me the next day with one of her amazing, conscience-burdening 'oh wells'. I held it in so well that I didn't have a panic attack until the next morning, when I woke up shaking uncontrollably and didn't stop for hours. So now, somehow, I feel awful about the whole thing and it's going to take me a while to recover from it.

Why are the holidays never easy?

Peace, Ghani