(Not) Well-Hung

Last night, my husband and I went to check out the oldest operating theatre in Lake Charles. Since I will be moving here to have the baby and will be here while I write my dissertation, we are looking for things I can get involved with here so that I don’t go into extreme culture shock.

I came across an ad for said theatre’s currently running show, the musical 9 to 5, and though the show itself would not usually inspire me to attend, I was pretty excited about the chance to see what Lake Charles has to offer. I read up on the history of the theatre and found that it was founded in 1965. A theatre that has existed that long in this area surely had something going for it.

Just walking to the theatre from the parking area was exciting for me. The venue, just off of I-10, was reportedly an old silent movie theatre. I am mesmerized by old buildings, old theatres in particular. This space was a tad rough. There were old rocking cinema-chairs in the house, held together with tape. There was a balcony, I assume for segregated audience members of years past. One lighting bar hung over the extreme back end of the house, just before the balcony, and two lighting trees stood on the apron, stage right and stage left. I’d guess there were about six instruments on the bar and four on each tree. None appeared to have gels and some looked as though they may be  non-functional.

Still, there were around 40 folks in the audience. Tickets were $25, so surely…

Now, I am AWARE that the surging hormones of pregnancy are no myth but I was entirely unprepared when, 30 seconds after the curtains opened and my brain wrapped itself about what was unfolding before me, I was overwhelmed with a nearly unstoppable urge to cry. I actually had to focus and breathe for a second to refrain from tears.

There are always good things to notice about a performance. There are noble efforts, shining moments and in this case there were certainly individuals who are to be commended for volunteering their time and energy. I want to say positive things here…

A few of the performers had lovely voices. A few of them also had some fine acting ability. I could envision using two or three of them in another show. That said, the resultant theatrical production from Waiting for Guffman would have been an unreachable summit for this show.

The band was placed on-stage, which could have worked had the lighting designers not lit them at the same level of the performers for the duration of the show. The musicians were perched atop a platform with mismatched stools holding up the keyboard and various instruments. A random group of singers would meander in and sing back-up when not on stage. There were three musicians who watched the show and seemed genuinely charmed by it, the rest sat glumly staring at their feet or the floor with pained expressions of tortured boredom on their faces. If anything can kill a show immediately, it is forcing the audience to stare at fully-lit members of the show team who ooze distaste for their own production. Though the theatre seems to run mostly on old musicals, the sound system was terrible. Ballads could be heard but the singers got lost in the drums and chaos whenever a large or loud number came up. Apparently there were two lighting designers yet there seemed to be no actual light cues, at least none where they were desperately needed. Shoddy set pieces and uneven scuffed stage blacks could have been softened, areas could have been delineated.

The actress in the Dolly Parton role was a fair actor but was lost beneath an extremely cheap-looking curly bleach-blonde wig which did nothing but make you marvel continuously at how cheap-looking her wig was.

I do not walk out of shows. I am pretty staunch in my feelings about that, but I’d had my fill at the end of Act I when the women put a parachute harness on the boss-character for no textually supported reason. I sat wondering why in the world these characters would be harnessing their boss when they were planning to spirit him away to his home to figure out how to get out of trouble for accidentally poisoning him. Then suddenly a hook was wheeled apologetically in from the fly loft, the man was attached and the last few notes of the final act-break song were sung while the man was inexplicably hauled about two and a half unimpressive feet into the air.

The audience was delighted.

I had to take a moment.

The dangling man was the last I saw of the show.