The power of the fish oil is strong this morning dear ones, (as is the after taste if you burp) and it compels me to offer these wonderful words of wisdom.
Family life is sometimes a little challenging, I hear stories everyday of how some families fall apart whilst others stick together through thick and thicker. I was musing only yesterday how working with family members can cause some real problems and perhaps there were days when Jesus thought about leaving the family firm and taking his magic show to Vegas. Father and Holy Ghost might not have had the same success without him.
But all this rambling about family is really bringing me to three hours sitting in the theatre last night, watching Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill. I'm not going to review the whole show but its depiction of family life and the issues each member of that family were battling, was enthralling. The whole cast were magnificent and the evening flew by. This production has plugged a big gap in my theatre going experiences - my first O'Neill and I got to see David Suchet on stage.
It is at once a period piece but yet it has a strong resonance for modern life. One line really hits the mark:
The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too.
The characters were so shockingly real you did get completely drawn into the story which was not complicated to follow in any way....unless you were the lady sat two rows in front of me!
I've written before about audiences and how they sometimes spoil a show and last night we had a few nose blowers and coughers, the odd sweet paper but the most annoying thing for me was the fact the some people come to the theatre and then don't pay attention.
The lady in question kept asking her husband about the plot, which if she had shut up and listened was all too clearly explained in the text.
In the interval, her husband did his best to catch her up and the debate about one character and their fingers was fascinating.
The character of Mary Tyrone complains of pains in her fingers which leads her to require medication. The inquisitive and yet stupid lady asked her husband "why are her fingers not more bent, like my mum's - she had arthritis and her fingers were much worse than that".
She went on to explain that she didn't believe there could have been any pain from such un-arthritic finger joints and that the actress (Laurie Metcalfe who was superb in the role) should try harder to make her fingers more bent!
Can you imagine how hard I was suppressing guffaws of laughter at this time?
She also commented on the costumes being 'familiar' and she thought she had seen them somewhere before. She mused that it might have been Downton Abbey. I had my fist in my mouth by now.
After the interval some people moved from the cheap seats to occupy some empty seats behind me (dress circle of course) and it was obviously some corporate jolly. They nearly all spoke with American accents and wreaked of alcohol. I did wonder if it was the James Tyrone Fan Club. One of them soon fell asleep but luckily didn't snore as that would have been the icing on the cake.
The English man with them said the following as the lights dimmed - "Don't you recognise the actor? It's John Suchet. Don't you get POYROTT back home? He's famous in this country for playing POYROTT, not sure what else he's done".
Anyway, I sat enthralled as the play continued its inevitable journey accompanied by more questions from the idiot woman, more sweet papers, coughs and sneezes...but in the end it didn't matter. I had witnessed something very good and I knew it.
I would willingly sit through the whole play again - as long as I got to pick the rest of the audience!
That's all today now go and busy yourself with life, enjoy your day and your family - who for all their faults are still your family.
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