My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (20 page)

“I can’t get over how current it still is even though it was written, when? The forties?”

He flips to the front of his copy. “Huh, it was actually the early thirties.”

“Wow.”

As flattering as it is to have the pretty person’s undivided attention, I’m at kind of a crucial point, and my eyes keep drifting back to the bottom of the page.

“I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing,” he says. “Happy reading!”

And my reading is happy. Because I finally feel like I’m back on track.

Over dinner, I recount today’s stories to Fletch. I finish by saying, “Five bucks says all those chicks will show up with Aldous Huxley tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he replies, “but it won’t matter.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, you said he looked like a male model and he ignored all the slutty girls and he told you ‘happy reading.’ ”

“So?”

“That means he’s gay.”

Which is awesome.

I mean, come on, I’m reading Oscar Wilde next.

Of course, I may have to tell him I was the lady reading Huxley. He may not recognize me in my do-rag and old gym shorts.

The forecast this weekend is dismal, and I won’t be able to do any of my Utopian reading series
¹⁸⁰
by the pool. My foul-weather backup plan involves viewing classic musicals, and I’ve been happily ensconced in the world of Gene Kelly every time it’s rained, but I forgot to return my latest batch to Netflix and I’ve got nothing new. So, when Stacey offers me a last-minute invite to a live-theater marathon, I readily agree.

I’ve attended just about every kind of production at this point—huge budget shows with crazily elaborate sets; small, intimate productions where I sat close enough to determine which actors needed a shave; moderate-sized, painfully artistic shows; showy song-and-dance fests, et cetera. The one aspect I’ve yet to cover is the workshop, and I’m doing that today.

Stacey and I are going to a media day for the Steppenwolf Theatre’s First Look Repertory of New Work, which involves three brand-new plays being shown to an audience for the first time. The playwrights and actors use a scaled-down set, taking this opportunity to figure out what does and doesn’t work before the play goes into formal production. What we’re going to see is three shows in their most raw form. Stacey says sometimes the work is genius . . . and sometimes the play will never see the light of day again.

Today all three plays, which normally rotate nights throughout the run, are performed in a row for the press. I’m kind of excited about having a theater marathon, as the closest I’ve ever come to anything like this is the time in college my friends and I went to see the movie
Assassins
and then immediately drove across town to watch
How to Make an American Quilt
. (Actually, all I can remember from that night is Sly Stallone running around in a bloody white suit and making myself sick on popcorn, so perhaps it’s not the greatest comparison.)
¹⁸¹

I asked Stacey if I had to prepare in any way, but her only advice was to wear comfortable pants. Done. The shows are being performed in the Steppenwolf garage, which confused me because I couldn’t figure out if they had to move the cars or what. But apparently there’s a whole theater built within the parking structure, which I find vaguely disappointing. I mean, what’s more stripped down than workshopping scenes in front of an old Astrovan with an oil leak?

The stage is set up as a square between two seating sections, each accommodating about forty people. I imagine this’ll be a challenge for the actors, as they’ll have to be superconscious to make sure they’re always properly in profile, lest half the audience stare at the back of their heads. Now that I’m a bit of a theater veteran, I know to make a beeline for the chairs in the last row in the back corner because (a) no one can cough on my neck there
¹⁸²
and (b) I’m not sharing an armrest with any strangers.

The first show is called
Honest
, which is about a James Frey-type author who may have taken liberties in retelling his life’s story. I immediately connect with the subject matter, and I’m so impressed that the playwright actually learned not only how publishing works but also what it’s like to write a memoir. I’m on the edge of my hard plastic seat for the whole show. When it’s over, I happily engage in the postproduction discussion and praise the playwright on his uncanny accuracy.

Stacey and I break for lunch, returning for the four o’clock show. The seats we’d been in are empty, so we settle in there again. The second show’s called
Sex with Strangers
, and it’s about a male blogger who catapulted to Internet infamy for detailing all his sexual exploits online.

During the first scene change, I lean over to Stacey. “This play is totally about Tucker Max!”

“Who?”

“Um, he’s a male blogger who catapulted to Internet infamy for detailing all his sexual exploits online.” Then I go on to describe a host of similarities between the protagonist and the real guy.

Stacey gives me a little moue of disapproval. “There’s an actual man who behaves like this?”

“Yeah, he wrote
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
. It’s been on the
Times
list, like, forever. I think every fraternity guy in America has read his stuff. What’s funny is that for all Tucker’s success, not one of these fancy theater people has any clue that Tucker exists. What’s even funnier is Tucker would probably be pissed if he knew there was a play where a character based on him was secretly a nice guy.”

Despite strong performances, I don’t love this play, and when it’s over, we dash across the street for dinner, figuring our time would be better spent eating pork chops and not struggling to find something polite to say.

When we return, our seats are taken, so we walk around the stage to sit on the opposite side. The row in the back is completely empty when we sit. This time, Stacey gets the corner; it’s only fair.

Not more than two minutes later, I’m checking my BlackBerry for the hourly Shit the Thundercats Broke update.
Aw, man,
I frown to myself,
I loved that potpourri bowl.
While I try to tally up this week’s damages, I notice a shadow over me.

“That’s my seat,” says the shadow.

“I’m sorry?” I reply, glancing up to see a pale, disheveled man, clad in ill-fitting clothing.

“I was sitting there.” He points at my lap, which causes me to giggle inadvertently. Seems like if there were a homeless guy sitting on my knees, I’d have noticed, right?

When I realize he’s not joking, I ask, “Did you leave something here? There was nothing on the chair when I sat down.”

“No,” he responds. “But that’s my seat.”

What is this, second grade? “Oh, I apologize; I didn’t realize there were assigned seats for the third show,” I say, knowing damn well there aren’t. I turn rather obviously to glance at all the empty chairs to my right. Then I return my attention to my BlackBerry—
Oh, no! Not the frog statue!
—while he continues to hover and glare. I can see Stacey concentrating intently on the playbill.

Mr. Homeless clears his throat and ups his glower factor.

I ignore him.

He does not sit in any of the empty chairs next to us, all of which have a better vantage point due to being closer to the center of the stage. He simply stands, anxiously shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

Dude . . . rude much?

I realize this man is not going to give up, so I finally ask, “Do you need me to move?”

“Yes, please.”

Seriously? I glance down at Stacey, who’s now trying to cover her laughter by coughing. Wait, I thought
I
was supposed to be the bad wingman? I scoot over a seat and the man plops down between us. Then I make a point of having a conversation around him for the next fifteen minutes until the play starts.

When
Ski Dubai
begins, I forget the petty turf war and pay attention to the stage. The only bit of set is a large piece of Samsonite luggage, which is used not only to haul clothes, but also as a bed, a shopping cart, and a desk. There’s a dreamy, almost surreal element to this production, and between key scenes, a woman walks the length of the stage carrying a huge photograph of Dubai at night, studded with hundreds of tiny LED lights.

Even though there’s literally nothing onstage but a bag, the writing and acting are such that I can imagine the oppressive desert wind of Dubai and also the cold crunch of snow in the indoor ski slope. I spend an hour and a half completely immersed on the other side of the world. I find myself being glad for the empty stage, as any scenery might have interfered with my imagination.

When it’s over we rush to the garage to avoid the postshow traffic jam. “Hey, what was with the creepy homeless guy who insisted he sit between us?” I ask. Stacey looks as though she’s dying to tell me something, but simply holds up a finger and doesn’t say a thing until we’re in her car with the doors closed before she bursts out laughing.

“He’s not homeless!” she snorts, slapping her hand on the steering wheel, trying to catch her breath.

“Then who was he?”

Still laughing, Stacey sputters, “He’s the theater critic for—” and then she drops the name of a great big newspaper.

“Oh . . . so
that’s
why you didn’t tell him to pound sand when he was trying to bully me out of my seat.”

“Exactly.”

“Hmph,”
I snort. “You know what? Maybe Mr. CriticPants should spend a little less time analyzing what everyone else does wrong and a little more time figuring out how to come across as less of an asshole.”

Wait a minute, that? Right there? May just be my thesis statement.

Earlier this week, Fletch and I were at the bookstore, stocking up on beach reads for the Hamptons. When we passed a poetry display, he gestured toward the stack and asked, “You need any of those for your project?”

I replied, “No freaking way.”

“Really? You’ve been complaining about wanting new cultural activities. Seems like if you drank wine, read poetry, and listened to classical music in one sitting, you’d hit the high-culture trifecta. You could even do all of it poolside.”

I pondered this for a second before replying. “You’re probably right, but I can’t bring myself to read poetry. Something about it gives me a primal urge to beat up the author and steal his lunch money.”

To backtrack, I haven’t been exposed to any classic poems since my twelfth-grade English class. I detested the poetry portion of the semester and didn’t see the point of agonizing over every verse, talking each line to death as we dissected meanings. I could pretty much sum up every poem we ever read in one of four ways:

a. Love is rad.

b. I am sad.

c. I feel mad.

d. War is bad.

Done. Now, let’s have another in-class viewing of
East of Eden
, shall we?
¹⁸³

I do have to give the poets we studied credit for taking the effort to make their stuff rhyme. Seriously, there are only about seventy words in the English language that don’t pair up with something else, so if this is an issue, simply don’t end the line with “twelfth” or “almond” or “orange” or “penguin.” Easy-freaking-peasy.