And who's the Great Git Boy?

So that was nifty. I went and saw The Great Gatsby at the Seattle Repertory last night. Sixth row, aisle, free. I'd called earlier to order a ticket and when I asked about TPS (a local theatre professional organization) discount, they said I'd probably get a better seat if I came in on standby, since they only had a couple left to choose from, and undoubtedly some people with great seats would fail to show. I still thought the ticket would be $15. Nope, I showed them my membership card a little before the show and they gave me a ticket for $0.00, and told me where to wait. I talked to the usher, George, who is a local playwright, and as the house was closing the two of us on standby went in and had our choice of empty seats.

And it was a good show. My folks saw Doubt there recently, which they thought was the best show they've seen this year. It is nice to see the rep doing consistently good work again. What a difference an artistic director can make. With the exception of R&J, I liked most of the shows the previous artistic directed, but a lot of the other shows made imitation vanilla seem fresh and exciting.

I'd read The Great Gatsby in junior high school and didn't remember the story. The nasty little digs of some of the characters resonated, even though I thought the book insufferably dull and pretentious at the time. Likely I got the characters confused with the book itself. I was surprised I remembered even that much, and now I want to read it again. The weakest principal in the show was still a good connected performance, which I had no issues with. I think some different choices would have been better, but Daisy was still good and I'd recommend the show.

For me, it was quite timely. The callous indifference of the rich as they use and destroy the people they live off of screams out today. People like Bush, Cheney, and company who look on our country as something to coldly toy with for a little extra pocket change.