I Heart the Free Seats at the MUNY 


St. Louis, teaming with free summer activities, wouldn't be the same without the MUNY Opera. 

I was at a party tonight listening to some gay guys sniffing about how the MUNY never does anything new and sets are SO-SO, and the acting is TIRED and THEATRICAL, and they just DON'T GO anymore. Well, SORRY, BROS, but most every week you will find me ensconced in the free seats at the St. Louis Municipal Opera. Let's get a picture of that right off the bat. That would be me way up at the top, 912 rows back, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty St. Louis, diggin' into my soft cooler, and chowing down on the monster Rocky Mountain ice cream drumsticks at intermission. I don't miss a show if I can help it.

Or sometimes, like last night, friends and I will go out and eat before the performance. Jan, Rip, Stephen and I ended up at the sidewalk café of Lluellen's Pub at Euclid and McPherson in the Central West End. You can have your chips and double dragon ales, or, we opted for salads and ice water. We paid our bill, drove four blocks to Forest Park, and wound through serpentine roads, past the Jewel Box, and parked strategically behind the MUNY for easy exit after the performance. Stephen had his cushion, his binoculars, and his water bottle, but I rough in every time now. The four of us stood in line for the free seats, getting there about 7 p.m. There are roses, honeysuckle, and cone flowers to admire, and just plain folks like us. Except Jan is always dressed to the nines, but that's just Jan.

So it wasn't long and we filed into a middle row right by the main exit (if you want to get out by midnight). The trick is to not get behind someone who has big hair, or didn't change their shirt, or doesn't bounce too much. Jan and Rip got in the row first and took the good seats, but I fooled 'em, and sat behind 'em. The better to eavesdrop. The evening was BEAUTIFUL, what DID we do to deserve this weather??! The sky was criss-crossed with the blurred out trails of jets going hither and yon, and these trails became gold, orange and finally pink as the evening progressed. There was even a gibbous moon out bathing us with her cool rays.

The teenage guys hawked their popcorn and drinks for the better part of five bucks, most of 'em kind of cute. But they have a hard sell with all the coolers and popcorn in handbags. Then all the paying customers filed in for a half-hour or so. Now we are warned not to snap pictures and to turn our cell phones off, and then the band begins to play "The Star Spangled Banner." Even with this jerk we've got in the White House currently, it's nice to stand and pay tribute to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Most everyone sings and puts their hand over their heart.

This is The Wizard of Oz tonight, and it pretty much is a copy of the original movie directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger as the scarecrow, Burt Lahr as the cowardly lion, and Jack Haley as the tin man. Also Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West. In this performance, Kate Manning convinced me that she was Dorothy easily. Beautiful voice, lots of spunk. One thing about sitting in the free seats, you don't always get a program, and I didn't. Whoever played the scarecrow had Bolger's steps down cold, and seemed just as rubbery as in the original.

Being in the free seats is great for another reason and here it is. Behind me sat a single mom with her daughter, age about 5 and son, age about 9. She was one of those little girls with a big voice, if you get my drift, and the boy was just a typical somewhat ornery kid. You WILL hear kids talking in the free seats, and few make a move to shush them. BECAUSE, you see, hearing these kids come alive to the fantasy is just PART OF THE SHOW. So when the girl yelled out "There's the witch," we were all just thrilled with her. All night, comments, "She's got water, she's gonna melt, now." "Flying monkeys." And so forth. So by the end of the show, I hadn't just seen a remake of the Wizard of Oz, I'd seen it through a kid's eyes.

The sets are always really amazing. The house with storm cellar and barn, Dorothy getting pulled up into the sky, a believable OZ, a stage full of kids dressed as Munchkins, a fantastic flying Glenda in a wide-spreading pink gown, the Witch of the North (it's all done with wires), a cackling, sing-songy Wicked Witch, yes, flying monkeys, talking poppies, lots of them, the Yellow Brick Road, the Wizard's castle, the doorman at the gate, a really scary, huge, red glowing eye face of a Wizard, and last but not least that "man behind the curtain," they were ALL THERE. How DO they do this without Pixar or Dreamworks to concoct fake two dimensional reality. MY hat is OFF to these set designers and engineers who pull this stuff off week after week.

See, Stephen and I, we love all theatre, amateur and professional, good and bad, children's and adults. There's always SOMETHING to enjoy in every production. I guess it's in our blood. We're both hams, and we know it, and we like other hams. We go right from the Friday night production I am describing to being in the production of our regular monthly dinner theater group. This time Jeanette Myers is directing Odett's Awake and Sing, currently being revived on Broadway. Stephen is Ralph and I am Uncle Morty. So we don't sniff at no theatre. But then, St. Louis Municipal Opera, bringing good, solid theatre to the citizens of St. Louis and their children for decades in the heat of July and August, we especially don't sniff at you. And we're not going to sniff at you when we grow up, either!

 

Posted: Sat - July 8, 2006 at 10:10 PM          

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