Full to Overflowing

As I watch the little gully that runs beside my house fill to a raging torrent thanks to this evening’s storm, I’m reflecting on how much entertainment I’ve stuffed myself with this weekend. Though I didn’t see him there, I joined Granville Scott (star of CAT’s “Harvey”) in watching the Lehigh Iron Pigs fall to “our” Richmond Braves on Saturday night. That was after an afternoon basketball game (my talented daughter was high scorer, though her team lost) and before sampling both a bad bad movie (“Domino”) and a good bad movie (“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”). Then today I followed Bruce Miller’s advice and brought all of the kids to see “Guys and Dolls,” which in some ways is a whole weekend’s worth of entertainment all by itself.

What’s fun about seeing a show like G&D a second time is to take in how its matured, how actors have gotten more comfortable with their characters (hopefully not to the point of boredom), and to catch things that went by too fast the first time. I laughed out loud during the final mission scene when Sky Masterson refers to the gamblers who have assembled, saying, “Sorry we didn’t have a chance to clean them up,” and amidst the hubbub that erupts Jason Marks as Nicely-Nicely Johnson said, “Hey, I flossed!” The great “Sue Me” duet between Adelaide and Nathan (Rachel Abrams and Scott Wichmann) seemed even funnier and more heart-felt the second time around. And the understated but affecting performance of Joel Grow as Arvide Abernathy – easy to overlook amidst everything else to take in on opening night – shone through more clearly.

A couple of other notes from the weekend:

- the almost criminally handsome and very personable Phillip Brown attended the same matinee of G&D as I did and set all of the T-line women’s hearts a-throbbing. If Richmond Shakespeare is selling advance tickets for next summer’s HV, I know at least three people interested.

- the Wichmann / Persinger pursuit of Sports Radio victory continues and no one seems to know when the voting is set to stop. As of Sunday at 7pm, they were 1% behind! Know any teenagers with extra time on their hands? Get them to vote!

- I ran into Terry Menefee Gau’s friendly and talented husband, David, for the second time in two weekends, which reminded me that I still haven’t weighed in with more in-depth-ish comments about “Streetcar” at Sycamore Rouge. That’ll have to wait until tomorrow. But until then, you can look over Susan Haubenstock’s review in today’s T-D that avoids the profusion of accolades that I showered upon the production and yet, is still very positive.