March 1, 2008

Hat’s world premiere went nobly last night, a good performance of the play which is, in terms of simple efficiency of exposition, the best in the bunch. Stephanie has grown into the queen, and the two goddesses never worked better together. Darren was moving as the vizier-- the emotional center of the evening. A UNCA student I’d overheard in the hall talking of Hatshepsut, a paper topic for some class, came on the ticket I gave her, and beamed with happiness. Our audience was considerably larger than I expected, perhaps on the basis of word-of-mouth. Mickey’s mother had New Orleans rescue kittens in the foyer, as she had for Virginia Woolf. If I hadn’t a full house already I’d have adopted one or two.

Slept unusually late this morning, entertained by a dream that was long, detailed, funny, beautiful in places, and very telling. High on a hill above the city was a palatial building full of fascinating rooms, not so much functional as fun, TV rooms and stuffed animal rooms and animals-of-Africa rooms, and I had to wait and wander through it after dark because I wasn’t sure that I was fully welcome. I wasn’t unwelcome, for when the owners–Charlie and Angie Flynn McIver–encountered me when I had inadvertently left my coat behind, there was no rancor, but there was a quizzical lift of brows. Elaborate shows went on in theaters scattered throughout the building, and I would stand in the shadows and watch chorus girls making their entrances in costumes of pink feathers, though I never actually saw the shows. I would sneak away by daylight, encountering workers entering, me looking nonchalantly about as though I had just happened on that corner of the world.