All Work and No Play Make Jane a Dull Girl

When I was an undergraduate in the US, apart from reading, hitting the bookstores and occasionally visiting the art museum for mental escapism, I also frequented the local theater scene; namely the Denver Center Theater Company (DCTC).

The company has a string of theaters (panggung) in the vicinity of each other in the theater district, which is located by Curtis and 14th Street in downtown Denver. It can be easily accessed by public transportation, and I usually left from Golden by 12 pm in order to catch the 1.30 pm matinee performance. There was no point of going early; I was a cheapskate and never failed to opt for the $10 student ticket. But the catch was, it's only available an hour before curtain. And there's another catch - it's for the best available seat.

Since I went for these escapades solo, it was easy to get excellent seat at a fraction of the full price ticket. I even got a free ticket once for A Christmas Carol - it was holiday season and I was alone; I had already seen the play the week or two weeks before but felt like going again - someone couldn't make it and asked the staff at the box office to give it away and I happened to be at the right place at the right time :)

If there was one thing I truly miss of being abroad, it's this one. Of going to plays, especially on impulse. I fondly remember one Saturday morning when I woke up late and flipped through the newspaper (I was The Denver Post weekend subscriber) and found out that the new theater season just opened. Imagine the chain reaction that followed: I literally jumped out of bed, had a quick shower, got dressed and raced downhill from Mines Park to the bus stop on Washington Ave just to get to downtown on time. Haha. Wish I could recall what the play was...

To think about it, I hardly had anything bad to say about the plays and performances that I've seen at the DCTC, be it the ones that starred the seasoned and experience actors-in-residence, or the theater conservatory students. But maybe I was just blind and uninformed. I was and still am, NOT well versed in the matter of stage arts. I went mostly just to be entertained, in an intellectual sort of way.

Thus, besides the program books which in actuality were the company's monthly newsletter but emblazoned different cover according to the performances they were distributed in, I started collecting "Inside Out". Inside Out is a handout prepared for each play; it discusses the play in depth, focusing on the playwright's background, particularly on what sparks the writing of the play. There is information on history and context, on the issues and how they are relevant in today's world. Not all plays performed are contemporary - DCTC regularly features one or two Shakespearean plays every season, and sometimes the Greek dramas, be it a comedy or a tragedy.

However there is an interesting story to the beginning of my addiction to theater and plays. The first play I saw abroad was not in Colorado. Not even in the US. It was the adaptation of a classic by Edmund Rostand entitled "Cyrano de Bergerac" staged in Manchester Royal Exchange Theater in winter of 2007. I went with Afni on a Monday night, when student tickets were sold at 4 pounds a piece. Yes, we were (and still are sometimes) cheapskates.

The next time I went to England again, which was a year later, I made a point to see a play in every city I went to. To my pleasant surprise, I had the chance to discover another form of stage performance called "pantomime", it being a Christmas season. It is a traditional British form of theater that "combines song, dance, buffoonery..." (from Wikipedia), which appeals to the younger audience but is equally enjoyed by the adults. I was one of them, as I sat and laughed and sang together with Peter Pan, Cinderella and Dick Whittington.

Being a hoarder (or some would say a nostalgic melancholic), I keep most of the ticket stubs to these performances (and the program books and the Inside Out). When I was weeding out stuffs to be shipped to Malaysia a little less than a year ago, I just could not throw them out.

They define some parts of my life that are dearly missed but not regretfully left behind.

The precious poster from Cyrano de Bergerac performance in Manchester was once a feature element on my feature wall.