A Rhinestone in the Rough

T’is now the time of year for me to be In the Aisles. Wherever I go to review theatre, I get the aisle seat and have a drinkee at intermission.

From Stratford Ontario, to London's West End, I always get the aisle seat.

In London it was a fluke I think ... as I was there to see my friends Gerry and the Pacemakers when they were in Ferry Cross the Mercey, but I did follow tradition - delicate plastic white wine glass in hand.

From my 2006 aisle seats, I have seen my first four shows at Stratford this year.

Bravissimo!!

I will not tell you what I have seen yet.

That's another blog.

"Four for four" as Poor Tom puts it.

"Poor" Tom Leslie is my husband and my Permanent Complimentary Guest. (We run a small but mighty, theatre company called Poor Tom Productions - yes that Poor Mad Tom from King Lear.

My friends are happy for my aisle soul-mate but equally sad because once upon a time when I was single, they were all my Guests.

I had quite a List.

But Poor Tom, who acts and directs, shares that same grand passion for the theatre that I do...except musicals, farces and the lighter 'feel-good' fare.

Those tickets he will gladly give to others.

I can tell right away if he hates a show- folded arms, and a grimace followed by that unsuspecting, un-relenting head-snap...

Tom is also producer /co- host of my campus radio show Coral FM in addition to his inside-sales plumbing day-job.

Must have that day-job to fulfill your heart's desire at nights.

We two have the greatest discourse on the radio because, theatre is about reaction.

Doesn't matter if you detest it, or adore it - just react please.

Poor Tom and Coral FM do not always agree.

We did this time from Friday evening performance to Sunday matinee.

"Four for four" doesn't often happen to a reviewer.

I call myself 'reviewer', because I feel the need to know much more before I dare call myself 'critic.'

My personal fave, New Yorker Dorothy Parker was a 'critic'.

I am neither 'highbrow' nor 'lowbrow'.

I am .... 'no brow'.

But I do like a drinkee!

Sadly my hero Parker, Queen of the Quipping 1920's Algonquin Round Table alias The Vicious Circle imbibing with fellow merry magazine scribes Robert Benchley, Harold Ross and playwright George S.Kaufman has had her own sipping fate unwittingly sealed.

Thanks to The Algonquin's latest marketing ploy, Parker is doomed to eternally clutch the delicate glass base of "The Gonk's" Blue Bar $10,000 martini glass which boasts a diamond in it inspired by her famed avowal "I love a Martini..."

But me, a long-time barwench in support of this writing addiction, who often enjoys a libation, sometimes to help me from intermission to curtain - I shake a caustic cosmopolitan.

Poor Tom and I have a pithy,vicious circle of our own comprised of writers, actors, directors and such called The Cranks.

To quote Ms. Parker - I am a "rhinestone in the rough".