So, the boy's in town, take him on the grand tour. Oso, Happy Hour at the grill on the lake, a couple of dozen oysters and Caesars, other appetizers, then, in the evening, the Variety Show. It's at the Capitol Theatre, a fund raiser for the Oxygen Arts Center, a good cause, I don't bother inquiring as to details as - on occasion - the best experiences are walked into blind.
Outside, people milling about, a fine summers evening, there's a period dressed brass band - tuba, trumpets, trombone, snare drum drumming up interest, playing period pieces, .... the boy - him and his friend, they're late, and I'm annoyed they're missing this - and the fear sets in that they'll miss the play, they're exhausted from the trip, they fell asleep at the hostel...
They show up. Late. The theatre fills - not full, but pretty good for a town of 10,000 people, all ages, shapes & sizes, per-capita, I've said it before, there's a far more educated crowd here than you'll find in bigger cities, by a long shot...
Waiting for the show to begin....
The Capital Theatre, perfectly restored vintage movie theatre and playhouse, the community saved it, many times over, it's great, only "The Uptown" was close to as good as this in Calgary, and look what they did to it. Here, it's preserved, loved, used. We're front row centre, exactly where I want to be, my favorite position in the theatre, maybe - because of the height of the stage, a little too close, but it's fine...
And the show begins. A variety show, thinly plotted or threaded on the lines of "Aliens on Earth" - a reference to Trump, current politics, it'd be stretching to read too much into it but I get what they're trying for. And skit after skit, easily 30 performers, completely - on the surface - unrelated, the first, the skit of continuity that recurs throughout the evening involving a ...
Well, really, there's no explaining it. It's one "WTF" moment stacked upon another, impossible to describe, I'll try, but you really had to be there.
Examples: 2 Japanese (??) men in tight spandex and with power drills behaving as dueling robots, in sync with the sound of the power drills. A Slovenian woman doing a performance art-piece, in Slovenian, with a sprinkling of English to make sure you understand what's going on - "Mail-Order-Bride", etc. A Talking Mime. A Nationalistic Beaver. A Banjo player that lures the entire audience into singing along with him. Aliens in spacesuits with buckets on their head singing of their love of Spaceworms. You couldn't make this up, I'm not making this up, we're all laughing sooo hard...we're missing a key ingredient, ridiculous, here, given it's abundance, had we known I would have ensured the boys were properly dosed, but we're still laughing...
After this to the Yellow Deli, a delightful cafe for a late night bite to eat, tomorrow evening I promise the boys we'll visit the farm for the community night, who knows, it's early, plans here get waylaid all of the time, sidetracked, forgotten, ... but, the boy, his friend, they tell me with a tear in their eyes, they never want to leave...