Another Goldstar ticket: $13.50 + $4.25 service fee = $17.75. I really should pay full-price to these guys, as they really are worth it. Like last time, this was opening night. Damn cold. I left work at 4pm to get the 4.35pm Metra up to Evanston, and it turned out that Carl had the same idea. I spent a bit of time at Brothers K again, this time avoiding over-caffeination with a hot chocolate. The Thai across the road is passable, but slow; not enough waiters, it would seem. Unfortunately the Piccolo Theatre, sited in the erstwhile waiting room next to the southbound Metra line, does not serve beer.
I was originally going to give this a miss as I assumed that pantomime was not my thing, and I was half-right; I'd have been mortified if I was the only (type of) person in the audience. Fortunately there was a dear old couple, originally from somewhere in Europe (argh, crap memory) whose flawless American was a perfect shield. He was quite droll, she chatty, telling me they were both computer geeks from back in the days of paper tape (!), apparently 1958. I wonder how they balanced parentheses on those typewriters.
This is apparently an adaptation of an adaptation. All of the performers hammed it up as far as their characters allowed. Joshua D. Allard was the perfect host as Dame Celia, and if the Americans ever remake Red Dwarf then they have a perfect Kryten waiting in the form of rubber-faced King-of-Hearts Max Hinders. I missed all the TV references. The plot was totally ridiculous. The lighting design was quite amazing for the black-curtained witch-off "black arts" scene at the end between Celia and Fata Morgana (Amelia Lorenz).
I got the Metra back to Clybourn and North and Ashland, and the #9 going directly south brought me home; simply too cold to walk very far.
The Reader was less sold on it.