West Side Story

For his birthday, I gave Andy 2 tickets to see West Side Story at the Lyric Opera House. Andy said that the real present was that I was using the second ticket rather than sending someone else with him because he knows how much I don't appreciate musicals. We had a nice time and were grateful that my parents came to babysit, including putting Kevin to bed. We've only had one other person ever put Kevin to bed and that was Elesa when she stayed with us for a few days last spring. He did great both times but he's had so many sleep-related security issues that we're very careful about switching things up on him. Enough about Kevin, though, back to West Side Story.

I thought we were in the high-falutin' crowd because we were in the orchestra section but there were kids there and people in jeans as well as the more high-falutin' looking people. The seats really were great - we were at the actors' level just left of center and there was nobody sitting in the seats directly in front of us for 3 rows. If you're short, you'll realize how much of a difference that can make even when the seating area is ramped.

The show started with the 2 gangs dancing and it was difficult thinking of them as tough when they were prancing around in tight jeans. I kept reminding myself to keep my mind open - 1) it was a musical and 2) who says men in tight jeans who dance like that can't have street cred? Andy told me afterward that during the first scene with the guys dancing he thought to himself, "Oh man, Dianne must love this."

There were parts of the show that I really liked. I mostly liked the women dancing in those floofy skirts because they were bright colors and the dances were fun. I thought the timing within the group dances should've been more together and the actress playing Maria had a fine voice but it was too opera-like for the grit of the story. Andy thought "I like to be in America" could've been more "punchy" (his word) and that the actor playing Tony had a nice voice but lacked acting skills. The actress playing Anita was great - we both enjoyed her singing and dancing.

And yes, when we got home all was well.