Aptly Enough, Sunshine Boys

Last Tuesday, we were able to go to a gathering hosted by our friend and former colleague Art. Art used to work at CVCA, but he has been working at a school in Haiti for several years now, and so when he is home, we are always excited to catch up with him  to see how things are going. This time around, Art and his family hosted a drop-in at a park so that it would be easier for everyone to come and see him.

We got there, and were pleased at the number of people we knew. Art was there, of course, and, exciting to us, so was his fiancee – he had proposed just two days before. His fiancee is a lovely Haitian woman who has spearheaded an effort to provide school tuition to Haitian children, as well as getting a school built after the earthquake from two years ago. She is a remarkable woman, and we are very happy for Art. We did get to chat with both of them for several minutes at the party, and we saw and chatted with several CVCA folks as well.

On Wednesday,w e headed over to Porthouse Theater to see the play Sunshine Boys. Our friend Brandon designed lights for the production, and he recommended it. The play focuses on two old men who used to have a vaudeville act together; they had split up years before and had not spoken since. Now, CBS wants to feature them on a show about the history of comedy, and the play follows their attempt to put their differences behind them and put on the act one more time.

We liked the play – it was smile-worthy throughout, and laugh-inducing in several places. The humor was subdued a bit by the well-acted anger the two men felt toward each other, but that was key to the plot, so I cannot take anything away from that. There were two main sets – the living room of one of the old men, and the TV studio – and both were well done and detailed, including water stains in the living room.

One unexpected thing not in the play was that it was really hot that evening (and all week, actually). There were several points in the play where the actors commented on being cold, and put on sweaters or extra blankets. You could hear murmurs of sympathy go through the audience.

On Thursday, we headed up to Aladdin’s restaurant for supper. One of Mer’s favorite former students was again waitressing there, so we wanted to say hi. The former student is about to head to Case Western to work on her master’s degree, so this may well be the last summer she needs to waitress at Aladdin’s. She is a great person, so we both hope she does extraordinarily well. She will actually be teaching a freshman English class at Case, so Mer was pretty pleased by that.

On Friday, we made it to one last graduation party, as well as heading off to Maine for vacation. The grad party was one hosted by two students, both of whom were in Royal Fools, my improv group, so I was pleased we could make it. Dubbs was there, and a bunch of students from Mer’s English classes, so we had a great time. That also acted as supper for us so we did not have to stop for supper on the road. We made it as far as Rochester on Friday, which left about nine hours to drive on Saturday.

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