Last Wednesday we went to the City (San Francisco) and saw the smart and funny musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”.
Thursday evening we were back to see August Wilson’s fiery and spiritual play, “Gem of the Ocean” at American Conservatory Theatre.
Friday evening we stayed home and hosted a dinner party.
Saturday morning was spent running errands and setting up for the party we were going to host the following evening. At 3:30 pm we drove again to San Francisco and checked into a hotel room near Union Square. That evening we attended a black-tie fundraising gala for a Jewish social service agency in the city: drinks, silent auction (bid on more theatre tickets!), dinner and big-band dancing. Afterwards, we still wanted to dance. We went back to the hotel and changed from tuxes to black t-shirts and jeans and took a cab to the night club UndergroundSF for their “Drunk and Horny” theme dance. When the club closed at 2am, we walked down the street and bought pizza slices. I think we finally settled down to sleep around 4 am.
We were up for the free hotel breakfast by 9:50. (Breakfast ends at 10:00.) We met a friend and drove around different neighborhoods in the city for a couple of hours and had lunch with him. We were back to Palo Alto to finish setting up for the pre-show, appetizer party that was starting at 5pm. We had about 40 people from our GLBT running group attend the tropical themed hors d’oeuvres and rum punch party.
An hour and a half later we all went and saw TheatreWorks’ production of “Anna in the Tropics” by gay playwright Nilo Cruz. The play was the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The story takes place in a Florida cigar factory in Tampa in 1929 where a dashing young storyteller, a lector, is employed to read Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” to the Cuban-American factory workers that still roll coronas by hand. Soon he and his seductive stories are intertwined in the emotional lives of his listeners, inflaming loves, dreams, and jealousies once only imagined.
Today, Monday, is the Jewish holiday Purim. It is kind of like a Jewish “Mardi Gras”. The “Book of Esther” recounts the story of Purim. It is a story that marks the triumph of good over evil, when the Jewish people of Persia were saved by the beautiful Esther from a massacre planned by the evil Haman, an advisor to the king. Sarcastic, humorous, and iconoclastic entertainment is a component of Purim celebrations. The synagogue festival we are going to this year will feature an ice cream social, drag costume pageant, bingo and Israeli dancing! One more party to go.
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