I went to see a slightly langourous play in Notting Hill tonight. It was hot and I've had a full and busy week for once and I found myself nodding off after about quarter of an hour. I only snoozed for about 10 minutes and was partially aware of stuff during this reverie, but the chances of me getting back into the flow after this were small. It was about a man with crippled legs and involved an able-bodied actor who walked around on his knees with tiny wooden false legs hanging from his waist and pretending to propel himself along on short crutches. No attempt was made to hide his actual legs. For the soporific me this was something I never really bought into and remained comical to me, even though the play itself was quite serious. The furniture in his room was scaled down so that it was the right size for this falsely shortened actor and I mainly found myself wondering if they'd made the furniture first, accidentally too small and thus had had to come up with the small legs conceit so they could still use it. I don't think this was the main point of the play though and the cast and director would probably be disappointed to think that that was what I got out of all their hard work. But I have a feeling I wouldn't have enjoyed it if I'd been fully conscious. It took itself a bit seriously and the acting was a bit mannered for me and the pace was very slow, so who knows I might have fallen asleep even if I hadn't needed to.
As we left to try and find a pub we found ourselves walking behind the Guardian drama critic Michael Billington, so it'll be interesting to see what he thought about it and find out if he fell asleep and whether he found the legs comical. We ended up following him for a short while as if we were stalking him. But then he reached his car and got in and we didn't try and get in behind him so the stalking was over.
There was an open topped car parked about two cars behind him which had three stony faced men sitting in it and an alsatian. None of them seemed to be moving or saying anything (or barking in the dog's case) and it was a slightly surreal sight. It made us both laugh as we passed and I wondered what their story was. For me it was more entertaining and thought provoking than the previous 75 minutes in the theatre. What the Hell was going on there? Why were they just sitting in the car? What were they going to do next? So sometimes real life is better than the theatre. But sometimes you have to go to the theatre to notice the weirdness in the real world.
