My favourite charcter in theatre history = The Rat

Not on the Friday like I'd planned, but on a Sunday that started with questionable stomach from the nite before's crowning ended up making me well by how it went. Finally got to see House Theatre's "Nutcracker". Wanted to go Friday, but we were weathered in. I had to pay $20 to get the tix switched to Sunday, but it was worth it.

Went w/ Gf and Neices .4 and .5. For many years now I've always loved to take the kids to kool things they nomally wouldn't go to. The older kids have been taken to many movies, plays, concerts, performances, Fire, Sox, Bulls, Hawks, etc- even rides on kool sections of the El or walks past buildings that are particularly famous or just nice. Again, nice to show them early the possibility of the city.

However, this day I'd planned around .5. Don't take that to mean I'm slighting .4. It's that I've never taken .5 anywhere. .4'd been out a million times; but never .5. This is a function of both age and that she lives way out in the suburbs. So I was happy that all went well and they both- but espec. .5 - got a kick out of it.

We saw the Nutcracker, and it was great. We even got extra helpings. The play was based on the Nutcracker- well, I guess, since I don't know the Nutcracker story, beyond the wooden soldiers. Anyway, it revolved around a girl who lost her brother in the war, and her attempts to overcome her grief. It was a classic House play- lots of energy, sly laughs, excellent music and singing and dansing. Fun play. It also wasn't a classic House play- we saw it @ the big old Steppenwolf, not the car garage turned storefront theatre the Viaduct. They'd had some sorta disagreement w/ that buildings owners, and are now are moving into the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park next season (first play ever w/ Gf was there). This play also had a lot of unfamilier players; the House was also putting on another play @ the Apollo same time so the company has had a lot of new people this season. That meant that only three regulars were on stage, and I spotted another in the crowd.

Here comes The Rat.

Again, play was great. Loved it. Talk of a reprise next Xmas season. Here says it will. Then, since it was the last staging of the year for this play, the actors have a trad. of doing 15-20m of 'goofy' skits and'deleted' scences. We've seen it before on other plays, and it's a treat. It's a true encore, and went well. I got the biggest kick of out the Rat in this encore. In the play, he was a sniveling snideful rotten rat who's attempting to lure the sister of the dead soldier into the walls- craziness, i guess, if I'm not ruining it. The actor has a great sniveling snideful rotten voice. In the intermission the Houses people generally mix with the crowd, and .5 got to ask The Rat some questions, so we marked him as a nice guy. Explainations aside, The rats two Genius Moves in the encore:

Rat the First
The house is famous- well, they do it @ least once a play- for doing a little coreographed dance scene to denote passage of time or distance. They'll have 8-10 of the players dansing over the whole stage all @ once. I always love these scences. This one in particular took its start from a scene in the play. One of the characters was a ballerina doll come to life- she was ballerina doll to the max, and every word and thought out of her was cutsey ballerina babble. Great character. In the play proper, one of those patented House danse scences to denote passage of time/space was triggred when the ballerina cutsey'd out : "Wait: let's all move like snowflakes!!", to which the ten players/dancers did preciously that. NOW: the encore, all willy nilly switching between scences and ragged 'cuts' when someone feels like abandoning it, reprised that danse scene- and when the ballerina said her "Lets all move like snowflakes!!" line, she was immediately set upon by two of the "rats" who RAN in, leaped upon her,knocked her down, and started "feeding" on her. Now to me, raised on Monty Python endings like newscasters getting machined gunned in slow motion, 'Release the Tiger", and the "16 ton weight": this sudden, comedicacally violent, and extremely silly ending to the "scene", compounded with the fact that the day had gone so well, set me off. Uncontrollable shaking and the minting of my most favouite character in theatre history: Hail the Rat.

Rat the Second
Maybe w/in a minute in the encore, the Rat struck again. In these encores, the players play off of scenes from the play and surprise us w/ silly excursions, but they also play tricks on each other. The rat surprised everyone when he ended a scene by "vomiting" water on the stage. Again, the silly out there ending had me, and it was nice to see the other players amused.

Then we went to Costello's to eat. Pointed out places where I walked/swam/souvier (Jokers on Wilson was one, my current school was another). The kids only wanted to eat some pasta, so Gf and I chowed down on sandwiches etc. Got to use a $5 off on $20 bill coupon- originally was gonna use four "buy a sandwich and get a drink and side free" coupons, but the girls weren't that hungry. Then went home. I was happy.