"Plato." Achoo!

It's been quite a busy week, as you can see from all of the LotD posts.  But yesterday, I didn't go to Disneyland.  I was at my parents' house, visiting with the Bro and his kids, and he and I had a yummy all-you-can-eat-sushi lunch at Sushi Den with Michelle.  


I went home and rested for a bit before driving out to Malibu, and the drive was full of traffic.  I finally made it with only a few minutes to spare, found Linda in the lobby of the Smothers Theatre, and then we sat down to watch the Reduced Shakespeare Company's show of "All the Great Books (abridged)".  

• This was my first time to see the RSC, and I hope it will not be the last, because this stuff is hilarious.
• The premise of the show is that the audience is in a remedial class of students who flunked Literature, and need to learn all of the Great Books throughout history before graduation, which was to begin in 1 hour and 45 minutes.  The leads were a coach (played by Reed Martin), a drama teacher (Austin Tichenor), and a student teacher (Brent Tubbs).
• The entire show was quick-witted, and my cheeks were hurting from smiling so much by the end of the evening.
• Poetry works recited by a teacher without their notes = much laughter, especially when he  starts to say, "There once was a man from Nantucket."
• While doing the Iliad and the Odyssey in rhyming iambic pentameter, Santa Claus showed up.  So did Poseidon, and I whispered to Linda, "Daddy!" as the coach held a trident, wore a beard, and had a kid's inner tube around his waist.  His line went something like, "I am Poseidon...Zeus is my brother...I rule the sea, and The Little Mermaid is my daughter."  Linda and I whooed at him.  
• For our Midterm exam (at intermission), I wrote that the 2 greatest books ever written were "The Iliad" because it had a horse, and "The Odyssey" because it had The Little Mermaid's dad.  Linda wrote "The Illiad" because it had a pantomime horse and "Tek War" because it had William Shatner.  Yes, yes it did.  Well, someone that acted just like William Shatner.  Someone else wrote an awesome bit about "Pat the Bunny", which RSC should use someday, it was so good.
• At one point, the actors broke character because the drama teacher hid behind the flag while the student teacher was arguing with him about racism.  They were having trouble getting back on track because Brent couldn't remember his line, and didn't know how to get back into it.  He said, "I don't know.  You're the ones that wrote this stuff!"  
• I am Achilles, and I am invisible, except for my heel.  I could not stop laughing at the arrow that went through his heel.
• I learned a lot about "War and Peace".  Don't ask me what any of that is right now, though.
• The dude next to me was brought on stage for The Dating Game to be Virginia Woolf along with two other feminist authors.  "If I was a banana, how would you peel me?"  Nils:  "Slowly?"  Well done, Nils!
• Walden, as written by Ernest Hemingway:  hilarious.
• The rapid-fire explanation of all of the books in one sentence each, in a span of 2 minutes:  GENIUS.

They will be playing at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center tonight, and then will be going to Broadway to present "The Complete World of Sports (abridged)".

We got in line to get their signatures on our diplomas.  Brent started to write my name with an 'i', and I said, "Y! Y!"  He then gave me a grade of Y+.  :)