In the dusk with the light behind him

The joys of having your friends come to see you shows are without number. So are the opportunities for said friends to make fun of you from their seats. Case in point: I am kind of chatty. (We now pause as the Readership contemplates the immensity of that understatement.) Years ago, I was in a production of Blithe Spirit, playing the doctor's wife and at the end of one of our scenes his line was "Come along, Violet, you're talking too much -- as usual." Not normally a laugh line. Unless a half dozen or so of my friends in audience, in which case it's a real howler. (Sigh. I am so put upon.) The crew backstage couldn't figure out why that line got such a big laugh until I said that I had friends in the audience. "Ahhhhh."

Last night seven or so of us went to see David (not my David, yet another David) in a very sweet memory play called Sleeping Arrangements. We were lucky that he sang on his first entrance and we applauded (he sings very well) because it meant that he forgave what happened a few minutes later: Another character, looking him over, asked his age: "You're 38? You could pass for 28!" at which point our group laughed. Rudely. (Although, it should be noted, without pointing or snorting. We're a classy bunch.) David is, by just a few years, the oldest of the bunch of us, a fact we never let him forget.

The rest of the show passed without any further editorial comment from the stalls and we all went out for drinks afterwards. Happy ending.

But there was one more part of the show that I particularly enjoyed - the same character who gave us our laugh line had a repeated insult that I just loved and am considering adopting as my own. So from now on just think of me as the "no-good, Blondie, shiksa, bum, tramp, ham girl." Ham Girl, for short.