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I do still exist. Although in a state of extreme exhaustion. Amanda is here, and we've been running around like crazy people -- the cabaret night on Wednesday (which was wonderful! And involved this woman with this incredibly old world sort of voice playing accordion and singing songs in French and then doing this awesome poem about the World Trade Center that didn't suck) and the piano bar last night and tonight, Boheme! Actually, we're about to leave the house to go get the rush tickets, which should be a long and moderately painful process.

I modeled for the lovliest art class yesterday in this incredible Victorian-era house, and there just aren't words for the pleasantness of being told I'm the sort of woman Vermeer would have painted, or that I have a face that suits that time period, or if one could just capture a certain reflection of light on my eye they would be a master. Huge fun. Even if I'm all achy for it today.

Anyway, got to throw my clothes for tonight in a bag and get ready to go, since I'm not standing on line all day in a red dress I wear for tango and a pair of heels, and I do believe in dressing for the theater for a number of reasons (a long tirade on this will surely follow my waxing poetic about the show tomorrow, as someone always wears jeans and I'm always fundamentally appalled).

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I do believe in dressing for the theater for a number of reasons

I was just bitching about this to my best friend two days ago. "Why the hell won't people dress, etc?" Of course, then I was telling her all about the girl who overdressed, showing up at a B-company Broadway show in a strapless periwinkle floor-length gown. She looked beautiful, but... well, she was only a teenager. Can't win...

someone always wears jeans and I'm always fundamentally appalled

Amen.

I do NOT understand how some people do not dress for the theater. I like to blame the home video/tv/entertainment system but I don't know if that's accurate. I have seen enough people acting and dressing like they are at home lying on the sofa in (literally) their grubby clothes, (literally) scratching themselves that I wonder, however.

Oh, and I think I need some MaryKay. Would you mind sending me your web link?

I do NOT understand how some people do not dress for the theater.

As a member of the t-shirt and jeans crowd, I'll tell you. It's a two-pronged thing.

1. I have a hundred dollars. Tickets to the show are 75 dollars. I can buy jeans for 25. I can buy a fancy dress for a hundred dollars. Now, either I can buy the dress, and not go the theater, or I can go to the theater and enjoy the show in jeans. I prefer the latter option.

2. I show up at the theater ten minutes before showtime. In that ten minutes, I spend exactly one minute outside the theater. I spend three or four more with the entirety of the area from my shoulders on down invisible, due to the many people crowded around me. I spend a few seconds getting to my seat. Once I am seated, the only person who can see my jeans and t-shirt are the two people on either side of me. When the lights go down, absolutely nobody can see me. When the show is over, nobody is looking at me because they are too involved in leaving their seats and getting on with their own lives.

So, where's the benefit to me making an effort to look fancy? What's in it for me? You get eye candy; I get nothing. I'm going to the theater to see the actors on the stage, not to watch the audience, which, see number two above, I mostly can't see anyway because they're crowded around each other and sitting in the dark.

It's a respect thing. It's like putting out a little extra effort to look nice for church/temple.

See, now, I'd say that's a different situation. In church/temple, the people attending are the ones "on stage," as it were. They are meant to be noticed as attending. And in a literal way, the people attending services don't spend 99% percent of their time in the dark. They can be seen. The "actor" on stage, the minister/preacher/whatever, goes out of his/her way to notice them. The same is not at all to be said for the bulk of Broadway theater. The actors do not want or need to look at the audience and see that this person is wearing Prada and that one is wearing Kate Spade in order to give a good performance. At least, I hope they aren't. The actors are the ones to be respected, and in that case, the goal I would think is to be as undistracting as possible. If I'm wearing a pair of jeans that let me sit comfortably still in my seat, I'm helping the actor better than if I'm wearing a gorgeous dress that looks divine from a distance but makes me fidget and itch and need to adjust the cleavage and straps every few minutes.

This thought occurs to me. Dressing up is like cosmetic surgery. It has to be an individual decision. It's one thing for me to decide that I really need to have a facelift, but there's something deeply wrong in telling another person, "I'm so appalled as how you look, you really should have a facelift." I think that's a line that shouldn't be crossed.

(Preemptive response: But going to the theater is a collaboration! Everyone who goes is on stage and acting a part, whether on stage, off stage or in the audience. My response: Okay, the people on stage and off are paid to be there. Who's going to pay me to dress up nice? Nobody? You mean I have to pay for the privilege of showing up, and then pay some more for my own costumes? Sorry, that show can close a little sooner for the lack of my dollars. Tell Broadway audiences that they need to wear casual formalwear, and you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of seconds it will take for advance sales to dry up and the theater as a whole to disappear.)

Gee, here I thought the point of going to church was to practice spirituality and communicate with God, not to See And Be Seen!!!

Since you apparently think you already know my response (and you're wrong) it would seem to me that you are only interested in talking to hear your own head rattle, so I won't comment further.

Oh hell yes. That's why the best $300 I ever spent was at that little off the beaten path taylor shop for my black tie / white tie tux. That got more mileage than my combat boots.

I remember seeing Requiem at the met in that , with similarly dressed friends and noting the T shirt and jeans crowd. WHAT THE FUCK were they thinking? Ditto the time I saw Loreena at Radio City. I rented the most amazing Edwardian tux for that little event. I could not possibly fathom going to somethinglike that in jeans and a " I'm with stupid " T shirt.

Oddly enough, I ran into a snobbish guy I went to HS with at that show. He was in jeans and sandals and quibbering about his movie he was working on , and he took one look at me and was speechless. Oh my my my.

and I do believe in dressing for the theater for a number of reasons

I completely agree (unsurprisingly, since I will take almost any occasion to dress up). It's a bit different in my case, since my strange and eclectic style bears little relation to the drabness that is modern Western male formal wear and I have little patience with anyone who believes I should adhere to such standards (I don't even own a tie or a pale colored dress shirt), but if items like velvet pants, a nice blazer, a dressy body suit and matching jewelry count then I'm right there with you - I definitely believe people should look their best when attending public functions, I often do the same at movies and now I must end this entry because I'm off to see the Cowboy Bebop film.

I was going to mention this actually, as people did used to dress up to go to the movies. And while I don't really find that's required in our modern world, people not treating the movie theater like their living room would be a vast improvement consider it's $10+ a ticket here.

When I was a very young child, Radio City Music Hall still showed films on a not too infrequent basis, and I remember seeing Fantasia there and it was something you dressed nicely for, because it was a social occassion, and it was lovely building inside, and it seemed inappropriate that something as wonderous as people should manage to detract from it.

Part of the problem with movies is that we now all too often see them in vile & cramped multiplexes. I always love a chance to go to a movie in a real theater, which in Portland at least means the place that shows art & classic films (oddly Cowboy Bepop played there) and the many wonderful second-run theaters. Having 2nd run theaters often be far nicer than 1st run ones seems sad and strange.

In any case, the model for most public space has become the shudder shopping mall and people's standards of appearance have declined to fit such spaces.

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