Most of us haven’t got air conditioning up here, and it’s going to be a hot weekend. You could do lots of stuff to cool down, but Burien Little Theatre has air conditioning, and this is opening weekend for Anna in the Tropics. What’s that, you ask? It’s this:
A poignant and poetic play set in 1929 Florida in a Cuban-American cigar factory. When a new “lector” reads aloud to the factory workers from “Anna Karenina,” he becomes a catalyst for his listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics and the American dream prove a volatile mix. In English.
So there’s a little bit of a lot, here. You’ve got literature, you’ve got Cuban-American culture, you’ve got the Roaring Twenties, you’ve got the workers rising… sounds hot! Only it’ll be cool, because air conditioning.
And since it’s opening weekend, there’s deals. Every day!
You can see it come together here, and hit the stage here, and read the director’s notes here, but what I’d do first is get a flower for your hair and head down for some entertainment. I won’t be doing that, because we’re headed to Mount St. Helens for the weekend. But if you’re anywhere near Burien, you can snicker at me sweating my arse off under the merciless sun in the blast zone while you relax in a cool theatre and watch excellent entertainment. Lucky barstards.
If you’re too far away from Seattle to attend, you can tell me if you’ve ever made it through a Tolstoy novel, and if so, whether it changed your life. Or you can tell me how much you hate me for going to Mount St. Helens without you. Whichever works.
I’ve done the Tolstoy (and the Dostoyevsky and this and that else), and the only thing that keeps me from the raging jealousy about Mount St Helens are faint memories of Mount Rainier. I know, I know, not NEARLY as awesome, but it keeps the negativity at bay. :)
Back to Tolstoy. Read Anna Karenina, and it wasn’t life-changing. Except for the fact that, slogging through the novel and all the relationships and the reflections of Real Life, I realized that the novel really DOES reflect Real Life… and that Real Life, as much as we would like to, hasn’t changed all that much. Misunderstandings, good people, bad people, people making bad decisions, people wanting the best – none of it has changed. And so I also realized why the Classics are called the Classics (and Twilight never will be): they’re about Real Life, applicable almost universally (I’m probably saying that from a VERY euro-centric point of view, and all it implies), the joys and the tragedies equally.
And the ending wasn’t the great depressing event I had always expected it to be (even after seeing the ballet). It was all rather sudden, unexpected, and, in a way, anti-climactic. Almost like she accidentally fell in front of that train instead of being pushed. But that could be because I didn’t properly understand her mentality and her predicament – there’s still something to be said for historical context.
Meh. It wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read. Apparently War and Peace is AWESOME, but it just looks way too long.
Yeah. That.
Should be cooler up there, anyway.
Of course, Seattle’s forecast high of 88° F would be more than welcome here, where we are expecting 95° F.
I’m planning a visit to a Renaisance Faire tomorrow and not looking forward to the heat. At least it might be a bit better than when I went two years ago and it was in the 90’s.
Folks in other parts of the country simply don’t understand the aversion we Puget Sounders have to hot weather. I can’t say I understand it myself, but it’s a very real thing.
It being Seafair weekend and all, I’ve gone north of the border to Vancouver, BC. Not only am I missing traffic jams and military air craft flying at low altitude right over my apartment, it is gay pride up here.
Oh, and my hotel room has air conditioning.
@Trebuchet #3 – Folks in other parts of the country simply don’t understand the aversion we Puget Sounders have to hot weather.
It is a matter of what you are used to. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. I remember summers that would get to 105 during the day; when the night dropped to the mid 70s, we wore jackets (high altitude and extremely dry air equals 40 to 45 degree temperature differences between high and low.) I never understood how winter tourists (aka “snowbirds”) could walks around in shorts and short sleeves during december when it was a frigid 65 until I had lived in Seattle for a few years, and found myself thinking that the first spring day that broke 60 was when I would break out with the shorts.
It would be very difficult for me to go back to a Tucson summer now.
It’s been hot here, and I’ve pretty much stayed holed up in front of my computer. We have had rain, which is nice – coastal North Carolina is only in a mild or moderate drought, which is like nothing compared to what much of the rest of the country is experiencing.
I do envy you getting out and poking around Mount St. Helens, but not enough not to wish you a good time. If I get out and about at all, it will probably be to drive to the beach and wade in the ocean. But one kid will be wiped out from work and the other has decided to be nocturnal this summer, so I may have to go it alone. And I do have cleaning to do…
And. I don’t think I’ve ever completed a Tolstoy novel. I had one a couple years ago and was just *determined* to forge my way through the thing, but no dice. It wasn’t that I was incapable of reading and understanding it; I was merely incapable of staying invested in it. Other books called to me, and the Tolstoy drifted away. I’m not even sure which novel it was now, though I could probably find it in my reading list if I cared enough…
Maybe when I’m older? Though I’m 43 now, so I’m not sure how much older I’d have to get to appreciate Tolstoy. I think we’re just not meant to be.