When you know to mind your business
And you mind yer neighbour’s too
You’re Island, you’re Island through and through..
I walked past the marquee for – what has it been now – 2 months? Nearly three? Every week I’d saunter up Queen Street in Charlottetown on the way to the Irish pub and see the larger than life billboard poster staring down at me proudly proclaiming: “Anne & Gilbert: The Musical” – Anne of Green Gables is in love”…
I told myself I had other things to do, other places to be, and that I wasn’t going to drag my Big Brother to a show (despite the fact that he would probably go for my sake…if I perhaps paid for his drinks for a week afterwards 😛 ).
The truth was, I think I was saving Anne & Gilbert for when I really needed it. And yes, it’s a need, I think it may actually be a health requirement of well – being me. In truth I need to do a show – I know that pretty well at this point, I recognize the signs – but that’s not an option right now, so at the very least I needed to see one.
And I almost didn’t get to at all. Y’see, my work hours are flexible only as long as I clear them past my manager first, and keep the girls down at the reception desk advised of any changes because the PAX get somewhat internet-stressed if they don’t know when I’ll be back (I swear one day they’re going to put a tracking bracelet on me!); I had thought the show would only be two hours, which would have put me on my way back to the ship at 3:30, plenty of time to make a 4pm shift. But when I got to the theatre to buy my ticket, I found out the show as a half hour longer than I had anticipated. *gulp*, now, if I were a slightly less “care about my job” kind of person, I could easily have just swanned off the 15 minutes late that this would cause, but I’m not…so I trekked back to the ship (thankfully I had left myself plenty of time) in the hopes of catching my supervisor in the office before she left of the day so I could properly change my hours…only to run into her as she was walking off the ship.
Can I ask you a really quick question?
If you make it really really fast…shoot.
CanIpleasealtermydeskhourssothatIcangototheAnneofGreenGablesshowthisafternoon?
It may have been the fact that I really did say it practically all in one breath, or the fact that my supervisor and I get along and I really don’t ask for favours very often, but before I even got the sentence finished she had already said “absolutely”.
So that worked out.
I had bought my ticket hours early, but the box office attendant was kind enough to move me to a better seat without increasing the price, because the theatre – which is small enough to begin with – was far from full this late in the season. Besides, in a theatre that tiny, pretty much every seat is a good one. I lingered for a little while in the lobby, watching them put out what little merchandise is left this close to the end of the show’s run (it only runs in the summer, and we’re at the tail end of tourist season out here, the original Anne musical closed for the season a week or so ago). I eyed the tiny stack of CDs and official scripts somewhat warily, having vowed not to spend more than the price of the ticket.
How many soundtracks did you say you have left?
Ten…
That’s it?
Pretty much…10 soundtracks, and 7 scripts…
And passengers are coming? Like a ship tour is coming?
Yeah…
Something is telling me I should snag those now.
Might be a good idea.
As it turned out I was really glad I caved and picked up the soundtrack, because the music from this show is charming, and has proven – like most soundtracks – to get thoroughly stuck in your head. It’s only a 17 person cast, but a 17 person cast in a black box theatre that only holds 100 people – sounds like a much larger cast.
When you first walk in the theatre, you’re really struck by how small a space it is. The set is nearly within arms’ reach of the first row, all aglow in pastel colours that look like something out of a classic children’s book. After the inevitable shuffling of seats is finished and the ushers have made their speech about no photography whatsoever do-not-make-us-intimidate-you, the lights dim, and suddenly you’re in Avonlea. As though its residents walked right out of the books and onto the stage.
Anne is one of those stories that makes you laugh, and cry, and roll your eyes somewhat all at once; and there is…a lot in the story I can relate to, which is, after all, the point of a good story.
But really, it could have been any story; it could have been any show. That’s not why I went, not really. The reason I went? The reason I had to go? Was that feeling I still get when I hear a show-band tuning up for an overture that you just can’t get anywhere else and that tiny little invisible whisper against my ear:
Pssst…hey Shaughnessy…welcome home…