O spotty internet connectivity, ye wretched foe of timely blogging!

O poor time-management skills, thou dost not help either!

Setting these trifles asides: This week I went to see the American Repertory Theater‘s production of Cabaret, starring Amanda Palmer* of the Dresden Dolls as the Emcee (sporting a tightly bound rack and a moderately prominent phallic lump).  I did this surreptitiously, so as not to attract the attention of a friend who has strong feelings for Neil Gaiman and therefore resents Amanda Palmer.  Love is double-edged phallic lump.

(If you’re in the market for other reasons to resent Amanda Palmer, try Googling her name along with “ableism,” and you’ll be treated to an embarrassment of riches.)

For the record, I was entirely neutral about Ms. Palmer, heading into the theater.  I enjoy the Dresden Dolls; that’s about the extent of my preconceiving.  Anyway, the casting of her in this show apparently came with some unusual strings attached, in that she insisted that the A.R.T. hire her high school drama director to helm it.  I suppose that’s better than Dustin Diamond allegedly charging a $100 penalty every time someone at one of his stand-up gigs mentions his former role as Screech.**  I suppose.  Maybe.

Cambridge’s recently minted Club Oberon theater housed this program.  Five seats per table; my party of three shared with two single, older gentlemen who clearly had far too much Personal Integrity to sit next to each other just because the rest of us were all together.  Hence, I ended up between them, because I am a trooper.  On the whole, they were far less troublesome than the even older gentleman behind us, who (drunkenly? senilely? such a fine line . . . ) complained about the staging whenever he couldn’t see something, loudly declared that the saxophone player deserved a raise, and became terribly excited when a song he knew came on (psst! — the song was “Cabaret” — weird, huh?) and began to sing (dreadfully) along, effectively murdering the dark and portentous vibe that the song was intended to nurture.

Anyway, Palmer was good in the role — buyable, and the gender-bending wasn’t limited to her, so she didn’t stand out like a sore gimmick or anything.  Needless to say, the genre is perfectly suited to her musical stylings, and the script happily showcases them.  Broadly (heh!) speaking, given the nature of the show’s content, the nature of Palmer’s persona, and the nature of experimental theater these days, I don’t think there was anything too shocking or innovative happening here.  In the Kit Kat Klub’s  ”anything-goes, pan-sexual bazaar,”*** is the Emcee character really so wedded to his testosterone?  Am I the only person who enters virtually any theatrical performance these days expecting to see people cross-dress, strip, hump, excrete, etc., whether the show is by Edward Albee or Hans Christian Andersen?  Have I grown too jaded?  I suspect my inner child morphed into a teenage runaway years ago — maybe around ’97, when I saw Northwestern University’s hypersexualized production of Into the Woods.

Meh.  Either way.  I had a fun night out that required no heavy lifting.  And I got to drink wine throughout.  Thumbs up all around.

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* Or Amanda Fucking Palmer, if you’d prefer to get technical.

** It’s unclear whether they are allowed to walk the fine line of mentioning his porn film, Screeched.  Maybe they get a discount for that.

*** Phrase courtesy of Arrested Development.