The Curious Savage

For anyone who's followed my blog, you know that my kids are all into theater. Some families spend their time on the football field or the gym, we spend our time in the theater watching plays. Last year, I had kids in 3 different plays all at the same time. I've had kids rehearsing for as many as 4 plays at once. So, yes, we are into theater--which makes sense since I have so many drama queens and performers at my house.

For the last two weekends I had two daughters performing in the play, "The Curious Savage." It's a play that's set in a sanitarium--many of the characters are crazy, but very sweetly insane. My older daughter played a character who fixated on a doll thinking it was her dead son. One of the characters survived a plane wreck in the war and lost his mind in the process, another was OCD about everything, while another one stopped talking 20 years ago because her husband told her to shut-up. One other character couldn't distinguish between reality and fantasy. What was interesting is how each actor developed such a unique character.

When the sane Mrs. Savage is committed to the institution by her money-hungry children who are intent on taking the family fortune for themselves, the patients befriend Mrs. Savage. She learns to love the patients and the last scene is about how she sees each of the patients. It's such a sweet and touching scene. She sees my older daughter as a mother to a real child (my youngest daughter played the son in the last scene) and it was so sweet. I cried.

If you ever have chance to see this play. take the opportunity. It's a well-written play that ties up so nicely at the end, and leaves you with a good feeling. I watched it 7 times and enjoyed each time.

Of course, it wouldn't be my life unless there was something else that happened. I let my youngest daughter have piece of gum to keep her occupied during the performance on Friday night but told her she'd need to spit it out before she went on stage. She did. On me. Or, my pants to be exact. So when it was time to go backstage for her call, she stuck to my pants with a gooey, sticky gummy mess. Color me displeased. I frantically tried to scrape gum from the back of her pants and finally had to send her on stage. Needless to say, she's not allowed to chew gum for the rest of her life.