The Found Weekend

Ow.

My brain hurts. 

 I love seeing and reviewing plays. I am constantly delighted at the sheer volume of talent on South Jersey stages. So I insouciantly take  two shows to review in a weekend with willingness and zeal.

Ow.

I reviewed 2 plays this weekend: Friday night I saw next to normal at Haddonfield Plays and Players. Pretty darned good! Today, I saw The Wedding Singer at Burlington County Footlighters. Pretty darned good! The question which makes my brain hurt is how on earth these two shows can possibly be described using exactly the same words?

Try to find a conceptual framework more specific than “well, they were both on stage and they  both had music” which ties next to normal and The Wedding Singer into a single, cohesive weekend’s entertainment package.  I feel like I’ve just eaten kimchi  on cream cheese logs liberally covered in pizza sauce dotted with butternut squash and topped with sprinkles and a cherry. My head doesn’t know what to do with this combination. No other body part has any clearer take on it, either.

From bi-polar disorder on the edge of full psychotic break and a suicide attempt in music as discordant and sweet as the manic cycle itself to a schlub getting both the girl and the best of a sexist jerk in songs with lyrics sent in by Mrs. Grady’s second grade class after its first lesson on those special words we call ‘rhyming words’ which sound alike.

And both truly excellent.  

Ow.

I would sincerely like to thank Stage Magazine for giving me one of the most interesting emotional weekends of my life.