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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

What If Life Were More Like Theatre?

In his opening number at the 2012 Tony Awards, Neil Patrick Harris perfectly explained my feelings about theater, and why I write this blog. I often wish I could live my life sitting in a theater immersed in another world; real life seems so boring, messy, and frustrating in comparison. If only life were more like theater!




What if life were more like theatre?
What if everywhere you went you heard a band?
Wouldn't life be so much sweeter
if you could queue the weather with your hand?

Cool!

And what if all your questions had rhyming answers
And you never left home without your back-up dancers?
What if life were more like theatre?
Wouldn't life be grand?

What if life were tightly written
And divided into nifty little scenes

AS: You're my whole world
NPH: The world's a pretty big place, Amanda.
AS: What's that suposed to mean?
NPH: It means I'm leaving you.
AS: No! Mamma mia!

And just as you spilttin'
Your apartment disappeared by unknown means
Thanks mysterious people in black clothing!

And what if no one thought that there was something strange
About a magical, seven-second costume change?
And then apropos of nothing
There were crazy dance routines!

What if everyone's diction were crisper
And secrets were told in a shouted whisper
And the only problems that mattered were your own

NPH: Hey, you guys wanna hear me sing about my problems?
DANCERS: Yeah!
NPH: I love my fake friends!


What if everyone took it for granted
That British umbrellas were all enchanted
You can hardly see the cables!
And your next-door neighbor was the legendary Patti LuPone

NPH: Hi, Patti!
PL: Hi, Neil!


What if life were more exciting
More dramatic, intriguing, intense?
If every moment were nail-biting
Filled with ever-mounting danger and suspense?

And then just when you were in the most precarious position
You would get a brief intermission

(Pause)

Act two!

What if all of your colleagues were hotties
With freakishly flexible bodies
And none of them needed to sleep or eat or pee?

DANCERS: We don't pee!

And if one day you feel kinda cruddy
You stay home and call your understudy

JTF: Yes, the role of him will now be played by me!
NPH: Actually, you know what? I'm feeling better now!
JTF: Are you sure? 'Cuz I can take the last verse.
NPH: No I'm good!
JTF: You just sound tired.
NPH: Go away- you threaten me!

What if life were more like theatre
With a simple motivation and a plot?
Don't we all wish life were neater?
But we know that in reality it's not


No, life is bleak and brutal and we carry from the cradle
The awarenes that it's futile and invariably fatal
We muddle without rest but through the sadness and confusion
We huddle at the cesspit of our sadness and delusion

ANNIE: Hold on. Hold on! Leapin' lizards, Mr. Patrick Harris! Don't be a downer- this is the Tony Awards! And remember, the sun will come out tomorrow!
NPH: Really? You know, you've got a point, little orphan know-it-all. But since you're not back on Broadway til next fall, why don't you go find your parents.

Big finish!
If life were more like theatre
Life wouldn't suck so much!
Life wouldn't suck so much!