Open Writing

It should have been a romantic night out. Well, perhaps it was. Who knows what passes for one of those these days? Of course, I could be just an old man that has a poor grip on the times and had not caught up with today’s teen culture.

It was an evening at the theatre. Gay’s middle son, Mark Kleinman, is the doyen of the musical theatre crowd in the Valley of the Sun, and was appearing as Jacob and Potiphar in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" at the Broadway Palms in Mesa, Arizona.

The show had already run for a week before we favoured the cast with our presence, but there was a good reason for that. Mark’s son, Ryan, arrived home after spending two years in Oklahoma City as a Mormon missionary, so all the family went en bloc to take in the show and greet Ryan.

Broadway Palms is a dinner theatre, so although the curtain does not go up until half past seven, the doors open at five o’clock to let patrons take a leisurely dinner. The meal is an eat-all-you-want feast with great food and desserts, and nothing prepares a body for an evening’s entertainment like a good square meal.

Our party occupied two adjacent tables, each seating eight, set lengthways to the stage. The tables are set in tiers or terraces so that everyone has a good view of the stage, and there are no bad seats.

The next tier up was furnished with tables for two such as are enjoyed by those whose sense of amour exceeds their liking for food and musical theatre, and a young couple of, say, eighteen or nineteen sat at such a table right behind us. I didn’t notice them until Gay suggested I check them out.

I turned to see a pair of handsome kids, not handicapped by awesome good looks, but with attractive honest faces that smiled a lot and shone as only love can shine. However, something was not quite right with the picture. It is customary in Western culture to look into the face and eyes of the adored one and for the adoree to do the same to the adorer. This was not happening.

A snatch of the song, "Alone together are we!" ran through my head. It was, after all, a musical theatre! Each of them was gazing intently with expressions of profound concentration, but not at each other. Fingers that should have been trembling with passion, or something approaching it, were rigidly clasping small electronic devices that their thumbs punched non-stop. The greenish glow from the displays bestowed a sepulchral hue on their young faces that is not often encountered in those plighting troths or vowing eternal love.

I continued to watch them during mouthfuls of chocolate ice cream, lemon meringue tart, and other calorie free comestibles that make Zit-Gon such a huge seller. His eyes faced east, hers faced west, and never the twain did meet!

In desperation I hoped that they were actually texting each other and not making pathetic excuses to an abandoned swain and a bereft darling, explaining that their Auntie Betty had taken a sudden turn for the worse and needed their continual attention.

I imagine how such a message might tread. SOZ HUN ANT B GNG DWN DRN MST SIT N WTCH! However, even if that was what they had to do, that could take no longer that a few stolen seconds and then they should have been back at the eye-to-eye how-did-I-live-before-I-met-you? behaviour that is normal for Homo sapiens of all ages. It didn’t happen.

For the best part of an hour, Romeo and Juliet, AKA the young texters sat and overworked their thumbs clearly unaware that the other existed.

Were they Tetris addicts? Were they the warring parties in an online version of Destroyers? Was it updated noughts and crosses? Dots to squares? Hangman? Fish? Two-handed solitaire?

These and other games came into my mind but left as soon as they had wiped their feet because in game play there are always expressions of triumph and failure. From these two kids came no sound, and their faces, as pleasant as they were, were as expressionless as a couple of permanent mortuary residents.

Gay and I went into plenary session but could come up with no answer that could withstand the reality test. There were some teenagers in our party and so we consulted them, but they couldn’t offer any satisfactory explanation other than that they were brother and sister. Maybe they were. That could explain their odd behaviour.

But when the lights went down and the tabs went up the chair on the east side and the chair on the west side migrated to the septentrio so that they sat side by side at the north end of their table. Not as siblings, but as intertwined as the passionate shepherd and his lass.

The green effulgence gone, the gentle and mellow yellow of the dimmed house lights bathed their faces in that celestial light that beautifies all it falls on. Now they looked as Romeo and Juliet must have looked in the first flush of love before tragedy overtook them. Now they were normal, looking as all lovers should look, happy to be together, unified, hopeful, and entranced, each by the other.

I wondered whether their only rivals in love would be things carrying the common legend, "Made in China," and "FCC Approved." I switch dramas only to intone, ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished!"

© 2010 – Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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