Last Updated on: 16th December 2021, 10:11 am
Dear God! I’m in a theatre, doing normal people things! Hopefully it’s not the last time for a while. pic.twitter.com/ehaRc6jvzb
— Steve Wettlaufer (@VC_Steve) December 16, 2021
I have no idea how good that picture is or isn’t. I just decided that a special occasion like being out amongst strangers for a common purpose for the first time in nearly two damn years called for the taking of a blind guy photo, so I took a shot into the crowd from my seat at Centre in the Square before Steve Patterson And His Very Funny Friends took the stage.
Yes, we went to a show. No, I do not want to hear about the rise of Omicron making that an irresponsible thing to have done. You know what else is irresponsible? Not being vaccinated. We are, as was everyone else in the building. We had to prove it when we came in. And the building wasn’t even close to full, which is one of the reasons we chose this particular show as a good time to maybe stick our toes back into normal life lake. There’s no way in hell we’re going to anything like sports or a concert where people are packed in like sardines whilst drunkenly yelling and screaming directly into our faces, but a limited capacity comedy show in a large theatre where the crowd isn’t going to be particularly rowdy? That we’ll try.
And I’m glad we did.
The night was a lot of fun, but also a little bit strange. Not the screenings or the sitting there all night with a mask on so much, but just the over all energy of the room. The crowd was very…quiet. Part of that is simply that it wasn’t anything resembling a full house. They only sold part of the theatre as general admission, so the crowd was understandably small. But it was more than that. All of us who showed up were absolutely there to be entertained, but it seemed like a lot of us had forgotten exactly how that was supposed to work. I think the best way to describe it is subdued and somewhat tense. People wanted to laugh, but was that ok? Should they clap? Will a poorly timed woo get me tossed out or start the spread of the next variant of concern? They wanted to have a good time, but they were intent on doing so within the confines of etiquette rules that were hard to remember and a safety standard that had never been set out for them. The mood got better as the night went on, but I was left with the sense that even though we did an almost normal olden times thing, a lot of folks felt anything but normal about it.
Would I do it again? Yeah. Yeah I would. But selectively. I’m not going to buy tickets to anything that looks half way fun like we used to, but if the right show comes along at the right time, chances are we’re there. I’m happy we did this one just to know that it’s possible.