a hand in desire

my review of emspace dance's "a hand in desire" is up at the appeal. if you're in the bay area and a) like tennessee williams or b) want to experience local dance/theater at its most unique, go see this!

todd accompanied me to see "hand" last friday, and as we were early, we ducked into a handful of used/new book stores along valencia on our way to the show, with a particular interest in finding the bookstore cats. almost all used bookstores tend to have local pets, and we had time to kill. well, we didn't find any, except one place that had a mini-memorial to their beloved sphynx who had recently journeyed to the giant catnip clouds in the sky.

as we checked in for the performance, the director, erin mei-ling stuart, came up and introduced herself to me at the exact same time that todd said, "becca! look!" with erin's hand in mine, i spun around to see a black ball of something on top of an animal-print blanket in a wheelbarrow (it's a unique store with a basement performance space).

the lighting inside was dark, and with todd just pointing, all i could do was furrow my brow and say, "is that a cat or a dog?" he started laughing, and replies, "what do YOU think?" um. really. i can't tell. it's DARK in here, man. and our cat is bigger than a pug; size doesn't matter! oh, and i'm hand-in-hand with the director here, and you've pulled my attention away for a questionable black ball of fuzz? so i turned around to the director and tried to play it cool... "i've got somewhat poor night vision. is that a cat? a dog? can i pet it?"

afterward, all i could think of was erin totally baffled at having invited an animal-crazed, blind woman to review her production. and it was a cat.