Scintilla13 Day 8

tyunglebower ♦ March 20, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment

Write about a time when a preconceived notion or opinion (about a person, place, thing, etc.) turned out to be wrong. What did it take to change your mind?

It wasn’t a long standing or especially strong preconceived notion, but I suppose it qualifies.

A few years ago there was an outdoor performance of Taming of the Shrew in a park down the street from where I lived at the time. Free admission. It’s not one of my favorite plays, and in fact, i don’t much like it at all. But it was free Shakespeare, so I went.

As predicted, the show was okay. My notions about that story haven’t changed much. But during intermission, one of the actors came out on stage with a microphone and started singing.

It was part of the plan. During the break, actors from the show would come out and sing songs that had some small relevance to the action of the play. Or parodies of same, such as “I Wanna Tame a Kate”, sung to the tune of “I Wanna Be Sedated”. (Yes, really.)

When I realized what they were doing after the first song, I figured it would be terrible. Not funny. Ham-fisted. Not well done. For the most part it was all three of those things.

The third or fourth actor to come out had nothing but a ukulele. The visual was memorable in its own right, because he was playing the dorkiest character in the show, and he dressed the part. (Literally.) Wild, almost Einstein-like hair. Thick glasses. Stupid tie. After he strummed a few chords, he opened “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the most passive, nerdy, but surprisingly competent voice. And extended riff and falsetto note ended the piece.

By that time I had already laughed more than once, which I presume was the point. I hate to say it, but I enjoyed that ridiculous moment more than the play itself.

The resat of the singers were adequate, but what I expected. The ukulele guy alone proved my prediction of disliking the halftime show quite wrong.

(Though if it hadn’t been for him, I think it would have been accurate.)

Preconceived notion, (mostly) shattered.