Le théâtre

The curse of living in the big city: you never enjoy the things the big city has to offer.

People who live in the suburbs are always telling us how lucky we are to be living inside the city walls as there is so much to do with so little logistics to consider. They often tell us how they wish they had all the theatres and museums and galleries and concert halls and expositions we have in Paris and they assume that we take advantage of them often enough.

We don’t.

Ever.

In 6 years, I’ve been to Louvre exactly 2 times. And only once to the Orsay. I can count with the fingers of my hands how many expositions I’ve been too (three) and how many concerts I have attended (one and I was sick right in the middle so I left early).

We never go to art galleries partly because I don’t know much about art so my mind tends to wander or get bored quickly and partly because we never hear of any interesting expositions until it’s too late and they’re about to end so the lines to get in take longer than the queus at Disneyland in the middle of the summer.

We never buy the ultimate cultural activities guide "Le Pariscope" because it comes out on Wednesdays and weekends somehow seem too far away to think about on Wednesdays!

But I think the main reason we never do any of this stuff is simply because we live in the big city. We tell ourselves we can go anytime we want, after all it’s only a metro ride away, and so we keep putting it off….

Then there is also the fact that I am not that big of an art fan. Wait, let me re-phrase that, it's better to say I know squat about art. I blame the Mexican education system (isn't it cool how you can always blame the mexican education system for your own shortcomings?) that simply lack subjects like culture and art in all school programs and if you hear of Shakespeare, Michel Angelo and Da Vinci at some point during your education consider yourself lucky.

Whatever the reason is, I can’t fathom myself spending an afternoon looking at “artwork”… be it paintings, sculptures or photographs. The idea simply sounds like a major waste of time.

That of course is not the case with hubby.

Hubby was brought up by two art loving parents who took him to expositions and art galleries as soon as he was old enough to be able to bribe with a McDonald's lunch after the visit. His dad takes an annual trip to Italy and probably knows the paintings and the painters in the Uffizi Gallery by heart. His mom never passes up a chance to come to Paris for a specific painting exposition.

Lucky for me hubby is not ashamed of his artistically challenged wife and every so often tries to kick my butt and take me to some exposition. But while you could say I am in the “debutant” category of art connoisseurs, he’s well in the “avancé” category and our tastes are simply not the same.

As an example: Last year hubby decided to go see the internationally acclaimed photo exposition of Robert Doisneau while I instead went to check out the exposition of the last photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe before her death (it's like the tabloids but in blown up pictures hanging off the walls of some spiffy building).

I rest my case.


There is one cultural event however that I’ve discovered I do enjoy (or so I learned by the only 4 times I’ve done it in the past 6 years): The theatre.

I like to go the theatre.

I like the intimacy of it, the ambience. I like the velvet carpets and the folding seats. I like the semi round disposition of the room and the way it all centers towards the stage. And when the actors walk out on stage I like the way they suddenly create a universe that seems to be on the other side of a glass tank. As if we’re looking into their world and they’re looking into ours and yet we each are in our own world. I love the way cardboard and fake props represent real everyday things and how you know that they are made out of cardboard but that somehow they become real for the time of the play. And I love the way actors can make their voices go as low as a whisper yet one you can hear or as high as a thunder until you feel it going through your body like lightning.

As I said, I’ve only been to the theatre four times and two of these times was way back when I didn’t speak much French so I didn't get much of the stories themselves.

But last time was last night. A couple of months ago I bought tickets to a play I’d never heard about but that were marked down for employees of my company. I thought it would make an out of the ordinary thing to do on Friday night. I'm glad I did. It was a funny play in a small theatre not far from our place and we definitely enjoyed it. The story was about three mid-forties couples (the men all brothers) having a party at an out-of-town house and the drop dead gorgeous secretary of one the men suddenly showing up. The storyline was funny, the actors incredibly entertaining and the entire setting fantastic.

Hubby was so excited at seeing something finally stimulating my underused artistic neuron that he suggested we do this more often.

I’d like that.

Fned.