Wind in the Willows

Tonight I took Kristen out to see "Wind in the Willows." Chris and Katie came as long, as well. I was supposed to see the play Wednesday night, but I just didn't have the energy to find a date, so I had Chris & Katie trade in my tickets. And of course, they decided to come along. You know, this is kind of funny. My first date with Kristen was pretty much along the same lines—went to see "The Crucible" last year and Chris and Katie were just coincidentally sitting in front of us. (That performance of "The Crucible" was really something, by the way. Just incredible).

Before the play, we went to eat at this new Hawaiian place just north of Jerry's by BYU. It was alright, I guess. Wasn't very crowded, so they paid a lot of attention to us. Seems like a family operation. Wanted us to stay for some sort of show at 7:30, but the play was starting.

"Wind in the Willows" was fun, too. It was mostly intended as entertainment—something you could bring kids to. But there still was a lot of interesting things going on. I remembered bits and pieces from seeing the Disney cartoon as a kid, so it was fun trying to put all the memories together. They got really creative with the set and costumes. The acting was also pretty good, especially Toad and the actress playing Rabbit (who reminded me of Mary Poppins). But of course what was most interesting to me was what the play was saying regarding class struggle and social structure. It was kind of a complicated message, in that the play really doesn't seem to argue for social change. It does argue for awareness and respect of what I'm sure back then seemed like progressive ideas, but it also seemed to argue that progressive thought was reckless and destructive, and we'd all be better off just leaving things as they were. Chris and I got into a little debate about this, each of us taking turns playing the devil's advocate. I asked Kristen what she thought of this afterwards, because I think we did the same thing after "The Crucible." She just shrugged. I told her that's the just the way we are as a family, always prolonging the debate for the sake of debate, even if it means taking on a challenging position. Anyways, a kind of cool thing about the play is that the program was pretty interactive. It contained a study guide about the play oriented around different lessons for kids. Well, not just for kids, they were all pretty good topics for discussions—like the importance of friends and morals and that kind of stuff. But all within the framework of the play. Whoever put it together did a really good job. I kind of wish I had kids so I could do it as an FHE activity or something.

After "Wind in the Willows" we went over to Chris & Katie's apartment for ice cream and a game. I can't remember what it was called, but it was something about a farm or something. Really complicated with lots of math. It was pretty fun, but I think that the complexity of the game demands that it be played on a computer, because there's so many things to keep track of. Anyways, we played until like 12:45 or so. I was surprised Kristen was willing to stay so long. I was perfectly willing to retire at midnight, but she was probably more into the game than I was. In the end, I won. That's the most important thing. I beat Chris despite it being my first time ever seeing the game :). I had a really good harvest of strawberries, apparently. So anyways, I'll be rubbing that in his face for a while.

Posted June 14, 2003 (11:45 PM) | Comments (1)