The Treasurer – Lyric Stage Company – March 2020

So I’ve avoided writing about this show. Not because I didn’t like it. I did. I liked it a lot. The Lyric Stage Company is quickly becoming one of my favorite theaters to frequent in Boston. It’s an intimate venue but some of the shows are massive. If not in size than in spirit. It’s a wonderful place to see a show. I’ve avoided writing about it because it brings up a lot of emotions that I’m trying to avoid during this fucking pandemic.
I saw The Treasurer on March 11th. Broadway shut down on March 12th. I posted a pic of the Playbill and wrote a message on social media before the show began:
I’m really excited about this show but this theater is usually packed even though it’s small and there are currently not even 50 people (the theater sits about 230) here and the show starts in 8 minutes.
My View
By the time I went to see The Treasurer we already knew things weren’t going well. We all had started singing Happy Birthday while we washed our hands.* The NBA had shut down. SXSW was canceled. But still I wanted to sit in a theater one last time before the end of the freaking world. So even though some people suggested I shouldn’t, I went. I’m glad I did. Not just because the show was funny and touching and Ken Cheeseman’s performance was genuinely award-worthy, but because I at least gave myself that last opportunity to lose myself in theater for ninety minutes or so. It was wonderful and I get heartsick thinking about how much I miss sitting in a theater. (The online stuff has been okay but nothing for me will replace being in the theater in front of a stage and experiencing the lights going down on what could either be a ridiculously disappointing evening or one that is so wonderful I’ll never forget it.)
I can’t wait to get back to the goddamn theater.
*In the ladies room prior to the show I was standing next to a woman and we were both washing our hands like it was a competition. Seriously, we stood there for a good three minutes scrubbing away waiting for the other one to stop. She finally gave in and started driving her hands so I joined her, again standing next to her, each of us blow drying our hands. As I turned to leave she put a hand squarely on my shoulder and exclaimed “Oh, I just LOVE your blouse!” and before I could say ‘thank you’ she happily left the ladies room. Even in that moment, where I had put myself in the position to be in a theater (but before I realized how few people would be attending) my first thought was “WHAT THE FUCK, LADY???”
 

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