11

 I plan on going to the Hawthorne Street Fair, even though I don’t really enjoy street fairs all that much unless I have company. I’m already feeling kind of off; I’m on the last day of my five day weekend, and while every one of these days has been pretty great, I feel the dread starting to creep back in.

The bus route is all screwed up because of the fair. While I’m waiting at the bus stop, I get a text from a friend saying he has free tickets to a play that afternoon. The play is a new production of Philip Glass’s retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. I walk away just as the bus pulls up.

I meet him outside Lincoln Hall, where I’ve been fortunate enough to see many great chamber music concerts over the years. It’s a modest-sized theater and our seats are very good.

            I don’t always love Philip Glass’s music, and I’m pretty ambivalent about Poe, but the show is very good. The director chose to set the opera in Palm Springs in the 60s and Usher is a closeted movie star, kind of a cross between Rock Hudson and Monty Clift. The set looks like a David Hockney painting (strangely, the only other opera I’d seen was the Rake’s Progress, which featured set designs by Hockney. I’d hated it) and features projections of old film clips at certain key points in the story, which is really all mood and atmosphere, with very little actually happening. It’s all really well done, and Glass’s music is warmer and less repetitious than it sometimes is.

            Afterwards we meet my friend’s parents for a quick supper at a brewpub before the three of them dash off to see another show, broadcast live from London. They invite me along but I’ve had enough culture for one day. Besides, everything’s been going so well this weekend, I don’t want to push my luck.