Went to REPS theatre on Saturday night as I was on ushering duty with the usual suspects (a couple of them turn out to be a pair of highly unusual characters) So, after helping people to their seats and preventing others from taking bottles and cooler bags into the auditorium, I settled down in the front row to watch the show, which was a musical celebrating the music of the Beatles. Now the person in charge of our group (we usher as a group of friends on a voluntary basis every few weeks) is a rather unusual lady called Sue. Sue is an energetic, talkative, highly intelligent lady who tells the dirtiest jokes imaginable. Sue is very direct and doesn’t mince her words and can blast you at the top of her voice when she is not happy. Sue always “encourages” fellow ushers stationed in the front of the theatre to get up and dance towards the end of a musical, in a bid to get the audience to participate. This doesn’t always work – in fact; I think the success rate (if you can call it that) is dismal. So, on Saturday, I had the misfortune of being posted in the front near the left exit. The show started with a “Sergeant Pepper” character barking orders to the audience. Basically he told them to settle down, shut up and enjoy the show. Everyone had to answer, “Yes sarge!” with as much enthusiasm as they could muster.
By the time the second song started Sue was up and got us dancing! For the rest of the show!! In front of everyone!
I was like… “…but we only supposed to make a spectacle of ourselves at the end of the show!”
At one stage I tried to “blend in” to the crowd, but it’s a little difficult when you are the only non-white person in the 1st 20 rows! I’m also quite tall so she weeded me out, pulled me up and began to gyrate and contort her body into positions I didn’t think were mechanically possible. Then Eric, a German friend of Sue’s, began to do “the walk” from his station at the right front exit towards us to the strains of “Here comes the sun” (he came across the front row of the auditorium- meaning that if anyone had not noticed us on the left, they were aware of our antics by the time Eric got to us) just short of ruining, for me, what is, in my opinion, a really great classic. Then I had two of them gyrating and twisting their bodies into some “folks don’t try this at home” positions. And guess who had to dance with them? Sue is at least 80! Eric must be approaching 84, but boy can the man get down and boogie! I don’t like dancing at all and work hard to avoid it when I can. Well actually it’s because, I can’t dance. I got no rhythm at all – best I can do is the Madiba shuffle. So the idea of having me dancing in front of a 200 plus audience on a Saturday evening is, at best, unthinkable! But there we were! Not lekker!
Finally left REPS Theatre two and a half hours later with a sore back, battered ego and feet that seemed to be yelling, “Dammit Leo! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Guess who is NOT ushering another musical again?
