Olympia Dukakis Friday night with Bob, in Michel Tremblay’s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again at ACT. The two-person play, which got a little sentimental in the second half, and yes okay I got all weepy, was completely entertaining. The sentiment even evolved into this magical over-the-top ending where the playwright re-imagines his mother’s death as a Technicolor sendoff in a winged balloon. Prior to her sendoff, Dukakis marvels at the beautiful landscape she finds herself in, and then she wanders behind the scenery and remarks about how ugly it all looks from the other side. Her son replies that it’s made to be viewed from our–the audience’s–perspective. It was theater that wavered between artifice and acknowledgment, fantasy and memory.
I finally saw Spiderman yesterday. Tobey is such a cutie-pie, and the effects are dizzying. Reese tried to climb the walls of the bathroom when we got home.