I should be exercising...

... but I'm not. Otis just went for a run (around the lake?) but I'm just sitting here.

We both took a nice walk around Green Lake yesterday morning. It was a good stretch, and we saw something odd: the fish were thrashing about in the lily-pads something fierce. We saw splashes and bubbles and ripples and waves and half-expected the formaldehyde-mutant from Host to come rampaging up the walking path. We couldn't figure out if, in fact, it was just fish (although we caught glimpses of fins), if they were in distress (as opposed to just feeding or something), or if it was just some kind of normal behavior that looked worse than it was. I called a pal at the county who would know, but she wasn't at her desk, so in the end, we responded to it as we do to so many unexplained or unknown things: we walked away and continued in our ignorance.

Nothing else especially out of the ordinary happened yesterday, except that I forgot to turn off my scooter when I was out at a coffee shop (a cool new-to-me place: World Cup, just down the street) and ran the battery down. I had it attached to the handy-dandy charger all night and systems are green now; I'll put it back in this morning.

Last night, J-Force, Kris-10 and Rye-N (sounds like a robot task force) joined Otis and I to go see the Roosevelt High School production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. The play isn't as acid-trippy as the movie; it has been modified to remove some cultural insensitivity and to highlight the "true love" theme a bit more. Some good songs were lost, with nothing exceptional to replace them, and the telescoping of the story leads to an uneven narrative arc. The only great improvement is the addition of choreography for the tap-dancing steno pool.

The RHS production was marked by some exceptional talent: the principals all had pipes that wouldn't quit, and there was no fault in any of the vocal performances (except perhaps for that of Muzzy, the Carol Channing role from the movie, which needed less technique and more selling-the-song than the young woman was able to give). The acting was decent by high school standards, although some of the blocking and stage picture choices were puzzling.

One issue with the production was its use of the new $3.1 million (as we were specifically informed in a pre-curtain announcement) theatre at the high school. The proscenium stage is huge and very deep (but not raked); the director filled this space with a huge ensemble, a-tappin' and a-dancin' away. This is cool: a lot of students get to participate, it's impressive-looking, and everyone is happy. Unfortunately, the stage design did little in the way of filling this vast, desolate tundra with anything else, so when the scenes got more intimate, the sense of place was all out of whack. The scenes rarely conveyed any feeling of boundaries or walls; every encounter seemed to be taking place in the middle of a field or a deserted warehouse instead of in an office or a city street.

Other than that, there were the usual troubles with microphones cutting out and wandering spotlights and scene-change delays (this is an ambitious project for a high school, even an affluent one) and pacing, but nothing unusual for a high school play.

In the end, the Millie-maniacs (and J) enjoyed the show, and that is the most important thing.