“Hey baby, want to be my girlfriend?  I’m illiterate!”

There’s mostly one particular moment in the Magic City Actors Theatre version of Fame that I’m going to write about.  But first, you’ll have to know some background.

This show has a fairly huge cast of young people – maybe 30, I think.  (I kept wondering what kind of a crush-fest soap opera the rehearsals must’ve been…)  And the structure of the show is a series of scenes that revolve between acting, dance, and music classes at the kids’ school.  Several of the students have requited and unrequited feelings for each other.  The scenes change and the actors shift all their own props and scenery.

At one point in the first act, there’s a romantic scene between a boy and a girl. Gerard Jones (Tyrone) and Madeline Chandler (Iris), I believe, but I could be wrong.  It doesn’t really matter – it could be anybody.  But it’s just the two of them on stage and they end their scene standing, gently kissing and embracing on the X tape at center stage.

One first-class kiss,
The scene ends,
The lights drop,
Everything drops,
Failing awareness,
The backlit couple,
Basking,
Silhouetted,
Suspended,
Oblivious
To others
Bustling around,
Doing meaningless work,
Changing the sets,
Oblivious
To lovers
Sharing
One first-class kiss.

The next scene starts again – as if nothing had ever happened – with the kissers calmly walking off from center stage.  Excellent. And it reminds me (again) of the best newspaper article of all time.  Are you paying enough attention to the good stuff happening all around you? The world’s hurricane spins all around, without caring about our own personal dramatics.

If I asked you to remember a kiss where the world faded away, where you were locked in the moment, totally focused on your lips, and their lips, your world in their world, which kiss would you think of?  Thinking of all the combined kisses of one person would be cheating, it’s got to be one particular kiss.  Maybe it was in the back of a movie theatre?  Maybe it was the release after weeks and weeks of not kissing?  Maybe you can’t remember the kiss at all, but you’ve still got a picture to prove it happened.  Or maybe it just happened and that was the magic. Does everyone have one or two of these?

There were other good moments.  Kaylee Macknight (Lambchops) was memorable in most every little moment she was on stage.  Both Jayne Smith (Serena) and Christi Strickland (Miss Sherman) had powerful and tender vocal moments.  Ansley Platt (Mabel Washington) was momentously funny and charming.  Finally, whoever was responsible for the 80s hair and costuming – you might’ve stolen the show.

Thank you very much to Leah Faulkner and the Magic City Actors Theatre for sneaking me into this lively pep rally.