[eighty four]
I was thinking the other day about meaningful moments in my life when I realised that I truly loved things that I love and am passionate about. Like theatre. I remember the first play I saw, it was at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto when I was three, my sister had just been born, so she couldn't come. My parents took me and we went out for dinner, and we saw Beauty and the Beast. All I can remember is at the beginning I was sitting on my Mom's lap, and the Beast was about to turn into the actual Beast, and I saw the rose, and I remember thinking how pretty it was, and then bam! There was a firework and some smoke, and the Beast was an actual Beast! And I remember feeling the same way I feel when I love a show or movie, the feeling that this is just incredible and welling up tears in my eyes, and then I turned to my Mom and said "Mommy, it's magic!" I remermber that distinctly, because that is what theatre feels like and means to me. Everytime I see a show, or watch Beauty and the Beast, it reminds me of that moment, that moment that I totally believed there was a Beast on the stage, that there was not a man in a costume, but an actual Beast had erupted from a prince from fireworks, and that that rose meant something. I understood symbolism and magic at the same time, three years old... Of course, I had no idea really what it meant then, but it meant something to me, and that feeling has stuck with me.
I have collected, since that moment, every artifact from my parents' theatre-going before I was born, which consisted of a Phantom of the Opera ceramic mask from the Toronto shows, to mugs of that Beauty and the Beast show, to a soundtrack of my favourite musical to this day, Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat. I remember being about five and dancing to that soundtrack, listening to every song, learning every word, and I haven't forgotten any. Since then, I have collected my Mom's Mamma Mia soundtracks, Andrew Lloyd Weber's greatest hits, Evita, anything I can get my hands on from the time that my parents went to theatre. I look at these things, and then I compare them to what I have seen now.
The theatre I have seen now is both different and the same, and everything affects me the same way: I feel immersed in joy, dripping in bliss, and I never want to lose the wonder.
So see a play soon, sometime something anything, it is the best feeling. I still to this day watch Beauty and the Beast, the cartoon, if I want to be comforted or fall asleep. It isn't my favourite Disney movie, but that is a much longer story. I can't choose just one. It means a lot to me, just like the Lion King was the first movie I saw in the theatres when I was three, and I know the music to every single Disney cartoon musical princess extravaganza from the nineties. "Just BEE yourself" is something my Mom still tells me, quoting Aladdin, and many other sayinsg.
Have a lovely Saturday night,
love,
Jess :]
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