It was a real apres de deluge weekend: having rained heavily on Friday (show cancelled), but not on Saturday, though the ground remained an unappealing stew of ligament-testing mud (show cancelled), we finally had a show on Sunday. Which was a horrifyingly hot day, leading to such delights as one actress nearly succumbing to heat stroke, and somehow worse, a local theater critic deciding to take his shirt off during the performance.

Poor M.--she who nearly collapsed for good--had a very bad time of it. She is a slight woman anyway, and has milk-colored skin, so it wasn't as if her defenses were strong in the first place, but she wilted like a collard green in the microwave under the punishing heat. We dumped water into her as if she were a ravenous colony of sea monkeys, but not being a giant mass of brine shrimp, she continued to gasp like a trout. Unbelievably, she roused herself for scene after scene like a trouper.

More were afflicted during the afternoon; in one scene, several "lepers" take the stage, clad in what appears to be several yards of discarded trawling nets. (The wife is one of these.) That has to feel lovely. But they howled convincingly while the rest of us--including M.--wobbled unsteadily onstage, unable to get a fucking break to take a drink of water. I myself felt woozy a couple of times, but cheered myself by noticing that the audience seemed attentive, receptive and that nobody was visibly doing anything horrible.

I think it was right about then that Local Theater Critic--who I am almost certain is going to flay us unmercifully--chose to remove his shirt. This was truly unfortunate, and kind of begged the question: What would you rather see? Marlon Brando nude, or Marlon Brando's autopsy photos? You might notice that there is no good answer to this conundrum.

Despite all of this nasty chatter, everyone felt that they had a good show (including me), but what the fuck do we know? We're all too close to it. It's a weird one--it's mostly two+ hours of vaudeville, give or take, but it's kind of like being asked to evaluate your child on a scale of 1 to 10. After so much effort and so much put in to it--and Lord, if you only knew the behind the scenes stuff, which you must understand I cannot go into-- . . . well.

I'm pretty sure I was totally addled for at least part of the show, when I fantasized--onstage!--that the guy from the OfficeMax commercials was going to show up, accompanied by the Spinners tune "Rubberband Man."

I love that guy. And it's not the first time I've envisioned him joining our merry band.

It's good to get some rest. Clearly.