Back from Maplewood, NJ, I had a horrid fight with two employees of New Jersey Transit who were rude and complete and utter pigs on the way out to Maplewood. I may call NJ Transit and file a complaint. That's all I will say for now, but it was a humiliating and needlessly ugly situation. Ithink Bruce Pomahac is also going to lodge a complaint.
After an unpleasant ride, Maplewood was a delight: a small town looking much like Central Avenue in my hometown 50 years ago, with a nice stationery shop, a toy store, bookshop, several nice restaurants, and Bruce and I had fun walking about and wndow shopping until we met his friend Carol, who choreographed the show, at a wonderful restaurant - Lorena's, Lenora's, Leona's - where we had a delicious lunch. The show is in its thrid of four weekends and the house was very light today. They had the full band, and it was quite good; there were a couple of shaky flute notes in "Things Are Gonna Be Changing Around Here," but the reed player was a good player. I met the band before the show and they loved the charts and the music. Bruce, as a representative of Rodgers & Hammerstein, was happy there were no prblems or wrong notes in the books.
As to the show, the small audience loved it and I liked a lot of the cast, especially Donna, Rod, the Brain, and General Mills. The actors playing Yoni and Zubrick got lots of laughs, and the Zubrick was closer to the source in PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE than to Cason, but their scenes got lots of laughs. Joyce was good, too, very Barbara Billingsley in apron and pearls, and I wish Fred had had more of a handsome Daddy look, like Hugh Beaumont. He had a few pitch problems, too. Everyone I met - and I didn't get to meet everyone - seemd to love the show and their good time was contagious.
