Less than 24 hours later, I again meet up with Soaps, this time with 2 of her girlfriends. They had an extra ticket for the ballet, and since none of their boys wanted to go, I was invited. I have attended Broadway plays, video game orchestral symphonies, martial art demos, poetry/ spoken word events and spelling bees, but never The Ballet. So I figured, free ticket, let's see some tights.

After I arrived and we got the mandatory "Uggh, not you again"'s out of the way, we headed to Seattle Center to catch the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of Maillot's Romeo et Juliette. It was supposedly a very modern ballet, with a higher emphasis on physical acting rather than strict adherence to ballet moves. And not one tutu.

The dancers were very, very skilled. The musical score helped, but it was impressive how they conveyed all the characterization and emotion simply with body language. I'm sure every movement, every stance and posture was accounted for.

However, the thing I couldn't get over was the silence. Yes, there was music, but my brain was just starved for dialogue. In movies or plays or musicals, you expect people to scream at least when they die, but here, they just clutch their chests, then gracefully but mutely pirouette to the ground. Yet it's not a silent film! You could still hear thuds and scuffles and special effects. Something didn't feel right.

Perhaps one reason I was starving for audio was that I had no idea what was going on. I figured out who Romeo and Juliet were, but had no clue as to who the other characters were. I (and many, many others) had to quickly scan the playguide to figure out who was supposed to be who. I overheard many sighs of relief that went something like "OHHH, so that's Juliet's MOM!".

Moral of the story: Read up on the ballet plot BEFORE you attend the ballet.

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