Please Refrain from Farting on My Wife

In my Intro to Theatre class, held lo these many years ago, I learned a great many things that enhanced my already burgeoning love of live performance theatre:

I learned that a middle aged man wearing koala bear socks throwing himself into a wall, knocking down a podium and falling over a desk is funny.

I learned that the "Wizard of Oz" can be analyzed to actual, literal, real and pulseless death.

I learned that, in days of yore, affluent audience members ostensibly there to see an opera actually mostly used their opera glasses to spy on other affluent audience members and that people more often than not went to the theatre to be seen, and not to see a play.

I learned that Al Pacino is, in one way or another, always Looking for Richard, and that I could watch him looking for a misplaced sock and still be emotionally satisfied.

I learned that I still had a long way to go as far as becoming a playwright went. And went it did.

I learned the Dustin Hoffman/Laurence Olivier "Marathon Man" method acting "My boy, why don't you just act?" quip, which gawky theatre majors the world over tell to skinny brunette, emo theatre chicks with glo-tape on their Chuck Taylors at emo theatre parties in hopes of having awkward emo theatre sex.

(It doesn't work.)

What I never learned in my Intro to Theatre class, held lo those many years ago, was that, when going to the theatre, if you choose not to get up from your seat during intermission, you run the risk of being farted on by the theatre patrons standing up in the row behind you.

On Friday night, some jack farted on my wife's head.

We were downtown seeing "A Skull in Conemarra," a desperate, hilarious, drunken, feck-me-arse Irish play by Martin McDonagh. And, I've got to tell you-- it was excellent. But, I've also got to tell you: after working a full day, racing home, getting ready, shoveling dinner down, trotting off downtown, which is always a chore, especially in the snow and ice and muck-covered streets, to have my wife get her head farted on by some middle-aged prune-lips during intermission was just an injustice I was ill-equipped emotionally to deal with.

I almost snapped.

"Excuse me, would you like a cork or something placed up in there? I could arrange that for you," I wanted to say, but didn't.

"Pardon me-- but that is my wife's head, not your Herman Miller Aeron Chair (now available in Sit-for-Less True Black)," I thought I might quip, but didn't.

"The characters in the play are supposed to be disgusting-- we're supposed to be cultured," I thought of opining, but didn't.

Have you ever had a S/O farted on (by someone who wasn't you)? It's really demoralizing. If I were some thick-skulled brute from Northeast Philly, I probably would have dragged the guy outside by his pubes. Then again, were I some thick-skulled brute from Northeast Philly, I probably wouldn't have been in the audience of "A Skull in Conemarra," so there we are.

Nevertheless, I wanted to slap his face with a glove or something. Pistols at dawn. Let's have a fart-off if you're so keen on ass-blasting in my wife's general direction.

They say that live theatre's unpredictable, and, having been in more than my fair share of shows, I can rightfully state that it's true. John Reed, the recently deceased comic patter lead of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, once told a friend of mine that he took great pleasure in sidling up in front of the ladies' chorus and farting on them during productions. For those of you who think that theatre is for the hoity toity, think again.