This Was My Youth In Theatre

Vance at http://tapeworthy.blogspot.com:

Because it was so damn cold here, I didn't even want to venture out to catch up on movies so instead I've been FINALLY organizing my Playbills and theatre tickets (amongst the rest of the crap that I've been trying to organize over the past week (I'm a bit of a packrat, I get it from my grandfather) all while watching American Idol since it doesn't really require much of my attention right now during the auditions) and while most of the shows I've seen have been within the last 2 years, I forgot about some of the stuff I had seen before.

Including This Is Our Youth at the Garrick in London back in 2002. It was starring Hayden Christensen, Anna Paquin and a barely known Jake Gyllenhaal (this was before he got famous from movies). Now why didn't I stage door THAT? WTF was I thinking?

To be honest, I didn't love the play (a revival of a Kenneth Lonnergan play, and I had loved his movie You Can Count On Me) but I thought Paquin was pretty good but I remember thinking one of the guys was really annoying while the other one was pretty strong. I can't remember which but while Gyllenhaal got good reviews, I think I liked Canadian boy Christensen more but probably because Jake's character was supposed to be irritating, and Jake did it really really well.

I also just found my ticket to Edward Albee's The Zoo Story where it was performed in a small church hall in Toronto as a benefit performance, and it starred Scott Speedman just coming off the first season of Felicity.

I swear but he was actually pretty good. And not just cause I find him totally dreamy? Of course I bumped into a guy from my high school (he was senior to me) who was childhood friends with Speedy. Why did I NOT LATCH ONTO THAT? (Though another friend from college went to the same pool Scott swam at and would watch him often... damnit... I went to the wrong pool). Actually, I almost went to the same high school Scott did. But then my parents decided to put me into a Catholic High School. Stupid Catholicism.

I also found my ticket to Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Lyric also in London back in 2001. I don't remember ANYTHING from that play except white people getting drunk and whining about being drunk (or something like that) but probably because I was just staring at Paul Rudd the whole time (who I've also seen more recently in Three Days of Rain on Broadway). Yum. Oh yeah, Jessica Lange was in it too. And some other people. I should check the program, though I'm still sorting through them.