Last Thursday night we had a gift certificate for a restaurant in Providence and tickets to a show at the nearby Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC). The restaurant, Aspire, had an attractive decor and a menu with some tasty-sounding items at affordable, if slightly expensive, prices. The food was presented prettily enough, but it was awfully bland. I salted my roasted half chicken twice. Faithful Reader salted his stuffed pork chop three times. This from people who hardly ever pick up the saltshaker! Aspire seems like a good location to hang out and have a drink, but I wouldn’t recommend it for dinner.
After dessert and coffee, we walked down to PPAC, a beautiful old theater, built in the 1920s as a Loew’s Movie Palace. I spent some of the preshow time just staring at the walls and up at the ceiling. It’s all glitter and gold. Thank goodness it wasn’t torn down in the ’70s. They just don’t make theaters like that anymore.
The headline act was comedian Brian Regan. Neither of us had ever seen him perform except in some short clips at YouTube. In fact, neither of us had even heard of him before I started looking for a show to see at PPAC, which I only did because I had a gift certificate to Aspire. Ironically, the show was the better part of the outing. I was impressed at how entertaining Regan could be while keeping his act clean. He didn’t use a single vulgar word. That’s so rare and very much appreciated. The theater was packed with fans, some of whom called out routines for him to perform during the encore, so other people must appreciate it too.
Regan also taught us about the power of suggestion. One of his jokes was about Pop Tarts. Faithful Reader and I hadn’t had Pop Tarts for eons and suddenly we felt a mad desire to buy them, so we stopped at the grocery store on the way home. We couldn’t agree on a flavor and ultimately bought two boxes, both of which, by the way, are already gone. Shame on us!
P.S. A word of advice to the people who sat behind us at the show: Regan’s jokes were funny, but they weren’t made magically funnier when you echoed the punchlines (“Ha, ha, ha. Umberto! Ha, Ha.”). Here’s an idea—how about next time you bring some Pop Tarts and keep your mouth full during the show? That way we can all be happy. Faithful Reader and I can watch the show without distraction and you can have yummies in your tummies.