God of Carnage - RAGBRAI 2013 Part II

I laid out a rather ambitious agenda in Part I filled with many of the things I did during RAGBRAI.  Perhaps one of the more unexpected items occurred on Friday.  

It was Day 6, and I had rolled into Fairfield quite late [for reasons that I will share later - yep, I'm teasing this kind of stuff], for such an easy biking day.  I didn't get in until 5:15 or so, and didn't have my tent set up and shower taken until 6:15.

Unfortunately, I didn't know about the world record fake mustache attempt ahead of time and missed it.  Fairfield was trying to break a world record that was set a few months ago in some U.S. city with 1,500 people simultaneously wearing a fake mustache for 5 continuous minutes.  The way it worked was that you came near the town square area to a specially designated area.  When you arrived, you received a fake mustache that had a number attached to it.  The number was then set aside somehow for counting purposes. [I learned of this secondhand so details are sketchy].  It supposedly took a long time to get everyone assembled.  Once everyone was in the designated area, they were all told to put on the fake mustaches.  The timer started then.  If a mustache fell off, or was taken off, it didn't count.  As well, anyone with a real mustache didn't count because there was no number associated with him.  I don't know the results on how many people they ended up counting.  The Guinness people filmed the event from several angles and were going to pore over the footage to get an exact count later.

The mustache attempt reminded me of an event that happened in 2009 in Indianola.  There they were attempting to set a world record for the most number of handprints they could get within a section of concrete.  I did get in on that one, it was memorable.  Indianola had an alley right off the town square that they needed to repave.  My handprint will stay there until the concrete falls apart again.

Although I unfortunately didn't hear about it in time, the mustache world record actually isn't very unusual or unexpected on RAGBRAI.  There is often some cool event like that at one of the overnight towns.  Some places just go out of their way to make sure that we have something special to remember them by.  Some do not and act as if we are pests to them [ahem, Perry this year].

The unexpected thing happened a little bit later after I had actually made it downtown.  Fairfield had things set up so that pedestrians had to either go around the perimeter of the town square or go through the beer garden.  I wasn't feeling like alcohol at the time and didn't want to go through the hassle of wading through that crowd, so I walked by all the local shops.  A little poster in a pedestal on the sidewalk caught my attention.  The sign was for a community theatre that was putting on a play.  I briefly looked at the poster, but didn't have high hopes for the play.  I mean, who would put on a play while RAGBRAI was in town?  Sure enough, they were holding a performance on Friday the 26th.

I had an hour to kill before the show started, so I took in another show out on the square.  A bunch of little kids were performing circus acts for a huge crowd.  They were a part of a training academy for kids.  I guess I had never given much thought to how the circus performers learned their craft in modern times.  I had an idea that things are not like the days of old when families lived their whole lives as part of an act, but I hadn't given it much thought.  It is certainly not something I will sign my future kids up for.  It was entertaining though.  

I had gotten into town too late to take advantage of the good church dinners and I didn't have enough time before the play to seek out a restaurant, decent or not.  That meant that I had to go with the greasy fair food that I always avoid if possible.  Oh well.  One greasy, giant tenderloin later and I was back in front of the theater.

This theater was not what you would normally think of as a theater.  It didn't have much frontage space on the square, only the width of a single door.  Once through the door you immediately go up a flight of stairs and arrive at a small lobby.  I purchased my ticket and headed inside.  The inside had a small stage directly ahead.  The rest of the room looked like a dance studio.  It was obvious that this stage was constructed just for the play.  The seating area was just simple folding chairs lined up neatly in six rows, maybe 15 seats wide.  So, at most, they could hold 90 or so.  I had gotten there a few minutes early, but was still a little bit shocked.  I was only the fourth person in the audience.  By the time the show started, the crowd had swelled to 15.

The play was one I had never heard of before, a comedy called God of Carnage.  The poster outside advertised it as the Tony award winner for best play in 2009.  The program heavily touted that James Gandolfini had one of the four roles during the original Broadway production.  It even dedicated the performance to his memory.  The premise was that the son of one of the couples had knocked out two teeth of the son of the other couple and they were in one of the couples' apartment to sort things out.  

The play was surprisingly good.  It deals with all sorts of relationship issues taken to an extreme for comedic purposes.  I would have gone with a different title, though, since the phrase "God of Carnage" was used during a part aside to the audience and part line of dialogue with another character.  I thought the line was extraneous and could have been omitted. The play isn't about religion at all.

The four actors did a great job of performing and didn't seem too phased about the lack of an audience.  I don't get the prevailing attitude against community theatre.  I have generally had a great time at those plays, whether it was in Burlington or elsewhere.

This play and other events from Friday made for a perfect climax to the week.