Date with Phil - A Tale of Two Cities

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age or wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only (Dickens, 1)."

I went on a date with Phil. Yes ladies, I do go on dates despite my previous post. ha! Ok so Phil is a guy that was in my church ward before I taught English in Taiwan. I haven't seen him for about 2 years now until we got together and decided to go see the play A Tale of Two Cities at the hale in SLC. And let me tell you that the Hale Center Theater in SLC is 10 times cooler than the one in Orem. Here is a pic that I stole from their website of the Hale so you can see how cool it looks:

I didn't really want to bust out my camera with Phil there because what would I say? "Hey Phil, I have this blog that I like to write stuff about my life on so can we take pictures even though I haven't talked to you for a couple of years?" Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Now you wouldn't think that Charles Dicken's work A Tale of Two Cities would make for a good musical, but it was very Les Miserables in the storyline and plot structure. The Hale did such a good job with the production that I basically bawled through the second half of the play. Phil had to lean over and say to me "It's ok Jaimie, the cute guy doesn't really die in real life."

Spoiler Alert - You see the trouble is that this man - Sydney (yes, handsome Sydney), a smart alec alcoholic and lawyer sacrifices his life to die for another. To die for the husband of the woman that he has loved for years but never got to hold and love himself. He switches places with the man she is married to who is to be hanged because of love. The fact that he sacrificed his life because he had this hidden love for this woman and her family is so beautiful and touching. The characters go throughout the story thinking that he is a drunkard screw up, but love him despite his flaws, yet they never expect the greatness that he is capable of because nobody does anything that selfless. Especially an alcoholic.

Gah, I get teary eyed just thinking about how touching this play was. I was surprised at how much I loved it. I think part of it is due to the fact that Charles Dickens is my favorite author of all time.

All in all, it was a good date :)