To Bridge It or Not

I am really torn on whether to travel to Buffalo to catch Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge next weekend.  This review seems pretty specific about how the director has made some very questionable choices (only partly updating the play to make it sort of seem like it is happening today, which I think is usually a pretty weak sop to make it "relevant," when it is basically as relevant as any of the Greek tragedies).  On the other hand, the cast largely overcomes the bad concept that they inherited from the director.

But I think I would be fairly annoyed at the missteps, and it is really quite a ways out of my way* to go to Buffalo for a production about which I will surely have mixed feelings.  (It doesn't help my decision-making process that I expect to be totally swamped by work these next two weeks.)  On the flip side, A View from the Bridge isn't put on all that often, certainly anywhere near me.  It will be probably at least 2-3 years before I have another reasonable opportunity, and maybe 5+ years before it comes back to Toronto.  All things considered, I think I am going to pass and try not to have too many regrets.  I still have a few more days to reconsider, particularly if I manage to get a lot of work accomplished in the meantime.

So with that, I'm off...

* I guess this won't happen in the next week or two, but Trump is now threatening to implement biometric scans of every person crossing the U.S. border.  It's another completely crazy scheme that Congress will block, but FFS.  It means that crossing the border would take about 10 hours at all times of day.  Can you just get your shit together and impeach him already?  Nonetheless, the longer the craziness drags on, the less likely Canadians of all political stripes are to come down and visit.  While this will be a difficult discussion with the family, I'm really cooling on the idea of coming down to Chicago this summer, which is our own tradition.