Redemption - National Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion

11/4/13 Blogger's note: in over 120 posts, I have never fretted about an entry once it's posted until last night. I turned off the computer, went to bed and had a panic attack about what I wrote. Did I leave sentences unfinished? How and why did I use 'automaton'? Did I write anything about the show? I'm going to blame it on the time change. I have re-read the post and only changed one word, so any flaws are still intact. Cheers and happy Monday.

11/2/13 A Prairie Home Companion, live from The State Theater in Minneapolis

After seeing Bad Grandpa last week, I felt like I needed some intellectual redemption. Don't get me wrong, as I mentioned, we laughed until we cried, but having people tell me they never thought I would see it kind of made me feel like I let them down. Or, I suppose, conversely, perhaps it made me seem more human and less like an automaton (a big thanks to my co-worker for using one of my favorite words, it made my day). Anyway, I bought the tickets for A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) long before I knew I was going to see Bad Grandpa, so the timing was just fortuitous.

I have listened to APHC on and off for years, taking pleasure in the fact that its home-base is here in St. Paul, and Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in Minnesota. I was delighted that when Robert Altman made his film based on the radio show, he filmed a lot of it locally, including at The Fitzgerald Theater. (I'm a Buckeye, but when the opportunity arises, I'll gladly fly Minnesota colors.) The chance to see APHC live seems to come and go so quickly, by the time I hear about it the dates, I've missed them. Also, driving to St. Paul still scares me, although I have perfected my route to the Fitz, but this time, the troupe was performing in Minneapolis at the State Theater, so I took the light rail downtown. The seats were in the second balcony, but at center stage, so I was pretty happy. It's not like there's a lot to see because it's a radio show, but at the same time, it was really cool to watch the band and the cast getting in place, and there are a couple of set pieces.

There is a part of me that assumed a Public Radio audience would be a little more sophisticated and informed about behavior in a theater. Well, shoot that stereotype right down the toilet. Apparently having a smartphone (which I do not) requires you to take flash photos during the performance and turn it on to check the time every fifteen minutes, oh and not get in your seats until 4:47 when the show starts at 4:45. Oh, I feel better now. At 4:45 the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band came on (led by the ever-present Rich Dworsky on piano) and began playing some bluegrassy music, after 7 minutes or so (times are estimates because I don't have a smartphone and cannot read my watch in the dark) Garrison Keillor came onstage to great applause, for some reason I thought that the show was starting right then as Garrison launched into a welcome and some Minnesota-centric jokes and observations, but then close to the 5:00 hour he said the show was going live in 15 seconds. Dang, nobody else was going to hear the about how modest Minnesotans are (actually, some of that did come up during the live show). The red light went on and we were LIVE from Minneapolis. The regular cast of characters appeared with Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Fred Newman doing multiple voices and effects (watching them work to see how some of the sounds were made was really cool - cue the geek music). A young singer names Hilary Thavis sang bits I can only guess were written by Garrison; she was very good, and a Twin Cities-based choral group called Cantus also sang a few songs written by Garrison and a few by other composers. I am not always familiar with the talent that appears on the show, but I find that my horizons are expanded on a regular basis. The skits included a commercial for POEM - Professional Organization of English Majors, a Guy Noir episode (which was not my favorite, sometimes those are hit or miss) and a story from Lake Wobegon. Keillor sang a bit as well. A treat for me (again, expanding horizons) was having Billy Collins read several of his poems. Billy Collins was twice US Poet Laureate (I didn't know that until the performance); I'm not big into late 20th/21st century poetry; I much prefer Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth. But, I may be a convert to Mr. Collins. Many of the poems he read were very accessible and had a humorous twist; they almost gave you a sense that you could have written them if you tried. I don't mean that in a negative way, I just mean they captured every day life in language that you could understand even if you wren't an English major. "The Revenant" is a poem written in the voice of a dog's ghost; "The Suggestion Box" is about all the ideas that people like to give poets about topics for poems, which apparently happens all the time. Mr. Collins came out several times during the show, so it wasn't like one long poetry reading.

I wasn't ready for the show to be over. I wanted more: more skits, more music, more of Garrison Keillor's thoughts on the humility of Minnesotans and the history of Minneapolis. I thought this would be one thing crossed off my bucket list and move on, but I have to say that when the show returns to the Twin Cities, I will be doing my best to get a ticket and have my mind expanded. Skol!