Don't give in to despair

From my terrible plays this morning to one of the greatest I've seen to date. Jack was my date to The Seagull tonight, and I was able to experience three hours of sadness, suicide, crying, alcoholism, drug abuse, and Peter Sarsgaard.

Simply put: see this play. An ensemble play, this Chekhov piece needs a strong cast. And everyone from Sarsgaard to Scott Thomas to Garreth Kenan from the UK version of The Office (that's Dwight Shrute to you American Office fans), carried us along through the lives of unsatisfied actors and writers.

But the key to the show, and what moved me, is the strongly delivered line that I used as the title to this post. DON'T GIVE IN TO DESPAIR. Sure things suck sometimes. Sure sometimes they go from bad to worse. I mean, check out this play... whether rich or poor, famous or unknown, NOBODY is happy. And at the end of the play, they're about to be a lot less pleased.

But life, luckily, is not as bad as it is in Chekhov's work. Hell, maybe that's the point. No matter where you are, you are not as bad off as Trigorin, or Arkadina, or Treplyov or Nina. So watch The Seagull, feel like shit, and then compare it to your actual life. Not so bad, is it?

What a beautiful evening. What an excellent show. Forty bucks gets you nosebleeds (as the boyfriend and I partook of) and it's more than worth the price (and the seats are just fine).

Check it out. Go. Now. And read up on The Seagull first, if you know nothing about it.