BY CLIFF MCCOLLUM
FOR THE OBSERVER
OPINION —
I received a delightful Christmas gift a few weeks ago: sheet music from The Little Mermaid with Ursula the Sea Witch herself painted on top of it in all her spiteful, lavender glory.
While I enjoy the musical compositions of the great Alan Menken, and Ursula is my favorite Disney villain, I love the gift because it calls forth a memory I share with my dear Baldwin County friends Jason and Kasha, my eternal Saturday night companions.
Picture it, dear readers: a student production of The Little Mermaid, our Saturday night entertainment because one of Kasha’s students was in the cast. Compared to the rest of the ensemble, he was miraculously competent.
The show was, well, dreadful. After two decades as a regional high school theatre competition judge, I can say with authority that halfway through the first act, I was praying the Exxon Valdez would crash above them and mercifully end the production.
The girl playing Ariel couldn’t hit the upward runs in her “Ahhhh ahhh ahh, ahhh ahh ahhh,” sounding more like the late Buddy Hackett as Scuttle. The set design seemed inspired by the ghost of Ray Charles, with choreography by Helen Keller.
And right before intermission, Ursula’s main song, “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” was poorly executed. The student playing Ursula ignored instinct for stage presence and basic breathing, even standing stock still while singing, “Don’t underestimate the importance of the body language.”
Before the song concluded, my hand had already reached for my phone. I opened Uber and ordered a ride back to my car thirty minutes away. Without a word, I got up, walked out and got into the idling car.
My driver asked if the show was over.
“It is for me,” I said, instructing her to leave quickly.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she asked why I was so eager to depart. She was treated to a verbal deluge of theatrical criticism from someone trained in the Paddy Chayefsky School of Emotional Unburdening, capped with my personal mantra: no longer suffering events I had no desire to continue to attend.
She cackled like Ursula herself, then called her sister and made me repeat my diatribe. Her sister cackled similarly, both better than the student playing the sea witch.
We were three-quarters of the way back when Jason called. I told him I had left. He demanded to know why.
“Because I’m too old to sit through bad children’s theatre when I don’t have any children that I’m aware of,” I said.
They were upset for a day or two, presumably because they stayed out of loyalty to Kasha’s student. I was not bound by such allegiances.
Eventually, they admitted my desertion was justified. Since then, they have been known to try to jokingly confiscate my phone at events to prevent any repeat escapes.
The sheet music gift is absolutely perfect. It reminds me of my infamous yet unapologetic escape, of using my theatrical judgment to decide I had better things to do and of my sincere belief that sometimes one’s departure is the best performance of all: the art of leaving early.
Each glance at the Sea Witch recalls a night of genuine laughter in a stranger’s car, a lesson in personal taste and, of course, vindication for a man who knows when to take his own intermission.
