My Theatrical Valentine

Joe, my long-suffering husband, is my theatrical Valentine. I am not saying he is a drama queen, but I am referring to his capacity to accompany me to the theater. It can only be true love.

Early in our relationship, as we were still getting to know each other, I booked an ambitious “theater vacation.”  

I crafted this itinerary by combining a road trip to the Niagara on the Lake Shaw Festival with a visit to the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival. While other, fun-loving couples were poolside or at the beach, I made us spend a summer's week sitting in dark theaters.

On the fifth day, after a matinée of Much Ado About Nothing and as I readied myself for an evening performance of Macbeth, Joe waved the white flag. He could endure no more Shakespeare, so he stayed at our hotel and decompressed by surfing the internet.

I thought of Macbeth’s soliloquy about life's fragile and transitory nature and applied it to Joe’s waning interest in the Bard: “Out, out, brief candle.” 

Unlike Macbeth’s brief candle, Joe’s overdose of live theater has been continuously illuminating. I think of it often when navigating couplehood. I’ve learned that our interests do not need to be in lockstep. I sometimes even compromise.

Joe still indulges my theater bug by seeing Broadway shows with me once or twice a year. He understands my passion for live theater and encourages me to pursue it.

Gabriel Byrne and Jessica Lange
in Long Day's Journey into Night

He can take solace in the fact that in 2016, on a rare solo trip to New York, I sat through one of the theater's ultimate slogs, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. It clocked in at four hours, and even Jessica Lange couldn't save it. I looked at my watch—a lot. Joe is lucky he got to miss that one.

While I might like to return to Canada for more live theater, I no longer have the attention span to sit through plays to the extent I did in my earlier years.

Maybe my theatrical Valentine was on to something all along.

Me and My Valentine