'The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore' at Stupid Theatre With A Long Name

The last New York theatre trip was to a matinee on Sunday to see 'The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore' by Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre at Harold And Miriam Steinberg Centre for Theatre - phew, what a mouthful. It should've been called the Geriatric Centre for the Terminally Loud.

Why o why do I let myself be talked into seeing plays by Tennessee Williams? I never enjoy them, a couple I've 'appreciated' but enjoy? Never. Doom and gloom, endless wittering on in serious or shouty mode with no joy in life at all. O gawd. Never again, hear me? No, never again. I mean it.

This production starred Olympia Dukakis in the main role of a rich old woman hiding away in mountain-top villa in Italy, suffering from cancer and dictating her memoirs to an unwilling secretary who just wants to leave. Enter a young poet with a reputation for being near old rich people when they die. And yes, the old woman dies at the end but what a terminally dismal two hours it took for her to finally die. I didn't care in the slightest for any of the characters, they all left me cold. Olympia's Southern accent was sometimes so thick I couldn't make out what she was saying. And there was no reason whatsoever for the poet to get his willy out and shock the old dears in the audience. What did that add to the performance? What a dire thing it was - the play, I mean.

And the audience...? O my. Now, I recognise that we all get old and I'm no spring chicken myself but, other than a small gaggle of students, we were probably the youngest in the audience. It's public theatre so all the old dears probably have subscriptions and use Sunday afternoon as their weekly theatre trip. All of them. At the same time. Together.

I will stay away in future. To be surrounded solely by people of indeterminate old age was a weird feeling, everyone moving critically slowly with me afraid to try to squeeze past people in case they were too fragile, aarrggghhhhh! When I finally got outside I needed to move legs and arms as a sign of freedom. And the racket during the performance, bags being zipped and unzipped, paper being rustled, eternal whispers somewhere in the background. Enough is enough, I shall say no more. I'll be that old one day if I'm lucky enough to live so long and I'll be delighted if I can still get out and about - so good on 'em. I just don't want to go to the theatre with so many of them ever again.