Tobie's back home and he had to slide right into our busy shared agenda. But things are so much better for it.
Before he arrived, I had a shorter game night with our regular Friday night group. We had one big Tapestry game together with the Plans & Ploys and Arts & Architecture expansions. I didn't win this one (again!) but it was still great to finally play this game with its expansions after months of repeatedly playing only the base game since it's what we had access to via Board Game Arena. Then it was just me and one other friend playing a bit longer. We made the most of the time by tackling a bunch of our newer games - namely Calico, Point City, and Deep Dive. They're all fun in different ways and I can see how these games will appeal to different members of our gaming circles.
We wrapped up earlier than usual, so that didn't put me in a position to stay up long enough to catch Tobie as he got home. And given our busy agenda, I figured that it was smarter to get more sleep before getting to the next activity. I did wake up when Tobie arrived home as my sleep didn't feel very deep. (Remind me to review my Fitbit sleep data from last night to confirm this). We tried to sleep as long as possible before needing to get up to dash off to Circuit Makati.
We actually got to Circuit with a lot of time before the matinee staging of The Last Five Years by the Barefoot Theatre Collaborative. We used the time to get something to eat and ended up at Black Canyon Coffee, which is a coffee shop that serves Thai food but also features a cowboy as part of its signage. Despite this theming confusion, the food was pretty good and the coffee was exactly what we needed to get going.
We didn't get the best seats for the show since it was a weird free-seating system and others had settled in much earlier than we had. But it didn't super matter given the play was staged "in the round" as it were with the audience on two sides of a narrow stage. This was sort of similar to the recent staging of Carousel (which was not great), but it felt a lot more thoughtful in its execution. It probably helped that there were only two actors involved in this show, so managing the blocking in a manner that made sure everyone would get decent views of different bits of each performance wasn't too crazy an endeavor.
This was our second time watching a local staging of this particular musical with the last one being 9 Works' Theatrical's 2014 staging with Nikki Gil. I had enjoyed that last run, but more on the strength of the story. This new staging was a lot more intimate and that added a whole other layer to the performance. I thought some familiarity with the play would dampen some of my enjoyment to some degree. Instead, the way things had been directed and the sheer power of the individual performances got me weepy after the first few lines of the opening song "Still Hurting". It was such a good performance and definitely one of our favorite plays of the year.
We made our way back to BGC after that and ended up having an early dinner at Sariwon. The in-person experience is still more enjoyable than just getting it via delivery, especially since they seem to be including mint leaves together with their lettuce - a pleasant surprise that really adds something special to the samgyup experience. Now I'm just catching up on my dailies while Tobie naps a bit more before we head out to O Bar for another drag queen's birthday show.
The busy weekend continues.
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