Fertile Ground - Supplemental

Magellanica

A marathon.  A play in 5 acts, each about an hour long.  Think binge-watching a mini-series.  A group of scientists and their maintenance crew, wintering over at the South Pole in 1986.

Ostensibly about discovering proof that CFCs were causing a hole in the ozone layer.  But mostly about the interactions of people stuck together for months in close proximity.  The set, which kept being rearranged to become various rooms in the south pole station, took up the width of the stage.  But felt cramped, claustrophobic.  (The only scene that didn't work was the one where some of the characters suited up and ventured out onto the ice.)

During the first intermission a couple of young women sat down beside me.  Giggly young things, even more annoying than the character studying the Aurora Australis.  The woman who had somehow managed to earn a PHD without graduating from junior high.  So, at the second intermission, I found another seat.  And found that there was nobody at all in the last row, which meant I could quietly sketch while the play was going on.

The third intermission was the dinner break, in which the caterers very efficiently handed out box dinners to those who had ordered them.  Mine was a grilled chicken sandwich, which ended up as little more than a slab of meat in a roll.  I would have been better off running up to the pizza or fry joint, or even bringing a cheese sandwich from home.

After dinner I had time to do a bit of sketching in the lobby.