I will spare you the details of being kicked out of two parking areas and feeling that frustration mount to the point of wanting to just turn around and go home, but knowing I had already paid good money to see this show so I finally found what I was looking for, even though we were a few minutes late to the production. That part was boring.
The Birmingham J-something Civic Center has several theater stages--Peter Pan (that we saw last Christmas) was in the main stage, and Rapunzel was in the "Wee Folks" stage. I don't know what exactly it was that I was expecting, but imagine story time at the library with a background prop. The seats were four rows of carpeted stairs. It was small and quaint. Several times the Rabbit asked the audience for help remembering something--Rapunzel's name, and where the lettuce alarm was hidden (yes, you read that right).
I tell you what was uncanny. The Prince had a song about how he felt before he was bestowed the king's ring. He sang that he felt timid and shy and scared to try new things. When he sang those lines, he looked straight at me, like he knew that was exactly what I felt. It was weird, because since we were a few minutes late, we had to sit a little bit off to the side and the actors didn't look at us very often. If I felt like it, I could probably take this section of the play and write an entire blog post just about it, but I don't feel like it.
The funniest part was when the Prince wanted to meet Rapunzel, because he had seen her let down her hair for Dame Dillweed, and he knew she was beautiful, so the Rabbit garnered an introduction between them. The Prince suddenly got bashful and asked, "Oh, what will I say to her?" Rabbit suggested "Hello" and "How do you do", but then the Prince figured it out. Rapunzel stood there in the window, peering down, and before even the first hello, the Prince got on one knee and questioned, quite boldly I might add, "Rapunzel, will you marry me?" Of course she said yes right away, much to the consternation of Rabbit. As soon as the question was out of the Prince's mouth, EJ got really red and did this: