The night of our excursion to Pompeii, the Kids Club crew told us to bring Alex down to the ship's theatre instead of up to the Pinnochio Kids Club after dinner. There was a magic show that night and all the kids were watching it together in the front row of the theatre. Alex was excited to hang out with his buddies. As it turned out, our first estimate of how many kids there were on the ship were wrong. There were about 30, ranging in age from about 10 months to 18 years old. There were four or five kids in the 5-7 year old category, which was enough for Alex to make friends that he vastly preferred to his dorky parents. The Ghost of Christmas Future, I suppose.
Not wanting to disappoint our boy, we trotted him down to the theatre after he inhaled a huge plate of Spaghetti Bolognese. This dish was always on the menu, and the only thing he would eat for dinner, along with some steamed broccoli and ice cream. We took him to the theatre and left him in the front row with Mary Beth, Carlo and Sylvana and a whole crew of kids. We found seats and decided to order some cocktails and stay for the show.
The magic show was not exactly what I was expecting. When I was a kid, we had a magician come to our elementary school every year, "The Great Kleinberg" or something like that. He wore a white suit with a cape and a top hat, and never said a word, just pulled all kinds of animals, scarves, and flowers out of his hat. This thrilled and delighted the audience. Growing up in Ohio, you learn to have low expectations at an early age. John Gorka has a song in which he sings,
I'm from New Jersey
I don't expect too much
If the world ended today
I'd adjust
I felt that way a lot as a kid, even though I had no idea that Ohio and New Jersey were so sympatico.
Anyway, the magician on the Sinfonia was nothing at all like what I'd experienced as a child. It was all Vegas-style show girls wearing spandex thongs and skimpy tops, flashing colored lights, and a slight man in a sequined outfit with melodramatic facial expressions and a pointed hairdo that made him look like the Heat Miser in one of those Christmas specials from the 70's. Part of his posse of assistants was a tall androgynous-looking man with a bleached blond crew-cut and white facepaint, wearing a white sequined ringmaster outfit. Part Ziggy Stardust, part Marcel Marceau this guy flew dramatically around the stage gesturing at the various props. The tall, leggy blonde female assistant ("Straight from London, England!") was squeezed into small boxes, stuck with pointy objects, sawed in half, and then miraculously appeared at the back of the stage, totally unharmed. About ten minutes into this, I started to worry that this might be too adult or two intense for Alex. He is like a Power Ranger with a gooey marshmallow center, and often gets scared or upset by loud noises. Not to mention the fact that the pounding techno music score was starting to give me a headache, so I could only imagine what it was doing to Alex in the front row.
After a dozen or so tricks, two petite young women in colorful spandex catsuits came out and did some acrobatic tricks that involved amazing feats of twisting, bending, and standing on top of each other at odd angles. The ship was lurching quite a bit, and the audience held its collective breath as the Twisty Girls did their thing, shaking and swaying as the boat rolled from side to side. Two years ago, we saw the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe on a trip to China. One of the more spectacular tricks involved six women of descending height and weight doing handstands with wooden chairs, one on top of the other. Standing in a row, they looked like extremely flexible nesting dolls. When the last and smallest gal ascended up, she lost her balance and they all toppled down on top of each other. It was frightening, since the little one on the top fell on her head from about 12 feet in the air. Five minutes after the curtain closed, the entire group returned and performed the trick, but we could tell that they were not happy about it. I worried that a similar fate was in store for these two, since they had the added challenge of being on a moving ship, but at least there were only two of them and neither of them was particularly tall.
These Twisty Gals did not lose their balance, although their arms shook and they swayed dramatically as the ship rolled. I started to feel a little queasy watching them. When they were done, the audience responded with vigorous applause and appreciation for their amazing agility and remarkable balance.
After they were finished, the magician and all the dancers returned for the big finale, which consisted of a triangle-shaped contraption with two giant buzzsaws on each side. The idea was that the magician was going to put his #1 blonde assistant into the trap and saw her in half, or maybe thirds. In a twist of Vegas-style irony, the effete offspring of PT Barnum and Marcel Marceau swooped in, rescued her and the two of them put the magician inside the box and turned on the buzz saws, clinging to each other as though they had been plotting his demise for months. This, to me, was pure comedic genius, since the glitzy mime dude looked as though he'd rather eat worms that hook up with a chick in a sequin-Bedazzled thong and stiletto heels.
As the buzz saws churned and the music swelled dramatically, I started to worry about how Alex was taking all this. He does not like loud noises and the buzzsaws were pretty scary looking. Suddenly, in the back of the room, the magician appeared in a spotlight, defiantly proclaiming that he would get his revenge on his betrayers. The two skittered away like frightened mice, while the Great Whats-His-Bucket reclaimed his rightful spot on stage.
When the houselights went up, we made our way down the stairs to claim Alex, and were met by Carlo, who told us that Alex got scared during the finale. Alex was hysterically crying and screaming, "I'M HUNGRY! I'M SOOOO HUNGRY!!" and clutching his stomach. I asked if his tummy hurt, and he said, "No! I'm hungry!" then proceeded to throw up an entire plate of undigested Spaghetti Bolognese onto the floor, all over the carpet and Frank's shoes. He immediately stopped crying and said, "I feel better."
Carlo trotted off to fetch a member of the cleaning crew, and I went to the ladies' room to get paper towels for Frank and Alex and to cover up the mess on the carpet. Most people were already out of the theatre by this time, and those who were loitering offered tissues and sympathy to our boy. I think it was a combination of anxious excitement, seasickness, and jetlag that finally caught up with him. He bounced back quickly and went to bed as soon as we got to the room. The next morning, he proclaimed that he did not like magic shows or Spaghetti Bolognese. Who could blame him?
