Adventures in Sturgeon Bay

I took a three and a half hour drive up to Sturgeon Bay in Door County yesterday to see Doug Mancheski in Gray's Anatomy, a monologue by the late Spaulding Gray. Doug is an amazingly talented actor and this was one of Gray's works that I wasn't already familiar with, so it was a real treat. Having only seen Doug previously is musical comedies, I was blown away by his range, which was really displayed in this one: wry humor, cynicism, love, fear, desperation, the terror of facing aging, illness and death. His delivery made me forget that I was listening to Spaulding's story. It just sounded like Doug was telling his story for the first time, not lines rehearsed and rote...truly masterful! I enjoyed it so much. If I lived closer I'd go again. For my friends in that area...run, don't walk to the Third Avenue Playhouse.

Viewing it superficially in the moment as a performance observer, my emotions were pulled everywhere-in the best possible way.  Pondering it all in the quiet of the car on the drive home;  aspects of Doug's stunning performance, the monologue itself and how closely it hits home right now, the knowledge of Spaulding's suicide in 2004, I became so overwhelmed that I sobbed halfway back to Green Bay. I didn't see that coming! It was very cathartic though... and only mildly terrifying at 70 m.p.h. on the highway!

I regretted that I had to say 'no' to going out for a drink with Doug and his friends when they invited me after the show. I was worried about getting back to Madison before the snow hit. Now I see that's it's lucky I didn't go after all. I would have hated to collapse into a weeping heap in a bar in Sturgeon Bay! That's a spectacle best performed in the comfort of the driver's seat of a Hyundai Elantra! 

I got to Sturgeon Bay about 11:00 am and the play wasn't until 2:00, so I had an wonderful time visiting the local shops on Third Ave (there is an art supply store to die for) and going down to the water to see the huge ships and birds. I guess I was really absorbed in 'living it' because I forgot to take pictures except for this odd one of a bridge.  It isn't even the cool drawbridge...and it doesn't have any of the big ships in it. I think I was after the water diamonds, and they don't even show up! You'll all just have to take my word for it that it was gorgeous!

I got trapped in a filling station for 20 minutes by a weird guy who looked like Indiana Jones. He had the hat and the leather jacket and looked perfectly normal, but he had a really big brain....and it was filled with LOTS of information...and he was determined to tell me ALL of it. His super-power was that he required no oxygen to survive and never paused for a nanosecond between one random tidbit of information and the next. As a veritable fountain of useless information myself, I  was temporarily stunned and fascinated and thus trapped for longer than I normally would have been, before I finally came to my senses, darted between the Slim Jim rack and the beer pyramid and escaped. These kinda folks always find me!

I came straight home after the play (see above). There was more traffic going back than there was going up but it was still light, which was good since apparently it's permissible to go 108 gigabillion miles an hour on the southbound lanes! All of the other cars were doing it, Mum! I kept getting stuck in their slip stream! I did slow down a bit through the Horicon Marsh flyway where the skies were filled with water birds of all kinds migrating through-absolutely gorgeous! I arrived home unscathed (for the most part) before dark and before snow! Victory! I definitely need to spend more time getting to know the Fox Valley area in the future. It's beautiful and not as far away as it seems.