I hadn't been to the Teatro Verdi on via dei Benci in about 10 years when I went to see Stomp. Alessandro had talked about wanting to to go the teatro (theatre) to see Enrico Brignano, an Italian comico (comedian). I finally stopped off at the box office earlier this week to buy tickets. As I expected, there were only a few tickets left, but we ended up getting two seats together.
When I went to talk to the woman at the box office, she said that there were only a few available individual seats spread out around the teatro. She told me to wait a minute while she spoke on the phone. I couldn't hear her, but when she came back she said that there were two seats in the quinta fila (fifth row). I didn't even think about it and said that we'd take them. She went back to the phone and spoke for a little longer.
While she walked back toward the counter, she shook her head at me and said, "Mi dispiace. I'm sorry." She then told me that she had two seats in the back of the galleria (upper circle). They didn't look fantastic, but they were the only ones available. She saw my disappointment and offered me a discount, which I happily accepted.
Last night when we were leaving the house, I was rushing around because it was already 8:30pm. The show was to begin at 8:45pm and I didn't want to be late. "Ma scherzi? In ritardo non siamo. Non comincieranno all'ora. Are you kidding? We aren't late. They won't start on time," Alessandro told me.
We walked straight into the teatro and passed people standing out in front smoking their last cigarette. We handed in our tickets and walked up to the galleria.
I recognized our seats from the map that the woman showed me. We were a little above the seats in front of us and behind the walkway, so we could easily see above everyone and had lots of legroom.
The show didn't start until almost 9:30pm, so I realized that Alessandro was right about our not being late.
I enjoyed the spettacolo (show) and especially loved it when Mr. Brignano imitated all the accents in Italy by going from north to south. He even hopped twice on stage to show that he was in Sicily and then Sardinia. I recognized some of the accents, but didn't understand much because spoke mostly in dialect. Everyone's favorite was when he went through Tuscany and imitated the Tuscan accent.
On our way home, we realized how fortunate we were to live only about five minutes away on foot. We didn't have to worry about getting into a car, finding a spot to park, or driving through the busy streets on a Friday evening.
I hope to find more spettacoli to go to because it was a lot of fun, and a fun change for us from our normal routine of eating out and going to the cinema (movie theatre).
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