take THAT, Span­ish Armada

It’s hap­pened at last: “Drake: the Musi­cal” has been staged not once, but twice in the small lives we all inhab­it here in our lit­tle cor­ner of Lon­don. And con­trary to our rather churl­ish expec­ta­tion, fed by our chil­dren’s vile atti­tudes (which have changed remark­ably since per­form­ing), the musi­cal was FABULOUS.

Grant­ed, I will go to my grave won­der­ing why on earth any­one thought that Sir Fran­cis Drake (“Frankie” to his many admir­ers onstage) was a com­pelling fig­ure for a musi­cal lead. He was a lad­dish rake of the first order, noth­ing more than a pirate! (“A pri­va­teer,” his 11-year-old por­tray­er insists). Added to that skep­ti­cism may be put the ques­tion­able wis­dom of 13-year-olds putting on a musi­cal that deals with, let’s see, ram­pant anti-Span­ish pro­pa­gan­da (I’m not Eng­lish, so I can frown at the laugh­ter in the audi­ence at all the slurs!), randy sea­far­ing pirates, and much ado about mem­bers of the drunk­en aris­toc­ra­cy. Lines like, “If I’m Knight of the Garter, can I say whose garter it should be?” and “I’ll show you to the ladies in wait­ing,” fol­lowed by, “They don’t have to wait no longer!” You get my drift.

Still and all, the pro­duc­tion man­aged to be com­plete­ly charm­ing. The kids have worked unex­pect­ed­ly hard, it’s clear. I guess I fell into the old trap of believ­ing a child’s descrip­tion of any ongo­ing expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly when you gath­er a whole bunch of them togeth­er and THEN try to get a grain of truth from their tales of woe. How ter­ri­ble the songs/dance/speeches were going to be (they were mar­velous and almost fault­less), how hor­ren­dous the make­up (pret­ty much stan­dard), how per­ilous the sets (noth­ing col­lapsed). In gen­er­al, they warned us about how embar­rass­ing the whole expe­ri­ence would be, and yet, all the per­form­ers seemed hap­py to have us turn up, fill the house, and clap wild­ly. They were WONDERFUL.

“Tar­ry a tick, old chap!” was typ­i­cal of the ban­ter, as was, “Her Majesty’s a bit tetchy today, and who can blame her?” “Love a duck!” exclaimed one girl upon see­ing a beau­ti­ful neck­lace, where­upon an eaves­drop­ping Lord said, “Duck? Duck? Ah, Drake… a high­ly unsuit­able expres­sion, giv­en the cir­cum­stances…” I chuck­led even more at these Wode­house-esque, out­dat­ed expres­sions. I do love liv­ing here.

The atmos­phere of a boys’ school itself strikes amaz­ing feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy in me, the aver­age son-less Amer­i­can who did not grow up sur­round­ed by chil­dren in knee britch­es, match­ing jack­ets, neck­ties and bean­ies. With kneesocks and lit­tle briefcase‑y satchels. And loads of match­ing stair-step broth­ers. These boys are called things like Hor­a­tio and Simon, and the huge blowups of them in the pas­sages, play­ing rug­ger and the like with con­cen­trat­ed expres­sions of aris­to­crat­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness only under­score the huge cul­tur­al gap between peo­ple like us and peo­ple who take this sort of thing for grant­ed. Large groups of boys who go to a boys’ school are a breed apart: they real­ly do say things like, “Jol­ly good!” and “I say…” They wres­tle and push and shove and mock-bite like any boys in Amer­i­ca, but they do it with per­fect hair­cuts and gor­geous accents like David Cameron’s, and I for one am besot­ted. Will Avery end up with some­one like that, and I’ll feel infe­ri­or for every fam­i­ly hol­i­day for the rest of my life? She seems per­fect­ly at home in the setting.

Tomor­row is an evening off. A break from the make­up removal at near­ly 10 p.m., the rehash­ing of “Did you hear when Eliz­a­beth’s micro­phone stopped work­ing dur­ing her duet with Drake?” and whose fluff­ing of lines caused tears (nev­er let them see you sweat, I advise). Then anoth­er per­for­mance on Fri­day night, and anoth­er on Sat­ur­day, then nev­er to be seen again.

I’ve learned sev­er­al things from the whole process of “Drake: the Musi­cal.” One, boys at this age are nice. They’re pre­sentable and tal­ent­ed and cute, and I wish Avery had more of a chance to know them. Two, I should not pay too much atten­tion to moan­ing and com­plain­ing and pre­dic­tions of dis­as­ter, because these chil­dren work too hard at every­thing for any one thing not to be done well, and this was tru­ly a thing for them to be proud of.

Most impor­tant, I’ve learned that I will great­ly miss the late-after­noon strolls across the orna­men­tal bridge to the boys’ school as the sun sets, with one, two or three girls at my side, not quite ready to walk them­selves across the Thames to rehearsal. There are so many land­mark “last times” I nev­er thought to notice: the last time I was asked to chap­er­one a school trip? Did­n’t make a note of it. The last time Avery reached out nat­u­ral­ly to hold my hand cross­ing a street? The last time I read out loud to her before she went to sleep? What WAS I pay­ing atten­tion to that these things passed by with­out a whimper?

But I will miss these walks to rehearsal, because the next time she has to go across the riv­er for some­thing with her friends, she’ll undoubt­ed­ly go on her own, and the delight­ful con­ver­sa­tion about fash­ion, make­up, who likes who, even the dread­ed moan­ing about home­work, will all hap­pen like that tree in the for­est. Will any of it hap­pen if I’m not there to listen?

The short answer is, yes. The cliche that chil­dren only get more won­der­ful as they get old­er is true, which is meant to make up for the fact that you spend more and more time with­out them, and the times you hold their hands are few­er and far­ther between. The fact is, the lit­tle ver­sions of Avery from the past that she’s left behind in my mem­o­ry are just as pow­er­ful as her present self: they’re sepia, fuzzy, lit­tle-girl ver­sions of the bright blue, vel­vet Drake-cos­tumed girl I see today. I trea­sure them all.

So onward and upward to final per­for­mances of “Drake.” I hope I live to see “Joe Biden: the Musi­cal.” In the mean­time, Avery has a call-back audi­tion tomor­row after­noon for, get this, an anti-alco­hol pub­lic adver­tise­ment. Talk about grow­ing up quick­ly! It’s odd when your child acts for a com­mer­cial dis­cour­ag­ing her against doing some­thing it had not, so far, occurred to her to do. The per­fect anti­dote to all those mugs of ale aboard the Gold­en Hinde with Frankie! Now I can rest easy. And we can all come home to:

Home­made Toma­to Soup
(serves 8)

2 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp butter
6 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped
1 white onion, rough­ly chopped
2 pounds fresh plum toma­toes, quartered
3 cups chick­en stock
hand­ful fresh rose­mary stalks, leaves removed and rough­ly chopped
1/2 cup sin­gle (light) cream

zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup sour cream
fresh ground black pepper

Prep is sim­plic­i­ty itself. Heat olive oil and but­ter in a large saucepan and add gar­lic and onion to wilt slight­ly. Add toma­toes and stock and rose­mary, sim­mer for 1/2 hour or until toma­toes soft. Puree with a hand blender and put through a sieve into anoth­er saucepan. Add light cream. When serv­ing, sprin­kle each bowl with a bit of lemon zest, a dol­lop of sour cream and a grind of pep­per. Done, dust­ed, PERFECT.

*******

There is noth­ing more per­fect than this soup. Inex­pen­sive beyond belief, almost effort­less, ele­gant and com­fort­ing. With a grilled-cheese sand­wich, this is the per­fect after-Drake sup­per. With a mug of ale, of course. Hip, hip, hooray!