My Date with Al Pacino...

...and about a thousand other people. Not even a double or triple date, but it's still closer than I've ever been to one of my great acting idols and most likely closer than I'll be again. 

I had a fun, but early, evening planned for tonight. I was going to leave the office relatively early and spend the evening with Hungry Girl and several hundred close friends at Borders. I had such fun at the book signing in the spring and was looking forward to more Hungry Girl fun. I got a call early in the afternoon from my thoughtful and wonderful goddaughter who is visiting New York this week. She and her terrific group of friends had an extra ticket for "The Merchant of Venice" at Shakespeare in the (Central) Park and was I free to join them? I made myself free. One, I would get to see Jess again, one of my favorite activities. Two, I love Hungry Girl, but I love Al Pacino more. I can't count the number of times I've watched "Godfather."

I wish I had more pictures to share, but they took very seriously the instruction about not photographing inside the theater. I assumed it meant only during the play, but in a nanosecond after I snapped a picture of the stage before the play started a polite, but serious usher asked me to delete my picture and waited while I did so. 

I am not a theater critic, but I will share some of my thoughts. I liked very much the young woman who played Portia, Lily Rabe. I've not seen her -- as far as I remember -- in other shows, but she was terrific. The staging was interesting. but somewhat odd, as the play was set around the turn of this century. I'm going to try and do some reading to attempt to understand the director's concept for setting the play so close to the present. 

And my hero, Mr. Pacino. It was a thrill to see him. No question. But I had trouble finding him credible in the first act. In the second act, he was my hero and the picture of him as the broken, defeated Shylock is one that I will remember.  

So this early evening became a late evening. I didn't get to visit blog friends and it's going to be tough getting up in the morning to get to Brooklyn for an 8:30 a.m. meeting. But I had a date with Al Pacino and I am very happy.