The comedy "In Bed With Chuck & Lois," now playing at Theatre on the Square is one of those plays that only works in the context of the stage. Written by Joni Hilton (who wrote the TOTS hit "Does this show make my butt look fat?"), we get a look at the minds of our titular couple, played by Darrin Gowan and Cindy Phillips, portrayed by two other actors.

The subject line for this entry is a scene title from the play "The Elephant Man," on stage for one more weekend at the Indianapolis Civic Theatre.

The Civic, which opened its season powerfully with its production of "Evita," has launched another triumph. Chris Goldfarb is brilliant in his portrayal of the titular character, John Merrick. With posture and voice he ably communicates the character's extreme handicap (in the stage play, no prosthesis is used) while imbuing the character with genius and, more importantly, humanity.

Just to the east of Hancock County in New Castle, there is an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the sign that the Cold War was finally thawing.

From the press release:
The International League of Henry County will host a showing of the 54-minute documentary, “Ode to Joy and Freedom,” about the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, 7 p.m. Monday in the Auditorium of the New Castle–Henry County Public Library. It is open to the public and free of charge.

Lots going on in live theatre in Indy:

Riyadh (Monday, November 02, 2009)

This is the end of our fourth amazing day. Yesterday was an eighteen hour day so we had no computer time – little sleep time for that matter.

There is no way I can capture all that we have learned and seen in the ten or so minutes I have to do this.

Among activities for yesterday were touring the King Faisal Specialist and Research Hospital. They do a large amount of basic research as major critical care and transplant surgery. We did see a significant number of women medical professionals, some veiled and some not.

Riyadh (Saturday, October 31, 2009)

If I had not lived all that I have experienced the past two days I would have thought I was reading a make-believe story.

Late yesterday, after some sleep, we went about 70 kilometers, motorcade again, to the Al Musmak Palace which was a replica of a 300 years old palace, in the desert, which was captured 150 years ago and was the beginning of the founding of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1902.

Riyadh - Friday, Oct. 30, 2009
We're here! After fourteen hours of flight time and five hours sitting in airports, we arrived last night around 9:30. There are thirteen legislators, two NCSL staff and two Saudi men assigned to the Saudi Embassy in D.C. in our group.

The Riyadh Airport was magnificent! We were whisked away into big black cars with big black SUV escorts, lights flashing and sirens going. Quite intimidating for all of us!
We are staying in a government guest conference palace which is the equivalent of a very nice big hotel except there is no one in it except us!

Here a couple of off-beat destinations for this weekend:

Friday isn't quite Halloween, but it's still the weekend. Since trying to burn everything for Devil's Night is both dangerous and illegal, why not try --

Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009 (Greenfield)

This is the first of what I hope will be frequent blogs over the next two weeks about my trip to Saudi Arabia. Actually, this is the very first blog I have ever done and this entry is a dry run to see if I followed instructions correctly in setting it up.

The show that has been a phenomenon on Broadway, on tour, and even at the movies, "Mamma Mia," was back in Indy for live performances Friday through today (Sunday) at Clowes Hall.

For those who haven't seen this musical, it is a wonderful experience well worth the effort of seeing (unless you really hate the music of ABBA). It frames the pop hits of the 1970s-80s Swedish supergroup in a romantic comedy reminiscent of the goofy situations of a Shakespeare comedy.