A place where nobody dared to go

Xanadu.

The other day I was reminiscing with college pals about our old friend whom I'll refer to as Annie. Annie was everyone's roommate at least once in college, because nobody could take living with her for more than one or two semesters. She was dirty, slovenly, unshowered, horny, overweight, she drank far too much, and she is the funniest person I've ever met to this day. She was a total mess, and knew and embraced it, which gave her this enchantingly self-deprecating humor that NOBODY could resist - despite what a pain in the ass it was to live with someone who had equal amounts of dirty laundry and bad chinese takeout covering her bedroom floor. She was a delightful disaster in platform sandals, swigging a forty and talking smack.

Seeing Xanadu reminded me of an night out with Annie. It's so bizarre, and so all over the place, but it's hyper-aware of the giant mess it is, and you can't help laughing with it and at it at the same time. It's entertaining, but does it really have a place in the larger community, or is the entertainment value mostly in the fact that we just can't believe something this insane has made it this far? Xanadu plays like a giant, oversized version of Forbidden Broadway - it's one long in-joke on wheels, with a sizable dollop of Testa/Hoffman crassness mixed in for added flavor. It was fun, sure, and Kerry Butler is doing great work up there, but it bewilders me to think that people are actually paying hundreds of dollars to take their families to this strange 90 minutes of winking and twirling.