Kay is a big Monty Python fan. (I am not.). On one of her jaunts to NYC where we would always go to the theater, I got tickets to the opening of Spamalot, the musical based on MP and the Holy Grail. She was all excited – which delighted me – and I kept my skepticism to myself.
First, we sat directly behind Burt Reynolds – so we started off giddy. The best part of the evening (the show was fantastic), was that Ms. Kay Treakle laughed the longest, loudest, heartiest of anyone in the entire theater. Which got our whole section, already hysterical from a truly funny show, off the charts with laughing. Painful, thrilling, gut-busting laughter. Kay led a communion of grateful theater-goers in letting it rip.
To the end of her life fifteen years later, all I had to do was mention one of the songs in the show, and Kay would start laughing. Me too.
After Kay died, in the middle of the surreal world, some big work deadlines, and a house move, I did my best to defer feeling my deepest sorrow until after the house move, cuz puddles of tears and grief don’t go well with packing and organizing. But on the radio (Broadway station) came a song from Spamalot. That was that. The dam burst. As I was sobbing, I heard Kay laughing. So she’s still lifting my spirits.
Yes! Her laugh was fire. It could warm anyone on the darkest day.
What a fabulous post! Kay told me about Spamalot and encouraged me to go! Ack, I never did.
Thanks for sharing a beautiful memory. Going to an actual theatre was not a side of Kay that I knew. We pretty much stuck to street theatre protesting whatever. It’s not hard to imagine her laugh though.
Yipes. Do you remember Kay’s “Finger Bowl of the Gods” t-shirt? I’ll post a picture of it, from the 1980 Black Hills Alliance Survival Gathering. It was a production performed at the Empty Space Theater on Capitol Hill (in Seattle), where Kay volunteered before directing her energies into Greenpeace. Art, including theater, was always something that grabbed her attention.