“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Or not, as there was no mail delivery at my building on Saturday, probably because of the seven inches of snow that fell Thursday night into Friday afternoon. Undaunted by the USPS’s shortcomings, I  didn’t let the snow stop me from driving to Oak Brook to see Women in Jeopardy at the First Folio Theater.

We left early and detoured slightly to head to Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen before the matinee for a drink and perhaps some gumbo or fried alligator (tastes like chicken – if chicken were made of leather). But, at 3:00 in the afternoon, it was jammed and we couldn’t even get a seat at the bar. Beads everywhere, Mardi Gras crowd getting started early.

So, with no food or drink to be had (fortunately we brought our own chocolate), we got to the theater early. I immediately ran into and caught up with an old friend, who was ushering for our performance as a member of the Saints (the volunteer arts organization unrelated to New Orleans and the aforementioned Mardi Gras).

They played the familiar theme from Jeopardy as a lead in to the play, but the show was about women in jeopardy (though a comedy), not women on Jeopardy (darn). Just as in the last play I saw at First Folio (Silent Sky), this production used their ceiling of stars (celestial, not theatrical) as part of the scenery, this time in a camping scene. It reminds me of the ceiling at the Aragon Ballroom (though not nearly as spectacular), which reminds me of the last concert I saw there, Chuck Berry in 1972, when he duck walked and played a very extended version of the lyrically sophisticated My Ding-A-Ling, his cover version of which incredibly was his one number one hit.