bunny bunny and more

Sunday evening, I went to Jenkins Hall at 6 PM, intending to stand in line, if need be, to gain entrance to a sold-out show. The box office wasn't even officially open yet, but the young woman acknowledged that I would be the first, should a ticket become available. She remembered me from Friday morning, trying to get a ticket for any of the last three shows, all of which were sold-out. I was fortunate Sunday, as were nine others, treated to an intimate experience in the Black Box at Jenkins Hall.
The show isn't one you've likely heard of. "Bunny Bunny... Gilda Radner, A Sort-Of Romantic Comedy" is a tale of love and friendship, told through the eyes and ears and heart of the writer who lost her to cancer. Zweibel was befriended by the comedienne once upon a time in the north, when both were young and new to the late-night world of New York City.
I had been a big fan of Gilda Radner and her zany characters in the early days of Saturday Night Live. I had rejoiced with her when she wed Gene Wilder, who loved her madly, and I was shocked and saddened when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just two years later. They were married for just under five years before her death in 1989. She was only 42. Gene built a monument to her, in the form of Gilda's Club, there in her beloved NYC.
Zweibel and "Gilbert" were best friends. This play was his attempt to capture that friendship as a series of shared moments in time on the set, in restaurants, at basketball games. All of the moments really good friends spend together, shared visions, shared recordings of events and people and food.
Zweibel succeeded. His recounting of the bond between he and she brought to mind the bond between me and Sam. His loss of that vibrant tone from the music of his life reminded me of chords I would not hear again.