The Detroit Opera House makes me cry. Built in Detroit's heyday in 1922, the ornate decoration on just about every surface is breathtaking. The Michigan Opera Theater's performances are first-rate, and the main floor is completely handicapped accessible. So close to total opera utopia...but they have a bathroom problem. There is exactly one toilet on the main floor, located in the Cadillac Cafe. As you can imagine, there is no chance of getting to the front of that line during intermission. There is a large handicapped-accessible bathroom on what they call the third floor (although it is actually more like the sixth, for some reason), but only one tiny little elevator to transport the thousands of opera-goers who take the elevator to their seats as well as to the bathroom. Another large bathroom in the basement can be reached only by a long staircase.
A spokesman for the theater explained to me that when the theater was built 90 years ago, it only had 12 toilets, which gives me great admiration for our ancestors' bladder capacity, because I don't think operas then were any shorter than they are now. As for me, I haven't been able to enjoy the second (or third) act of any opera since I became handicapped because my brain is on my bladder.
No comments:
Post a Comment