Protestant Bias
Five years ago, I was playing Sir Wilfrid Robarts (the Charles Laughton role) in the Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution and went directly from dress rehearsal to the Recreation Center, a downtown bar where I often played the open mic. I was still costumed as Sir Wilfrid--a dark suit, a blue bowtie, dark-rimmed glasses, a pocket handkerchief, and a buttonhole flower--dressed far more formally than I ever do as myself, along with a neatly cropped beard and hair. Apparently, I clean up well. A young blonde, a stranger, asked me if I wanted to dance. I say young. She was the kind of fifty that passes for thirty in dim light--twenty years my junior, and I assume she was drawn to Sir Wilfrid's distinguished aura and would have ignored my open-collar norm. Her assertiveness was pleasant if at first suspicious, as if she might be a pro, but our conversation migrated out to the bench on the sidewalk, a quieter place where we talked (well, mostly she talked) an hour o...