STREET THEATRE: Oh Mr. Albee, Aren't we all just hanging by a thread?

Something strange happened yesterday at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street. I'd taken Mom to an early-evening screening of the filmed version of Edward Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE. If you haven't seen the film, it's a rare treat. And if you know the play, there are some interesting adjustments. But more or less, Albee, who wrote the screenplay himself, stuck pretty close to the original.

In any event, Mom and I had just thoroughly loved it. It was such fun to just sort of bathe in Mr. Albee's acerbic wit, lines that make you laugh and shudder all at once. I was so glad to have the Quad Cinema so close to home.

About 5 min. into the film, a guy who had been sitting right behind me, slithered around and past our row and into a seat in the row just in front of us. At 5PM on a Thursday it was a sparsely filled house. I wondered for the briefest of moments whether he was moving to get away from us but neither I nor my Mom are particularly tall, so I dismissed the thought and forgot about him.

As the lights came up slowly as Mom and I watched the credits roll, I heard him speaking very loudly.