THAT THEATER SPACE IN THE NEW HOUSTON BALLET BUILDING REALLY CHAPS MY ASS “I have been going to the theater for nearly four decades, which means at the very least that I’ve encountered every possible sort of venue. I’ve sprawled on dirty gymnasium floors while watching modern dance, perched in rickety folding chairs during community Shakespeare productions, and squeezed into wooden fold-downs from the 19th century for long Mahler symphonies. I’ve languished in some of the oldest opera houses of Europe, where the seats are notoriously awful. I am sorry to say that even paint-chipped baseball bleachers are more comfortable than the seven rows of upholstered benches in the Margaret Alkek Williams Dance Lab at Houston Ballet’s new Center for Dance. . . . The seats are exactly one foot deep, with “backrests” only one foot high. Place two rulers in an “L” shape on your backside and you’ll get the idea: no support at all. You might be thinking that I should just lose some weight, and I won’t argue the point. However, a female friend told me recently that I have ‘no ass,’ so I don’t think it’s merely a matter of my size. I looked around and noticed everyone else shifting as well. There were several large people in the audience, and they looked positively miserable.” — Theodore Bale, reviewing a pair of Woody Allen plays put on by the Back Porch Players. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Michael Coppens [license]