Fragment of my conversation at dinner this evening.
FRENCH GUY #1: ...dessert in the park. (To me) Hey, wouldn't that be a good title for a play? Dessert in the Park?
ME: Hmm... I don't know... There's a play called Barefoot in the Park...
FRENCH GUY #1: Barefoot in the Park? What's that about? No, don't tell me. To me--to me, Barefoot in the Park--sounds like a guy who, he is barefoot in the park because his wife was about to discover him in the apartment of his mistress, and he had to run out of there as fast as he could, and he didn't have time to put on his shoes.
ME: (Laughing) That is so French... No offense, but that's like the classic French farce scenario, right? Feydeau--
FRENCH GUY #1: So that is not the play, Barefoot in the Park?
ME: No, what it's really about is this free-spirited girl who marries a kind of buttoned-up guy, so she's the one who goes barefoot in the park--
FRENCH GUY #1: Ah yes. The clash of cultures...
ME: Lifestyles...
FRENCH GUY #1: ...East Coast businessman and California hippie--
ME: Yeah. The play is from the '60s so, you know, the hippie thing was just starting out.
FRENCH GUY #2: I still think Dessert in the Park is a better title.
FRENCH GUY #1: Yes!
FRENCH GUY #2: Because Barefoot in the Park--"barefoot" is not a very pretty word, in English, is it?
FRENCH GUY #1: And Barefoot in the Park--that's too plain. There is no ambiguity.
FRENCH GUY #2: But Dessert in the Park, that makes you curious. It leaves you with questions. It could be food, right, the dessert they are having--
FRENCH GUY #1: "Dessert" is a good word--
FRENCH GUY #2: Or it could be sex.
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