Fairer Than a Cowbell

The greatest tragedy written before Shakespeare followed by glass-shattering Afropop.

Nice segue, don't you think?

My favorite boarding school graduate met me at Garnett's for tea sandwiches, angels on horsebacks and Paul Ponnelle Pinot Noir while bringing me up to date on her life. She'd been here, she'd been there and all on her own.

"I go all by myself everywhere! I'm becoming you except I don't write about it," she said. Must save a lot of time, I concluded.

Then we were off to see "Live at the Globe: Dr. Faustus," the better to satisfy our inner theater nerds. I'd never seen one of these HD-filmed stage productions, much less one filmed at the Globe Theatre where there were people crowded into the pit and leaning on the stage, assuming the groundling roles.

The production was a fine one with detailed Renaissance-era costumes, huge flying dragons and stilt-walkers with enormous fur robes and horns. And live musicians! It was wonderful hearing musical flourishes throughout (cue gong!). Like when the gates of hell opened with the banging of it.

It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.

Bawdy comedy abounded; when a man's head is replaced by a dog's head, he stops to lift his leg and the groundlings under him get a golden shower. Fire was everywhere: inside books, on the nether regions of a haggard wife-to-be.

The story of a man seeking knowledge who sells his soul to the devil ("If this be hell, let me be damned") uses the most beautiful language.

He has a buttock as slick as an eel.

Performances were top notch and the camera gave us wide shots, long shots and the occasional close-up. I might have had one little complaint with the production.

None but thou shall be my paramour.

To better mimic the theater experience, I'd have preferred one fixed camera angle. But that's quibbling.

Thou art fairer than the evening air.

And just like at a play, the audience clapped at the end of the performance. After the curtain call, the cast came back out for a little performance piece, with many in the cast bloody and moving gory puppets as the danced and sang.

Faustus and Mephistopheles came out, grabbed instruments and began doing that old standard, "Dueling Lutes." Faustus yelled, "It's the devils' music!" to much hilarity as the credits rolled.

Where can a person go after experiencing Christopher Marlowe at her neighborhood multi-plex but to Balliceaux for North Carolinian afropop?

Brand New Life was a six piece: guitar, bass, sax, trumpet, percussion, and drums and I arrived for the end of their first set. The sax player was all tousled hair and toe-tapping loafers. The drummer and the percussionist had the kind of young faces that will serve them well when they're 40.

The band's break was spent chatting with a local jazz musician. Best quote from him, "Not everyone's as motivated as you are." I took it as a compliment.

When the band returned, they kicked off in high gear, with the guitarist asking, "Do you want to hear another rock and roll song?" Why would we not? And by rock and roll song, he meant the bass player ditched the upright for an electric and assumed the rocker stance, one leg forward.

No one does rock and roll quite like a bearded jazz nerd.

A friend slipped into the yellow chair next to me during the second set, bringing with him tales of a first date. I got to hear about how two people I introduced got to know each other for the first time. But we only talked in between songs until the show was over.

What I liked about the band's sound was just how much was going on at any one time. With my limited musical vocabulary, I tried to explain this to my friend, who's a musician.

"No, that's the best way to put it," he said, making me feel less stupid. "Like Fela Kuti." Exactly what I meant.

It was during a particularly cacophonous section that there was the sudden sound of glass breaking as a wineglass had danced itself right off the back bar and onto the bar floor. Good vibrations. Actually, it was downright awesome.

During one song, the guitarist slid the neck of his guitar along a conga drum's skin, looking quite pleased with himself. The trumpet player (and likely leader) was a force of nature, alternately blowing and playing a drum on the chair in front of him.

And there was cowbell, lots of cowbell.

The band ended on what they called a funky song, giving the crowd permission to dance and coming out with horns blaring. A few guys shuffled their feet.

Me, I was just basking in the glow of hearing more than my ears could take in.

For all I know, it was the devil's music, too.