Pink Gooch is Different

It was throwback Thursday of a different kind.

First there was the Robinson Rose Crawl, which until it became unmanageable had been the Carytown Rose Crawl (and let me tell you, there are some stories there), and last year was abandoned entirely. But the power of Rose was too strong so a new crawl was devised, this one a seelf-guided tour instead of prior years when attendees were herded from bar to bar.

As someone who did herding duties several of those years, let me assure you that it's far better to let those on a pink mission set their own pace.

Mac and I began at Secco with dozens of other pink-clad people, she with Roquefort "Corail" Rose and moi with Raventos i Blanc Brut Rosat "De Nit" (I'm trying to think SPanish for the foreseeable future) to accompany a plate of season house pickled vegetables. I would have said that the beets were the tastiest morsels on the plate, at least until I tasted the asparagus which had been sweet pickled like bread and butter pickles, but there was also a lot to be said for the fiery pickled mushrooms, so let's just say they were all stellar and leave it at that.

I got my Rose passport stamped, our photograph was taken for the crawl memory book and we ceded our seats to a couple of women who'd just walked in. You never saw two people so happy to see us leave.

Walking down Robinson, we passed clutches of pink-wearing men and women, all seeming to be in high spirits. Arriving at Acacia, we were led to our table on the patio by the chef's son (also in a pink shirt) who already had the poise of a long-time host. It was a gorgeous evening to be dining outside, not to mention the bird's eye view it provided of the overgrown herb planter (so much mint gone to seed that Mac resolved to return with her clippers and give that mint a haircut) and the roving bands of Rose crawlers.

We toasted the crawl and the weather with glasses of Mimi Sparkling Rose from Provence (Mimi being Mac's nickname to her nephews) while chatting with the two overly tan and obviously high maintenance women from Goochland seated next to us. They'd been to Helen's and found both the Roses they'd ordered lacking, so they'd moved on.

When they found out we were going to see "A Chorus Line" after the crawl, they were fascinated.
Turns out Goochlanders have no clue that Richmond boasts a vibrant theater scene. "If I'd known I could go to a play, I could have planned to attend since I have a designated driver!" one exclaimed. Frankly, she didn't strike me like the play-going type, but at least she pretended.

It was our server's first night and a chaotic one at that, so we got our orders in quickly. Mac chose Peruvian tuna ceviche while I couldn't resist the redneck crabcake, a rich cake of whitefish and Old Bay with a side salad of pickled cucumber and red onion, accompanied by a glass of Paul D. Rose from Austria.

We wound up lingering so long we had no time for the other stops - Cask, Spoonbread and Helen's - before planting our butts at Richmond Triangle Players. It was Mac's first viewing after I'd raved about how RTP had pulled off 17 dancers on that stage with aplomb and grace.

At intermission, she started her own gushing about what an incredible production it was. Standing in line at the ladies' room, a woman behind me notes of the first act, "It's tough not to get up and dance. I was chair dancing so hard!"

Honey, join the club.

Another makes an observation about the dancer affectionately referred to as "Headband Boy" for his long hair, cheesy mustache and, yes, headband, "He's every guy in 1972." Tell me something I don't know.

Those two things alone - dancing and 1972 guys - are more than enough to require repeat viewings of such a fine production of "A Chorus Line." But when preceded by Rose crawling with the best walker I know, well, it's one singular sensation.

Everything is Beautiful

A dancer.

That had been the answer given years ago when a former boyfriend had been asked the question, "If Karen wasn't an editor, what would she have been instead?" I remember being surprised at the response while also knowing there was a kind of truth to it.

Granted, my dance training had amounted to three years at Miss Rita's School of Dance, but assuming that this was a bigger picture question, his answer wasn't far off. If I could have been exposed to real dance training, I think I'd have loved being a dancer, even given the relatively short span of a dance career.

So what better play to see to remind me of what never was than Richmond Triangle Players' production of "A Chorus Line" with my posse? The hardest part of seeing it was acknowledging that I remember when it debuted back in the dark ages of 1975.

After a stellar meal at Belmont Food Shop - the crab-topped Spring pea sformato over pea shoots was positively swoon-worthy - that began with amuse bouches of housemade pate, as well as gougeres, plus a hug from a long-time favorite chef now part of the kitchen there, we joined the throngs of theater-goers eager for one singular sensation.

I have little doubt that I saw "A Chorus Line" at the Kennedy Center back in the '70s, but the intervening four decades all but ensured that I had limited memories of it. Besides, if you lived through the '70s, you're not supposed to remember them, right?

Needless to say, I was surprised at how many of the Marvin Hamlish-penned songs besides "One" and "What I Did for Love" I knew (I Hope I Get It, I Can Do That, At the Ballet), a fact no doubt reinforced by all those Ghostlight After parties I attended at RTP where local actors got up and sang show tunes. Of course, to them "A Chorus Line" had been an "old" Broadway show, whereas to some of us, it represented the new breed of musicals that began taking over in the '70s.

But last night, it felt as rooted in the here and now as in that long-ago decade. In a nod to the 21st century, rather than cookie-cutter bodies, these dancers looked like real people of various shapes and sizes, similar only in that they could all dance and sing so well.

And while the entire cast was strong, I found my eye kept returning to Alexa Cepeda as Diana because her energy was so strong and her smile so beautiful, never more evident than when she brought down the house singing "What I Did for Love." Of course Alexander Sapp nailed the role of the imperious director, although it was hard not to miss watching him act since most of his lines were delivered from the back row.

The buzz among local theater geeks had been about how RTP was going to manage to stage this 17 actor-play on its petite stage, but I'm here to tell you they not only did, they made the audience forget its size when that chorus line was stretched out across the stage. It can't just be us wanna-be dancers who marvel at a well-executed kickline.

I may have missed out by choosing writing over dancing, but one thing I won't miss out on is seeing "A Chorus Line" a second time.

A girl can still dream of what could have been...