Agony and the Blown Mind

Sartre was right. Hell is other people and I've concluded that those other people are incoming freshmen.

Somehow I must have missed the dire warnings that the Class of 2019 has been moving in over the past two days, discovering it only when I tried to get to Shoryuken Ramen to meet my dinner date and found Franklin Street closed to cars while over-sized suburban SUVs delivered spawn to dorms.

Another crop of Northern Virginia teenagers who've never lived in a city before have descended en masse to make our life more complicated while they learn to cross streets and parallel park.

I waited an eternity today behind a kid who sat in front of a flashing red light assuming it would eventually turn green. It didn't. And it won't ever.

My dinner companion and I weren't sure whether to expect Shoryuken to be empty or mobbed given the blockades, so we were pleasantly surprised at how uninhabited it was. That said, within half an hour every seat was filled and an awful lot of them looked like parents and or/parents and freshmen.

Translation: none of them looked like Richmonders.

Eating my Hiyashi Chucka - cold ramen in soy-tahini vinaigrette with corn, pulled chicken, scallions, pickled mushrooms, egg and bamboo - facing a window over Franklin Street, I marveled at a student toting a vacuum cleaner (probably his mother's idea) into his new abode. Surely he's not planning on using that thing.

Meanwhile my classic ramen-eating companion told me great stories about a mutual friend who now works at the Ignatius Hat Company in Petersburg. Of course I know someone who works in the hat business.

Replete, we headed to the Firehouse Theater to see Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit," a play I'd never even read, unlike the guy behind me who boasted that he'd read Sartre in philosophy class. Even so, he was the worst kind of person to sit in front of, constantly fidgeting, folding and unfolding his program and moving in his seat non-stop.

I want to choose my own hell.

I was fascinated to learn that the play had been formatted as a one-act play so French audiences could get home before the German-imposed curfew. There was no curfew, but I definitely had plans to get my mind blown afterwards, so I appreciated the brevity tonight.

You can always tell what a man really wants by his actions.

Because it's the Firehouse Theater, no performance would be complete without a fire truck screeching by mid-play. It's nice to know that there are constants in life.

You are your life and nothing else.

It's even better to know that a provocative play cast with three solid leads can take an audience into hell for a night. Of course the lately-ubiquitous McLean Jesse nails the shallow socialite and  DL Hopkins inhabits the cowardly journalist but it's Bianca Bryan's all encompassing portrayal of the lesbian secretary that's most electrifying. Foot tapping, eyes piercing, legs open when sitting, she's a fiercely cruel combatant.

But surely all of us would be miserable in a windowless room with no need to sleep and two people we can't stand our only company for eternity.

Outside on the sidewalk afterwards, we were surprised by fireworks exploding over the Diamond and paused to opine about what we'd just seen while we watched the explosions. "We could talk about the play all night, but you have places to be," he reminded me after 20 minutes of discussion.

As if nubile freshmen weren't enough of a hazard, tonight was also the Down Home Family Reunion in Abner Clay Park, so the streets of Jackson Ward were alive with cars cruising for parking spaces and people lugging chairs to the park.

Clearly Hell was all around me today.

I lugged my own chair to a prime spot and was soon joined by Charlie, a sweet man who has worked at the Pepsi Cola bottling plant in Mechanicsville for 25 years. In fact, he'd come straight from work, intending to stay 20 minutes and go home.

By the time we met, he'd been there five hours. But like me (and probably most of the crowd), he was looking forward to seeing the Delphonics. I give him credit; he knew the words to practically every song and the man could sing.

I've been to enough Down Home Family Reunions to know that by the time the headliner comes on, the show is running seriously behind. Tonight, the Delphonics came on at 10:43 instead of the 9:30 start time listed on the schedule. Not a problem for me, but plenty of people packed up and gave up.

There was a teachable moment tonight when I learned that Major Harris had been a Delphonic back in the '70s (what?), with the band covering Harris' big solo hit, "Love Won't Let Me Wait." The shocker was that Harris was a Richmond boy (Charlie tells me, "I met him in Petersburg a good while back. Nice guy"), news to me.

Maybe because the Delphonics didn't have loads of big hits, their set included a few classics from groups like the Temptations - "My Girl" got the dancing started followed by "Just My Imagination" - and in their shiny red suits, they pulled it off.

Some of the high notes were still there ("I ain't lost nothin'!" the lead singer said after a particularly silvery one), a very good things when they got to the biggies: "La-la Means I Love You" and "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time" which got not only broken down, but an extended jam. The entire crowd sang along in fine voice, plenty swaying in place.

Walking home, mind blown, a guy in a giant truck looks at me and asks if he has enough room to pull out of his parking space. Are you kidding, buddy? There's at least three feet in front of your truck. Just go.

Gack. Too many people harshing my mellow.

Don't let me end up in a locked room with people who wait endlessly at flashing red lights or can't parallel park. Please, no freshmen after death. I want to choose my own Hell.

Wig in a Box

One day you meet a witty bartender and the next thing you know, he's a transgender woman. Or, playing one anyway.

Once upon a time in Richmond, back in the days before Heritage's world domination, I was a regular at Six Burner, the restaurant that preceded it. It was there that I met a new bartender, hit it off with him and spent the evening gabbing about life, theater and music.

He made sure I knew about the new event he'd started, the monthly Ghost Light afterparty at Richmond Triangle Players. I went a few weeks later and got to see my new bartender friend in his rightful place, a stage. Matt Shofner played host and frequent performer that night and I became his unabashed fan.

Only years of those Sunday nights listening to Matt's incredible voice and watching his non-stop showmanship could have prepared me for TheatreLab's production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" that I saw tonight.

I'd been dying to see the inside of TheaterLab's new space, dubbed The Basement because it is, conveniently for me located in Jackson Ward.

Down the stairs I've passed so many times I went, only to find the subterranean DIY space that is evolving into their permanent performance home, learning that it was formerly a shoe store and a speakeasy, somehow appropriate both of them.

As further proof that we weren't in Kansas anymore, this was not your granny's program. It warned us to pee beforehand (no intermission), that strobe lights would be used because they're awesome and that the band was going to be l-o-u-d. I was okay with all of that.

Saying hello to artistic director Deejay Gray - looking very '70s in his desert boots - he welcomed me warmly and instructed me to "sit close so Hedwig can see you." As someone who likes to see the actors spit, he didn't have to tell me twice.

I found a single seat in the second row center, only to have a tall guy sit down in front of me. Fortunately, he was a sloucher.

"Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not...Hedwig!" was a cue for the incredibly tight four piece band (appropriately bedazzled in makeup and glitter) to begin playing "America the Beautiful" as Matt strutted out in a cape, denim dress, torn fishnets and high-heeled boots.

He had some pretty impressive moves considering his heel height, that's all I'm going to say. Meanwhile, Hedwig said things like, "I do love a warm hand on my entrance."

Using song and monologue, he told the story of his life growing up in East Berlin, listening to the American music of the time  - Tony Tennille, Anne Murray - on Armed Forces Radio. At one point, he stood with his leg on either side of the guy in front of me, gyrating his hips and grinding his leopard-print shorts into his face.

You see, beneath that leopard print was Hedwig's greatest disappointment: the inch of flesh left after a botched sex change operation. Hence the band name, the Angry Inch.

The play has a great score and "Origin of Love" is the best musical explanation of predestined soul mates as any I've heard. The rousing "Sugar Daddy" was instantly familiar since Matt and crew always sing that at GLAP when the hat gets passed for the pianist, although I hadn't known it was from this.

Local references abounded in the script - Hedwig was supposedly starting her tour at The Basement, her ex-lover was playing that night at Richmond Coliseum - but the best one came after a raucous number.

"I think we finally found our single," Hedwig says of the kick ass song they'd just done.

Meanwhile, he's got a Hardywood Singel in the palm of his hand and is counting 1, 2,3, 4 under his breath as he displays it. "These things don't pay for themselves," he cracked, referring to Hardywood Craft Brewery's sponsorship of "Hedwig."

As if that wasn't funny enough, Hedwig also explained what he was doing for a living in his trailer. "I lost my job at the PX and lost my gag reflex, You do the math." Done.

Because of when the play took place, namely before and after the Berlin Wall came down, there were tons of '70s and '80s references and several times, I found myself one of the very few who laughed out loud at them, no doubt a result of a young Friday night audience.

"His face might have been a Yes cover, it was so still," he deadpanned and my laugh was the only one in the room. Come on, that's hilarious...if you knew the band Yes.

The only other actor in the show was Bianca Bryan and there were times I was riveted by her performance, usually over on the far side of the stage, no matter what Matt was doing. She was an ideal foil for him, both musically and in terms of her character.

Director Maggie Roop - Matt's longtime friend and original fan - deserves a round of applause herself for putting together a top-notch production theater lovers will be talking about for some time to come.

By the time we got to the climax, it had been 90 non-stop minutes of rock and roll, Matt Shofner's mega-talent and a story that reminds us that sometimes you don't realize who your soul mate is.

Best of all, it played out in a basement in my neighborhood, christening the new space in the most impressive and irreverent way. Six Burner, I owe you.

There's a lesson here: don't stop going to bars. Look at the talent I meet. You do the math.