Save Me from Soma

Not everyone cares to revisit the dystopian memories of youth.

To be clear, I'd invited three friends to join me for Quill Theatre's production of "Brave New World." Although not one of us had ever seen it performed live, two turned me down flat on the spot and only one, the ever-agreeable Beau, signed on.

Where's your spirit of adventure, kids?

When he came to pick me up, I invited him upstairs to admire three pieces of newly-framed art I'd just hung. It's all part of my master plan to convince him to finally frame the art he bought two years ago that has yet to make it to his walls.

How do people live with no art on their walls anyway?

Even after I'd made my clunky point, he was still willing to drive us to Brenner Pass for dinner. I don't know what kind of week it had been for him, but he said for the record that he needed something sweet and fruity (no judgement here), resulting in a frothy pink Caribbean Canneberg showing up, while I kept my drinking simple (and bubbly) with a Cremant de Jura while the dining room crowd multiplied around us.

He was curious about what I'd been up to, so I dished on the cyclist I'd interviewed the day before and the month-long biking trips he takes all over the world. He'd told me that once he biked a place, he never went back because he preferred that his first memory of a place be his only, a sentiment I said I could understand.

Not Beau. He was immediately flummoxed. What if you like a place and want to see it again? Why go somewhere new if you liked the last place you went? It's fascinating to me how some people can't even imagine the pleasure of something they personally have no desire to do.

Once we got down to the business of food, there was some horsetrading going on because he wanted the quail (turns out he grew up eating quail...Beau, I hardly knew ye) but he also wanted bucatini, so I agreed to get the bird and share, allowing him to have his pasta and eat quail, too.

But before any of that, I wanted to share the citrus salad, a brilliant choice, it turned out, as we both raved about the complementary flavors and textures.

The quail had gotten the Thanksgiving treatment, with stuffing and pureed root vegetables subbing for mashed potatoes, but it was the crispy, seasoned skin neither of us was forgetting anytime soon.

Amazed to see a new dessert on the menu since I was last in, I felt obligated to fall on that sword. Did I mention it happened to be chocolate? It was called a mousse, but came across as more of a bombe, with a thick coating of dark chocolate ganache over a lighter chocolate, while Beau finally ordered the coffee profiteroles and promptly went into raptures.

Never mind that I'd suggested them when we were there two weeks ago and he'd claimed to be too full for dessert. Of course, he then went on to eat half of mine.

There was no lingering after dinner, much as we might have enjoyed it, because we needed to get to the far reaches of the Henrico county for the play. Along the way, we made a pit stop at the Dugout, not for cheap drinks and the so-so jukebox, but for a photo of us against the sign, the better to taunt the employee we know who wasn't there and missed our brief appearance.

And as a side note, I'd like some bonus points for venturing to the county, since everyone is convinced I don't. We all make sacrifices for art, you know.

Waiting for the play to start, Beau inquired about my break in blogging, asking if it felt weird not to blog when I'm still going out every night. When I told him that wasn't the case, he was gobsmacked. In fact, he was still wrapping his man brain around it when the action onstage began.

Once we got through the initial exposition, "Brave New World" turned out to be a well-acted, creatively-directed take on a story most of us haven't read since high school or college (except Ihad reread it about 6 or 7 years ago), but still mostly remember.

Cliff Notes: Soma is the government-supplied happy drug, babies grow in test tubes and there is no emotion. The end.

In the not-often-enough category, it was especially gratifying to see the colorblind and gender-blind casting of Lucretia Anderson in the main role of Mustapha. Just as satisfying were the sheer amount of lines taken directly from Shakespeare - a joy to hear spoken - along with Caleb Wade's terrific performance (and fine-looking chest) as the savage John.

And lest I sound like I can't get past a firm young body, Jacqueline Jones chewed up scenery as Linda, the savage's mother, but then when isn't she magnificent in whatever role she's playing?

Once we left Huxley's dystopian world, it was for the glamour of Pru's manse and a few hours of conversation. She may not have wanted to go to the play, but she did want every detail on dinner and the play.

As Beau and I fell over each other's words describing what we'd seen, he praised Wade's performance but said he couldn't recall seeing him before. Knowing this wasn't the case and whipping out the program to prove it, I showed Pru his bio listing with its accompanying photo.

"Of course I remember him!" she said, with a wave of her hand, as I knew she would. An attentive playgoer remembers a fine physique talent such as his

Of course, if she'd gone with us, she could have appreciated it from the good seats. His talent, I mean.

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Cut to the chase: Four diamonds led to onstage vomiting and ended with a fairy and jazz.

Long version: It's probably a good thing that we already had reservations at Shagbark for Saturday night given the four diamond rating AAA bestowed on them last week.

Even with a ridiculously early reservation, our table was back in one of the private dining rooms rather than the main one, no skin off my nose since it also meant we got the locally hand-crafted dinnerware and fewer soul-less West End types at the tables surrounding us.

Being first in the dining room meant that the soundtrack was easy to hear and while some people might enjoy - even sing along to - the Little River Band's "Lonesome Loser," I'm not one of them, although they could have continued playing the Spinners and Earth, Wind and Fire all night as far as I was concerned.

"Good tune-age," my friend commented, albeit after a Billy Joel song. To each, his own.

To try to help us forget that we were at a restaurant in an empty shopping center on a boring stretch of county road, we looked at wine options beginning with the Loire before moving on to Chilean and Australian possibilities.

Asked her opinion of the southern hemisphere grapes, my friend inquired, "Why did we ever leave the Loire?" and in no time, a bottle of Domaine de la Chezatte Sancerre Blanc appeared, seducing us with its pear nose while its minerality decided my first course: bivalves.

It didn't hurt that on the menu were White Stone oysters (baked with butter, Pecorino, herbes fine and breadcrumbs) from an up and coming new oyster company I'd just read about earlier today in the Post, although I'm still not entirely convinced that producing oysters of the exact same size is desirable - come on, that doesn't happen in nature - but perhaps that's just me.

Over a wide-ranging dinner conversation - septuagenarians starting an artists' co-op, men's Star Trek boxer briefs with catch phrases (Go boldly! Engage!) on the waist band, conversational veneer - we dug deep into the four diamond menu, including a roasted winter vegetable ragout, which sounds vaguely healthful until you learn that it's crowned with a poached egg, Surry sausage, fresh Ricotta and lion's mane mushrooms made obscene with a celery root cream sauce.

No, really, the veggies were there somewhere.

High marks went to a salad of poached pears, duck confit, Goats 'R Us Camembert, walnuts and maple vinaigrette, but mainly as a way of absolving guilt for what was to come.

Good as my brandy peppercorn-crusted ahi tuna with scallions, Sea Island peas, roasted peppers and truffle vinaigrette was, nothing could touch my friend's red wine-braised ruby veal (a heritage breed, not to mention a one pound serving) with toothsome saffron heirloom creamer peas, arugula and citrus salad, shaved sweet onion and forest mushroom emulsion, a dish that was summed up with the pronouncement, "My expectations have been met and that never happens."

Truer words were never spoken, whether applicable to food, entertainment or people. Call me easy, but I'm not that hard to please.

To satisfy our collective sweet tooths (teeth?), we ordered two dark chocolate souffle cakes with creme fraiche, dulce de leche, Port, blackberries and vanilla gelato before rolling out of a restaurant that had been uninhabited when we'd arrived and was now at capacity.

Diamonds are a restaurant's best friend, it would seem, even one in a lonesome location.

The reason for our ridiculously early meal was an equally ridiculously early curtain for Quill Theatre's "The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr: Abridged" at an even more remote location than dinner: the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

The three man play promised us intellectual salvation and managed to cover all of Shakespeare's plays with a nod to the sonnets and spit us out at a reasonable hour, with non-stop hilarity along the way.

From the initial introduction which included a tutorial in how to use an oxygen mask should something drastic happen at the Cultural Arts Center mid-performance to the backwards ending, we laughed off a lot of our dinner, or at least that's what we told ourselves.

During the mocking of "Romeo and Juliet," for instance, when an actor walked onstage, another said, "It's the Prince," only to be corrected to, "The artist formerly known as Prince," after which all three kissed their first two fingers and raised them to heaven along with their eyes.

Where, in a scene of timeless romance
He'll try to get into Juliet's pants

Or when Romeo starts being overly familiar with fair Juliet and she reminds him in a singsong voice, "Second base is for second dates!"

"Titus Andronicus" was re-imagined as a cooking show ("Welcome, Gore-mays!") geared to those who don't feel like cooking after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, while Othello became a rap despite the very white actors. How white? They met at a They Might Be Giants show.

All sixteen comedies were condensed into a montage dubbed "The Loveboat Goes to Verona," with assorted lovers and cousins washed ashore by "massive waves, like the rising tide of nationalism in the world."

So, yea, there was much referencing of current events throughout. Shakespeare takes on fresh nuances in Trump's America.

Because they said that Shakespeare's comedies aren't as funny as his tragedies, they performed "Macbeth" in ridiculously thick Scottish accents, with Macduff saying, "I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped. I didn't like it but I support a woman's right to choose."

It was during "Julius Cesar" that actor CJ Bergin was reminded by his fellow actors Dixon Cashwell and Joseph Bromfield that, "Not all Shakespeare's heroines wear bad wigs and vomit onstage," which you'd never have known given how many bad wigs and the abundance of stage vomiting we'd already seen.

Diving into the geo-political plays, we saw "Two Noble Kinsman" ridiculed as "Chernobyl Kinsman" before witnessing an interpretive dance version of "Troilus and Cressida" ("I love interpretive dance. It's so pretentious!").

"Richard II" and "Richard III" became a football game with a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance. By the time we got to intermission, all three actors were a hot, sweaty mess.

The second act began, not by reading any of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, but by passing from audience member to member a card that contained the first line of them all while Joseph played a song flute onstage.

The card never made it to us, that's all I'm saying. Thankfully, I have my own copy of the sonnets and not just the first lines, either.

Naturally, "Hamlet" got the lion's share of performance time with Dixon scootching and somersaulting to reach the spotlight when it was time for his "To be or not to be" soliloquy and the audience members being recruited to play the ego, super ego and id of Ophelia.

There was a lot of screaming involved, but mercifully, no heaving.

After the final scene, they trio redid "Hamlet" except even more quickly this time and then, just to show off, did it backwards ("Listen for the Satanic messages!") and it was over. Two hours and every worthwhile Shakespearean endeavor had been alluded to, mocked and, in a few cases, even quoted accurately, albeit with a lot of bad wigs and onstage vomiting.

Rather than call it a night, I suggested the Gypsy Room for jazz because Brunswick was playing and, coincidentally, they have an absinthe fountain and it's been an absinthe sort of a weekend.

Scoring stools at the center of the bar facing the fountain, we fashioned our own drips - fact: no two people like the same ratio of sugar cube and ice water to wormwood - while the band got set up and familiar faces began drifting in - the former neighbor, the DJ, the photographer, the musician, the restaurateur.

The Gypsy Room has such great sound and the 13-piece Brunswick took full advantage, regaling the ever-growing crowd with a horn-filled vibe alternately chill and rousing, so just what a Saturday night needed.

Even for those beaten by the queen of hearts every time.

Well in the Present

No doubt about it, we're in the home stretch for November.

Walking by the front of Kroger yesterday - it's 63 degrees, sunny and I'm wearing shorts, mind you - I see employees untying Christmas trees. When I make a comment about it being a tad early, the manager-looking one cracks, "Yea, they're Thanksgiving trees!"

Hardee-har-har.

Tonight I drive out to the boondocks Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen for the On the Air Radio Players' "Turkeys on the Radio" live radio show.

Walking in, the receptionist looks at my outfit and says, "You look like you're from the '80s. I like it!" As I pass by, she calls out, "Rock on!" which is always my intent anyway.

The audience was scattered all throughout the November Theatre (yes, there are November Theatres in every nook and cranny of this town), but I was surprised that as many times as I've been there for these radio shows over the years, this was the first time I'd ever seen someone I know there.

Unfortunately, it was also the first time anyone was foolish enough to bring a toddler who squawked throughout or that someone forgot to turn their cell phone off, meaning the live recording now includes an anachronistic ring tone midway through (something the director usually warns against but he was a first-timer and forgot).

As is only right, both tonight's radio plays had Thanksgiving themes.

1950's "Our Miss Brooks: Thanksgiving Turkey" was about how Miss Brooks tried to plot to get her favorite single man to invite her to turkey dinner (even if she had to pay the $1.50 for her own meal), a dilemma that involved buying a live turkey to save money and then catching it once it got loose in the house.

Favorite line: "Live well in the present. The future ain't never done nothin' for nobody!"

1942's "The Great Gildersleeve: Thanksgiving" was obviously a wartime story with references to gas applications, food shortages and the Ration Board. In it, ten-year old Leroy worried about looking like a sissy in his Pilgrim costume for the school production of "The Courtship of Miles Standish" and cracked  a Longfellow joke.

They sure don't make 10-year olds like they used to.

Along the way, the cast did singing commercials for Colgate, Luster Cream shampoo and Parkay margarine, touting it as "a nourishing energy food with Vitamin A, wholesome and economical." They left out the awful tasting part, but in wartime, I guess you take what you can get.

Maybe most interesting to me were the frequent references to having ham for Thanksgiving instead of turkey, a tradition I've never even heard of. Ham for Christmas or Easter, both ham and turkey for those holidays, but just ham on Thanksgiving? Not in my lifetime.

I've long been a fan of OTARP's shows for the glimpse they offer into a time I didn't know - as well as for watching the machinations of a radio play - not to mention the appealing corniness of the commercials. Although tonight's cast had more than their share of muffed lines and lost places in the script, it was still more than worth the price of admission.

But after an hour in the county, I was ready to return to the city for another November tradition: the Cru Beaujolais tasting followed by the post-midnight unveiling of the Beaujolais Nouveau at Amour.

Except, unlike my friend Holmes, I'm not much of a fan of the young, fruity wine, so it was enough to join the regulars at the bar, enjoy a warming bowl of French onion soup and marvel at my first white Beaujolais, Domaine des Nugues Blanc, a lovely acidic wine with a distinct honey taste.

"This would be wonderful with lobster," one of the regulars commented. "Perfect for New Year's Eve. Except we'll probably be here." The owner smiled. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see lobster with this wine on his menu come December 31st.

A woman came in to, as she put it, "drink her dessert" while her son finished up a game of Dungeons and Dragons nearby, so of course we invited her to join our conversation. A New Jersey transplant, she was already madly in love with Richmond after only two years.

When she left to collect her son, it was with regret about leaving our lively political discussion, but she also assured us she'd be back next Wednesday, should we want to further it.

As the hour got later, but still pre-midnight, the many bottles of Cru Beaujolais clustered at the end of the bar were opened as more people arrived looking for their November fix.

After pouring wine in several glasses, the owner stood by the bar, holding the neck of the bottle, whether guarding it or ready to pour more, I can't say for sure.

A female guest looked at his stance and joked, "I work out and I could just grab that bottle from you and run!"

"Grab a wine bottle? Not from a Frenchman!" he responded. Acknowledging the French lock on wine, she didn't bother trying. Meanwhile, I discussed piano moving with an expert - a man who'd moved his three pianos six times - amazed at how many ways there are to move such large objects.

For the first time in years, I didn't stay for the uncorking of the Nouveau (it was a short night last night), instead abdicating my bar stool to a later arrival once I heard there were a dozen reservations on the books for midnight, which was minutes away.

And so November rocks on.

Hellbent for Leather

I want to open mouth kiss this weather.

I want to believe that we have turned a corner and that I won't have to turn my heat back on until November. I want to hope that, like tonight, I get to eat dinner on a patio with a view of people walking their dogs a few feet away on the sidewalk. I want to wear shorts on my walk every single day and, like today, shorts to an interview if I so choose.

It's crazy how Spring fever is instantly affecting people, too. My phone never rings this much.

Mid-afternoon, a neighbor calls to invite me on a prolonged stroll tomorrow. "Let's walk down Monument Avenue and talk about architecture!" he suggests. Let's.

Another friend calls up to remind me that we haven't gotten together recently and can we rectify that pronto? And by pronto, he means tonight. We can.

After over-indulging al fresco, we set out for the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, only to end up on a one-lane bridge on the far side of Old Washington Highway. Truthfully, I don't even know what county we're in.

The benefit of this is that we are in the sticks and the sound of frogs singing surrounds us. It may as well be June.

"It just got warm last week!" my friend jokes. "I thought frogs took 21 days to germinate! Where'd they all come from so fast?" That I don't know, but judging by the symphonic chorus of croaking we're hearing, they're fully formed.

After backtracking, we land at  the Cultural Arts Center and find seats in the November auditorium, the size and luxury of which surprises my friend. We're there to see a live radio broadcast of "When Westerns Were King," showcasing John Ford's "Stagecoach" (originally broadcast in 1949) and "The Lone Ranger: Footlights on the Frontier" from 1944.

A young girl in a period dress, looking very "Little House on the Prairie"-like, gives us a program and counts us off on her clicker.

Waiting for the show to begin, we get on the subject of pickling and although he says he's not a big pickle person, the fact is, he does love bread and butter pickles and pickled onions, so I figure he just needs more exposure. Ergo, I suggest we attend the upcoming Pickled & Fermented festival.

Now he's a on a roll. "My Dad used to make pickles, grew his own cucumbers and made bread and butters. He made balloon wine, too with grape juice and sugar." He's still explaining to me how a balloon enters into wine-making when the lights go down.

A man in a cowboy hat, bandana and jeans comes out to start the show, tossing his hat up in the air, explaining the applause light and how to clap properly (double time works best) for the first-timers, one of whom I'm sitting next to.

Suddenly, we're in Radio Gulch and drinking sarsaparilla.

"Stagecoach," billed as a romance of the West, gives us all the great tropes of the genre: gun shots, galloping horses and a bad girl named Dallas who really has a heart of gold. She's part of the group - you know, the usual: alcoholic doctor, pregnant woman, and our hero, the Ringo Kid aka the John Wayne role - heading to Lordsburg on the stagecoach.

It's just that the Apache Indians aren't real happy about white folk crossing into their territory. Fortunately, all that drama is leavened with lines like, "Well, I guess I can't break out of prison and into society in the same week." Probably not.

The fun in watching these radio plays comes from the actors playing multiple roles and the array of sound effects created onstage. We got to see a lot of sandbags hitting the floor tonight to simulate people falling off their horses after being shot.

"The Lone Ranger" episode was cornier, but saved by the Shakespeare-spouting actor ("Are you calling me a ham?") who helps save the buried miners and reveal the owner of a neighboring shaft as the bad guy, all in the guise of a performance.

Just as much fun were the commercials for "the new breakfast cereal, Cheerios," touted as the ideal way to break the monotony of corn cereals for breakfast every day. Hell, I didn't even realize we had cold cereals in the '40s.

Ordinarily, I'm not much of a Western fan - too much adventure for me - although honestly, I'm not sure how many I've seen, but it's tough not to enjoy a radio script with lines such as, "Let's plant some bullets where they'll do the most good."

And right after that, let's rustle up some balloon wine and plant that where it'll do the most good, preferably on a sunny patio where I'm wearing shorts.

Hi-ho, Silver.

Dirty Dozen

There's a lot to be said for getting a second chance.

Spurring that thought was the On the Air Radio Players' delightful "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," a live radio performance using the script of the original Lux Radio Theater production, complete with hilarious live commercials for Cock-a-doodle-do Stew ("For you or for two, in a can of blue").

When a boxer is mistakenly taken to heaven before he was supposed to die, he's unwilling to accept his fate (aren't we all sometimes?). Heaven's Mr. Jordan takes him back to earth to find a suitable body in which to finish out his lifespan.

Of course that's when he meets a woman he can't resist and falls in love.

Problems arise when he's forced to abandon that body because it's murdered and find another. Mr. Jordan assures him that he'll still be himself, Joe the boxer, no matter what body he's using and that his love will be able to "recognize" him.

Despite the elements of fantasy (ghosts walking through walls) and broad comedy (intentionally bad sax playing), the play was really very romantic, a testament to love and attraction being so much more than just a physical thing.

And because it was a live radio play, we got to see all the sound effects being made - newspapers rustled, doors slammed, shoes walking, smacking kisses - along with a keyboard and sax player. Favorite effect: the guy doing the announcing for the big fight projected his voice next to a coffee can for the appropriate '40s-sounding reverb.

Taken right from the current headlines was the line, "Have the twins gotten over the measles yet?" Back when people had no choice about kids getting it.

We romantics in the audience were gratified when Joe and Betty met again after he'd assumed another body and both immediately felt a spark of something despite it being their "first" meeting. Love triumphs.

But it also begs the question: would you really be able to sense someone you love if they were completely unrecognizable? I don't know, although I'd like to think I would.

Since I see zero chance of being whisked off to heaven early (or at all), it's probably not my concern.

From the far reaches of the county, it was back into the heart of the city for music and a celebration of sorts. Balliceaux was hosting Stelth Ulvang, the multi-instrumentalist from the Lumineers, playing a one-off show with his band tonight.

Waiting at the front bar for my date, the bartender and I debated the pronunciation of Stelth's name and what kind of music he played. She'd heard the sound check and guessed folk, but the songs I'd listened to online were broader than that, infused with more of a chamber pop sound.

In either case, we were both looking forward to it.

Once I had company, we began with "J" Brut Cuvee and a toast to a Tuesday night a dozen years ago and the unlikelihood of second chances.

When the sound of music began, we moved to the back room for the opener, a guy with braids and a trucker's hat who, as it turned out, was also the guitarist from Stelth's band. His songs were sad and his guitar chimed beautifully for an enjoyable short set (he described his set list as a "pick your own adventure" of sad and less sad options).

When he finished, we moved on to "J" Brut Rose while talking to the guy seated next to us who works at the National about the nature of music fans and how much they drink (country music fans imbibe the most).

Stelth came out barefoot and playing an acoustic guitar alone before being joined by his band mates on electric bass (and sometimes upright bass), drums (sometimes using mallets or playing with sticks on the side of drums) and the guitarist with the terrific-sounding guitar.

He was an engaging performer, entreating the audience to move closer (we happily moved our chairs to the front row) and even standing on empty chairs to lean into the room for effect.

Mentioning how much he liked playing small rooms (understandably given the size of the venues the Lumineers play), he observed, "The Lumineers played here three years ago and I think there are more people here tonight than there was that night."

Maybe Richmond has more Stelth Ulvang fans than Lumineers fans.

Eventually trading his acoustic guitar for a handsome accordion, they began playing through the songs listed on a weathered-looking red-framed chalkboard Stelth had propped up on the stage, "Where I can see it but my band can't."

At one point, he polled the audience as to whether he should play more accordion or move to the piano. Several people called out for accordion but I was right up front and called for piano, whereupon he pointed at me, and said, "The lady wants piano," and moved behind it.

It pays to tell some guys what you want.

Part of my motivation in asking was that he hadn't played it yet despite most of the songs I'd heard online being piano-based. The only downside was that then he couldn't scamper around the room as he sang his wordy and literate songs, such as the lively "Carl Sagan."

It was at this point that he finally tossed his knit cap to the floor and before long, his cardigan, no doubt plenty warm after so much music-making and cavorting.

Considering 24 hours ago I'd had no clue who Stelth Ulvang was, I can honestly say I was disappointed when his brief set ended. Once again, Richmond had gotten lucky scoring a talented band on an off night.

Luckily, it was still early enough to continue the celebration, so we moseyed back to the front bar for ruminations on Charleston, enlightened hospitality and, yes, being unwilling to accept your fate.

Sometimes you need a second chance because you weren't quite ready for the first. Sometimes you just need a bowl of Cock-a-doodle-do stew and spoons for two.

Super Spies and Regular Guys

I don't know that single women went out by themselves in 1945. But if they did, their evening may have gone something like mine did.

It began with dinner at a lunch counter, Garnett's to be precise, because it's the kind of wholesome place even a single gal could have gone to alone, knowing it wouldn't break the bank or put her in contact with an unsavory character. The kind of place you expect to see pie stands on the counter.

There, I sat at the counter next a table with a couple on a date, probably their first. I say this because they politely and formally shared stories of their lives with each other as they ate.

Telling her about a party he went to, he bragged that there was free booze and he got a little wild. "But I don't usually drink much," he finished in a rush as if it had just occurred to him that she might not be looking for a wild one.

Me, I was just looking for a farmer's salad piled high with bacon and apples and a chance to finish reading today's Washington Post while the Avett Brothers played in the background. They'd sold out of my favorite chocolate/coconut cake at lunch, so I went without dessert, probably a good thing after my weekend of non-stop eating with my sisters.

From there I trekked to the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen for tonight's production by the On the Air Radio Players, appropriately titled "Noir-vember."

Walking into the lobby, I noticed the scene had been set with old detective film posters such as a French one for "The Maltese Falcon" and another for "This Gun for Hire" starring the sultry Veronica Lake. Inside the theater, music of the early 20th century played.

Since I've been to these radio plays before, the first thing I noticed was that the sound effects table had been moved to the back of the stage from the side, a shame since it was harder for me to watch the fun as  they walked shoes, knocked on doors and jingled keys. I'm sure they had a good reason.

Four microphones were set up for the ten actors and four for the sound effects team with the keyboardist off to our right. I was fourth row center with a terrific view of it all.

I noticed a guy setting up a camera and soon spotted the vertically superior Mark Holmberg with him, no doubt inspired to do a piece on OTARP after seeing the one in Style Weekly (penned by this blog's heroine). Or not.

When the actors came onstage, many were in '40s garb with women in hats and men in trench coats. The announcer encouraged us to laugh, cry and have a great time and the show began with the applause light coming on and the audience responding accordingly.

The first play was "The Saint: The High Fence," first aired on CBS in June 1945 and it was appropriately sponsored by Tan Man trench coats ("Trench coats for the super spy or the regular guy") with a trio of women singing the Tan Man jingle for us.

Nothing says man of mystery like a Tan Man raincoat.

Not that I don't enjoy a good mystery story, but a big part of the appeal of a 70-year old radio play is the language. When's the last time you used slug (not the slimy kind), pigeon (not the disgusting city bird) or throttle (the car part not the verb)? See what I'm saying?

Or when's the last time a man said to a woman, "You should caution your friend in her choice of haberdashery," like the Saint did to his girlfriend Pat? Oh, I don't know, never?

Speaking of the character Pat, every time the Saint mentioned kissing her, she'd rise up on tiptoe and lift one leg fetchingly behind her. Very cute.

No surprise, the Saint recovered the $27,650 worth of stolen diamonds and the announcer said, "The Saint solved another one!" No doubt because he wore a Tan Man raincoat, I might add.

You really have to experience a radio play to fully appreciate how actors with scripts in hand and sound technicians with a host of items that make noise can make you "see" things that aren't actually being shown.

After a round of applause, we went right into "The Adventures of Sam Spade: The Hot 100 Grand Caper" from 1948.

It had the distinction of being sponsored by Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic (with lanolin!), the choice of men who put good grooming first. Do we still have those kind of men? I don't think they were referring to metro-sexuals in 1948.

The story was about a woman whose husband is being blackmailed so she engages Sam Spade to find out what's going on. You see, he's been going out a lot at night and that's not like him. "Only desperation could induce him to leave the house after dark!" Fortunately, I have no similar compunction.

It took some gambling on the wife's dime and sacrificing her car so he wouldn't get shot, but Sam managed to make everything better by the end.

How much better? Well, the plan to celebrate consisted of staying up late to raid the icebox.

Ah, the simple pleasures of the 1940s. Dinner at a lunch counter and a radio play of detective stories, complete with sound effects and music.

I've got the staying up late part nailed. Now if only my refrigerator was worth raiding...

Women Make It Happen

You know, just another Wednesday night.

In lieu of cocktail hour, I was at the Virginia Historical Society for Daniel Okrent's talk on "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition." You know what Okrent wanted to call the book? "How the Hell Did That Happen?"

Truly. How the hell did this country ever think that 14 years without legal booze was going to be a good idea?

Most interesting fact gleaned from the talk? Women made Prohibition happen and women made it go away.

Okrent did a nice job tying up the factors that led to a dry (as if) country: The women's suffrage movement, the institution of the income tax and WW I starting. If we were going to hate the Germans because of the war, we couldn't very well be drinking beer, now could we?

And you know who fought Prohibition? The Catholics and the Jews. The Irish and the Italians. As an Irish Catholic (at least by birth), I'll take credit for my people keeping their heads when all around were losing them.

Winston Churchill called Prohibition, "An insult to the entire history of mankind." That insult led to speakeasies, which made for a cultural revolution. Instead of male-dominated saloons, women helped populate speakeasies so the rules had to change a bit.

Women being present is why table service began. Why food in bars improved. Why powder rooms were added. Feel free to thank the next woman you see.

Okrent said that the curb put on American drinking during Prohibition lasted for generations. In fact, it wasn't until 1972 that we finally got back to pre-Prohibition drinking levels. I only wish I'd been old enough to help the cause.

During the Q & A, the first question was about drug use. Okrent laughed, saying he had bet someone earlier that one of the first three  questions would be about drug use. Drink, drugs, I guess that's just what was on peoples minds at the VHS tonight.

With the repeal of the Prohibition amendment in 1933, we moved forward in time  to the forties at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen. The On the Air Radio Players were doing two radio plays from the golden age of radio, Fiber McGee and Molly and a Jack Benny program.

First the announcer taught us to clap when the applause sign came on (extra fast clapping sounds like more people, so we clapped furiously) so we could fulfill our audience duties.

The program was called "Frugal Confessions" and was a tribute to a time "when people were proud to be cheap." You know, cheap is chic and tight is right.

The 1941 "Fibber Gets his Hand Caught in a Bottle" was about hapless Fibber trying to steal 35 cents left in a milk bottle and his travails getting it off. "Jack Benny Loses $4.75 at the Race Track" had the long-suffering Benny unable to stop obsessing about his monetary loss, especially when his friends had won.

Both plays were read by people with terrific voices, countless dialects and two sound effects people who slammed doors, knocked and walked shoes to make the appropriate sounds.

It was an old-school production that will naturally be made into a podcast for modern audiences. Let's just say I prefer seeing it done live.

As we got closer to midnight and the advent of the third Thursday in November, we knew it was time to get to Amour Wine Bistro. Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrive!

And while no one is going to get excited about drinking beaujolais nouveau for long (except maybe Holmes and he's in Las Vegas), the third Thursday opening of the new harvest is a delightful excuse to start drinking at midnight.

We got good seats at the bar and before long the place was filling up with other revelers. Because it was a night devoted to the gamay grape, we began with a sparkling gamay (G?) which set the tone with its beautiful pink bubbles and dry taste.

Dessert followed, dark chocolate caramel sea salt creme brulee and hazelnut apricot clafoutis with a decadent hazelnut cream. Julia Child herself would have been impressed.

As the room got fuller, we moved on to Cote de Brouilly Domaine du Pavillon de Chanannes, smelling of exotic spices and with a silky mouth feel that made it my companion's favorite of the evening. When we finally reached the bewitching hour, the real fun began.

With French music playing, we did a flight of Beaujolais Nouveau 2012. And surprisingly, it was a good year for the fruity little grape. The ubiquitous Georges Duboeuf was not entirely KoolAid-like and the Manoir du Carra was even better.

Yes, they tasted young and fruity, but isn't that the point?

Domaine Descroix came in as the crowd favorite, although I wouldn't have turned down more of  the Manoir du Carra Beaujoais Villages Nouveau, either. We noshed on a savory tart tatin of potatoes, Brie and honey, a fine complement to our young grapes.

The later it got, the livelier things were, both musically (lots of great '60s French pop) and conversationally (how couples met stories). I know there are French restaurants in Washington who have lines out the door on the third Thursday of November and no doubt those people are cycled in and out like cattle to drink Beaujolais Nouveau.

Our leisurely evening of meeting strangers, chatting with familiar faces and trying wine after wine was about as civilized as a wine drinker could hope for. Cultural history, live radio and a 15th century wine tradition.

We call that an honest night.

The Shadow Knows I Don't Go to Glen Allen

Not many evenings come with a secret decoder.

In order to get one, I had to go out of my comfort zone to the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

Naturally I did it without ever getting on the highway.

I was taking my partner in crime to see his first live radio play show by the On the Air Radio Players who were presenting "Return of the Superheroes."

Notice the plural; we weren't just getting Flash Gordon, we were also getting The Shadow and Superman.

The audience was warned to turn off their devices lest they cause anachronistic sound in the recording.

We were taught to clap on cue which some newbies found difficult to do despite a green light saying "Applause."

All three shows were circa pre-World War II, spanning 1935-40. A lot of the audience was about the same.

That would be back in the days when newspapers were viable, so the announcer tells listeners to look for an ad in "your Hearst Sunday paper."

Meanwhile on an alien planet, Flash fought off Ming the Merciless while his lady love fought off an order to marry.

"As for you, Earth woman, you shall love me or die!" he told her.

Fret not; she held off for true love, even if he was a bit flashy.

One of the best part of live radio is the sound effects crew who slam doors, walk shoes, ring bells, type on typewriters and do whatever is needed to covey the action aurally.

During a scene of Singing Jim getting beat up in "The Shadow: The Blind Beggar Dies." one sound woman put on a chest pad and beat herself silly simulating the blows.

Their timing was impeccable..

The Superman episode we saw was the one where he met Lois Lane, who was clearly unimpressed with Clark Kent.

There were infra-gamma rays and top-secret discoveries.

And even though it was the latest of the three, the sexism was rampant.

Editor Perry White says to Lois, "On your way, girlie!"

He sends Lois on an assignment to get an interview with "some lady scientist," clarifying that it wasn't news, just a human interest story.

Ha! That's before they knew that she had built a destruction machine that had been stolen.

This was where Perry should have learned never to underestimate the power of a woman. Even if it was 1940.

The episodes were a blast to listen to because of the serious voice talents doing it.

Affecting different accents (the Bronx, German, Irish), sexes (a woman played  a young boy), personalities (character versus lead), they made each of their multiple parts completely believable.

And then in the blink of an eye (okay, an hour) it ends and the credits are read and we clap until our arms want to fall off because it takes so long for the applause light to finally go off.

And that secret decoder? We were too busy laughing to even try to figure out the hidden message.

Hopefully it wasn't any more instructions for earth women.

We've got all we can do to deal with that last one.

Out of the City and On the Air

It should be noted that I drove not only out of the city but twelve miles from home tonight for the express purpose of experiencing something new: a live radio broadcast.

The On the Air Radio Players presented an original script adaptation of the 1935 Hitchcock film "The 39 Steps" as it was originally broadcast by the Lux Radio Theater in December 1937 starring Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino (whoever they were) at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

"Welcome to the show," the producer said to the audience and the night took off. We were asked to practice clapping in time to the green "Applause" light and were warned that the shots that would be fired for sound effects would be blanks.

We were told to silence our cell phones to avoid the possibility of anachronistic sounds in the recording. Because, yes, this live radio broadcast was also being recorded for 21st century podcasting. Sigh.

The two sound guys came on stage and took their places, the music maker sat down in front of her keyboards and the eight actors, all in black, took their chairs before the "On the Air" light was lit and the show began.

Host Cecil B. DeMille began by doing short interviews with the two stars, asking them about their recent vacations and activities, complete with sound effects like kissing and tennis balls bouncing; it was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

In between acts, the actors did commercials for Lux Suds, the show's sponsor, touting its gentleness in washing nylons and for Lux Super Suds ("Even when I dry clothes in the basement, they look whiter!"). It was incredibly dated and very sweet at the same time.

The same could be said of the script, which focused on espionage and murder in London and Scotland. References to "a driver in a donkey cart" were quaint, to say the least.

And there was a love story, with the couple ending up handcuffed together against their will. Naturally, that forced an alliance that led to true love.

Her: "We were together for 24 hours and we fought for 20...you were asleep for four."
Him: "Can you imagine fighting for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Do you think we could keep that up for 30 or 40 years?"

As good as the music was with a tinkling piano for a party and heavy organ music for dramatic scenes, it was the sound effect guys who stole the show.

They slammed, battered and knocked on their fake door, blew a train whistle and made the sounds of train tracks, shook a tambourine when gypsies were mentioned and shot a lot of blanks at the ceiling.

And being the good little audience, we clapped on cue and stopped clapping on cue (that part was definitely more challenging). The one-hour program had three commercial breaks before tying up all the loose ends neatly and going off the air.

The OTARP only do three productions a year and the next one's not till June, but I'm already looking forward to it.

It was really unlike anything I've experienced and between the vintage script, extremely well-done dialects (both the Scottish and Cockney accents were spot-on) and variety of sound effects, thoroughly entertaining. Oh, yes, and free. Is this a great town or what?

That was a tough act to follow, but free jazz at the Camel has a lot to recommend it, too. Tonight's show led off with the Compass Rose Orchestra, an octet of mostly VCU jazz studies students who undoubtedly took their name from students' favorite campus meeting place.

I was most excited by the fact that I got to hear vibes played live; it's a bulky instrument and it's rare to see them played out. Even better, I knew the guy playing them because we'd met and sat together at the Folk Fest last fall. This is such a small town.

Crowded as they were onstage, their set had a sure-handed sound and included everything from Radiohead to Rufus Wainwright to an original piece written by Lucas Fritz, "...back when I was in a metal band in high school." Ah yes, because all aspiring jazz trumpeters originally gravitate to metal.

The crowd, with a high parentage of musicians in it, stuck around for UTV, a seven-piece unique for both their jazz vocalist and female flugelhorn player. As one guy shouted to the band on his way out, "You guys keep on tearing it up!"

Had I still been at the radio show, I would have expected to hear a piece of paper being torn at that point.

Brought to you, of course, by Lux Suds. Cue applause.