Flirt, Swoon, Use Your Womanly Devices

When your evening begins somewhere luxe, you don't anticipate it ending in an industrial corridor.

Our quartet arrived in the rain at Spoonbread Bistro, were shown to a table in the center of the room and immediately began social intercoursing, at least until we noticed the restaurant steadily filling up. Pros all, we knew it was best to order before the masses did.

The Four Graces Pinot Blanc wet our whistles and amuse bouches of spicy pimento cheese tarts whet our appetites. My companion's order changed once our ginger-bearded server announced that softshell crabs were in the house, while I stuck with a gift-wrapped salad and scallops with corn pudding and bacon drizzle.

The scared and profane part of the discussion began when the friend eating frogmore stew admitted he had shown up for Easter dinner with nothing more than a bouquet of flowers and a cherry pie, completely unaware that Easter was a gift-giving holiday.

Au contraire, he discovered, as we heard tell of Easters past with presents as varied as a BB gun and a Matchbox racetrack because apparently not everyone celebrates resurrection simply with black jellybeans.

And P.S., if anyone's going to bring me flowers and pie, please make it blueberry.

Tonight, mine was the rare case of dessert remorse because the 24k gold leaf carrot cake with maple icing my companion ordered was downright spectacular, certainly more alluring than the chocolate I'd opted for. Will I never learn?

We had no remorse about our choice of entertainment with "Something's Afoot," a murder mystery musical spoofing Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" that, according to director Tom Width, Swift Creek Mill had produced 25 years ago. Not to point out the obvious, but I did a lot of things in 1992 that I'd just as soon not repeat now (one incident involved lemon drops and that's all I'll say about that), but Swift Creek had no such compunction.

Adding drama to drama, he also told us to check out the creek because the water coming down from under Route 1 was battling with the roiling water from the rain on this side, making for some mighty agitation. Of course I trooped outside during intermission with my willing accomplice to see nature's churning spectacle.

The story of guests being invited to an English lake country manor house for a weekend was all kinds of fun with French malapropisms ("Quelle fromage!"), a maid with a pitch-perfect Cockney accent, multiple unlikely death scenarios (poison dart, missing step, falling shield) and near-constant laughter at the top-notch cast's delivery.

Jacqueline Jones was made for the role of Miss Tweed (in a tweed suit, natch), all efficiency and suspicion, while it was impossible not to keep an eye on John Mincks' every move (casually at the fireplace adjusting his junk after fondling a fellow guest) as the crafty nephew trying to secure his inheritance.

Not for a second did the play let us forget it was all one big device, never more evident than when one guest tells another, "We'll leave as soon as it's climatically possible."

The four of us left once the play was smoking its metaphorical cigarette, only to get right back off the highway when we saw a sign for a crash ahead. The nearest exit took us on a soul-less stretch of road that put me closer to Philip Morris than I'd ever been, involved some screaming at a perceived dangerous moment (it wasn't) and, at one shoddy point, was described as resembling a cow path.

Big deal. Once you've been serenaded about getting a rash from a man with a ginger mustache, it takes a lot more than Commerce Road to sour your night.

Besides, no one wants their evening to end before it's climatically optimal.

What Will Be, Will Be

Let's spend Friday night looking at life, shall we?

In the case of the Anderson Gallery's new exhibit "Myron Helfgott: An Inventory of My Thoughts," it was a wide-ranging retrospective covering the 45-year artistic career of one of my favorite curmudgeons. I can say that because I've known Myron for 15 years and besides, he'd say it about himself.

Despite the multiple hours and afternoons spent in his studio interviewing him for my profile, here, in Style Weekly, I'd only seen a fraction of the work that made it into the show. So tonight's three-level exhibit was as much a surprise to me as to the rest of the world.

In 1971's "Salute," hands cast in lead were captured in a box with a lead flag on top. Lead, so different a material than the plywood and paper pieces he's been creating the past few years. Pieces such as "Windows" from 2013, a segmented view of the Kroger parking lot from his condo.

I was captivated by "We Share the Same Interests," a mixed media piece from 1981-82, comprised of a metal figure of a woman that Myron had taken all around town - Monument Avenue, MCV, VMFA - and had himself photographed with. The dated photos were part of the piece and provided a glimpse into Myron long before I met him in 2000.

Immediately recognizable was "Waterfall after Duchamp" from 1990 because it had been in the foyer of his condo when I'd first interviewed him. Here the motorized waterfall took its place among the many pieces powered by small motors.

"33 years and 6 months" was another lead piece, this one from 1970, showing a pair of men's underwear. "Don't look at that too long. People will talk!" a man stage-whispered in my ear as I gazed at it.

Listening to reactions from the ever-growing crowd, I overheard, "Phenomenal work" and "This is the shit, man. The shit!" High praise, indeed.

I went through all three floors of Myron's art twice, knowing full well I'll need to come back when the crowds are gone to enjoy it all without the socializing distractions. And they were many tonight, with all that old '70s VCU art crowd in attendance.

When I finally made it back to the tent, there was Myron, wine in hand, holding court. He pinched my cheek, he hugged me and he thanked me profusely for my article, especially thrilled that I hadn't talked about his work.

Who needs to try to describe astonishing art when there's a crabby old man with a lifetime's worth of opinions to share instead? Not that the work doesn't tell an amazing story of a man who never stopped evolving, but anyone with eyes can see that.

People were still pouring in to the gallery when I left to meet my theater date for dinner at Bistro 27, finding him at the bar with a Cosmopolitan in hand. The hostess raved about how cute my tights were and seated us with a great view of Adams Street. I kept my meal simple - Caesar salad with grilled shrimp - to offset a decadent chocolate torte for dessert.

Over dinner, we covered the multiple months' worth of life that had happened since we'd last gone to a play together. We compared notes on "Mame," made plans to see "Sister Act," exchanged Christmas vacation trip stories and restaurant gossip. Then we high-tailed it to Richmond Triangle Players for another kind of look at life.

It was opening night for 5th Wall's production of "The Lyons," a black comedy I'd first seen a sample of at the 5th Wall preview party last August. Even that snippet had been enough to see the potential of the play about nothing more than family relations, which is to say, everything.

But what a family! In a magnificent brown curly wig, Jacqueline Jones chewed up the scenery and spit it out as Rita, the matriarch of the Lyons family. This is an actress I've seen in all kinds of roles and never have I seen her so completely inhabit a character. She will be undoubtedly be honored come awards time next year for this part.

When her dying husband (the always excellent Alan Sader) muses that he may go to hell, she shoots him down succinctly. "What have you ever done to go to Hell? Who are you?" Nobody in this family seems to have a kind word for anyone.

The first act was mesmerizing as the parents had their adult children (a gay writer and recovering alcoholic mother with two kids) come to the hospital room to learn that their father was dying. Despite the seriousness of it, the family immediately devolves into bickering and bringing up old family issues. Meanwhile, Rita peruses decorating magazines, planning to redo their tawdry living room once husband Ben is dead.

No one feels comfortable when they're intimate. 
Your mother used to vomit a lot.

Watching this family argue - the father endlessly cursing because he has nothing to lose, listening to Rita criticize her dying husband and messed-up children - was like eavesdropping on a majorly dysfunctional family. Awkward but utterly compelling.

Significantly, playwright Nicky Silver even weaves in the particular bond of siblings; they may not like each other or respect each other's choices, but they share secrets that Mom and Dad were never privy to. That's real life.

Romance is a treacherous arena.

At intermission, my friend and I discussed how director B.C. Maupin had created a tightly wound production that never ceased to elicit reaction from the audience, whether we were squirming in our seats, anticipating discomfort, embroiled in embarrassment or mortified at how this family treated each other.

Meanwhile, a cadre of black-clad crew miraculously turned the hospital room set into a much, larger studio apartment, as big a set change as I've seen at RTP, a feat only believable if you saw the transformation.

After the first act, my friend had commented on the robust laughter coming from the back of the room and, sure enough, the Man About Town (the source of that laugh) stopped by to discuss Myron's show and our enjoyment of the play we were seeing.

Writing short stories is like selling Victrolas.

If the first act had set some people's teeth on edge, the second began with a scene uncomfortable in about a dozen more ways. As it unfolded with missed signals, over-reactions and brutality, little of the dark humor remained.

The set was again changed back to the hospital room, this time without an intermission, but it was accomplished briskly and efficiently while the audience listened to "Que Sera, Sera." It was so impressively done that the crowd broke out in spontaneous applause for the crew.

Since when do you talk like a character from "Cagney and Lacey"?

The final scene begins with the father dead, but the remaining members no less unhappy or rude to each other. Hello, real life.

Watching the widow tell her son and daughter that she's decided to go on with her life in a manner that appalls them becomes one of the most satisfying moments in the play. Changing from power pumps to pink slides before a flight to Aruba, Jones makes a compelling case for delayed happiness after a loveless marriage that's almost worth standing up to cheer for.

Some people are happy, some people are lonely, some people are mean and sad. That's the way of the world.

As 5th Wall's production so ably demonstrates, it's every person's choice to decide which of those people they want to be. As if I weren't already in the first category, a superbly-executed production such as this one makes me even happier because Carol Piersol is back at the helm of a cutting edge theater company in Richmond.

Here's to long, artistic lives. Fortunately, they seem to thrive in this town.

Titillating and Informative at the Same Time

It's probably terribly post-modern of me to write about writing, but here goes.

If, as Benjamin Franklin said, you should either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about, where does that leave writing something no one will read?

I spent a fair amount of my day writing a letter that I didn't send, but needed to capture. Thoughts have been swirling around in my head and in order to make them stop, I needed to get them down in words and sentences, which I did.

But the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that no one needed to read them. But, plain and simple, I needed, really needed, to write them.

The words I wrote weren't about being the 282nd person to vote at my polling place or about the sweet old lady outside it who questioned me intently about whether I'd been challenged when I provided my photo ID to vote (I hadn't).

They weren't about taking my hired mouth and a friend to lunch and having him remind me that we should be getting together for more than lunch, say music or art.

And while it was a lovely meal, my words weren't about dinner at Lucy's where my fellow diner told me about a car chase, crash and arrest on Broad Street this afternoon, snarling traffic westward for hours.

Irresistible was the soup of the day, a tomato-based mahi mahi and potato with just a hint of heat, worth slurping up every spoonful. Then I tucked into the lemon-vinaigrette-dressed winter salad of kale, roasted Brussels sprouts and sunflower seeds while hearing tales of familiar faces showing up in commercials and TV shows (so I'll never see them).

Post-dinner, I made my way to the Speakeasy to see 5th Wall Theater's staged reading of "Writer's Weekend: A New Musical," sharing a table with two women, one of whom turned out to be in the show's band.

I'd seen the first reading of the play last Spring and thoroughly enjoyed the story of six people attending a writer's workshop in hopes of fine-tuning their writing skills or, as the only published writer in the bunch put it, "Jump-starting my literary libido."

A four-piece band of two keyboard players, a bassist and drummer accompanied the actors as they sang of their frustrations and hopes for their writing careers, all in various stages. The sci-fi writer was self-published with cartons of her books crowding her basement, the former TV action star wanted to be a playwright but his concept was weak, the newspaper reporter hoped to use his journalism background writing about crime to pen detective stories, the young technical writer was trying to branch out into fiction, the suburban slam poet still had more attitude than talent and the oversexed romance writer had writer's block but a string of best-sellers behind her. Add in the bitter writer who leads the sessions and the potential for snappy dialog was obvious.

Jacqueline Jones narrated the play, sometimes even helping it along when there was overly-long silence. "I think that's a music cue!" she said cheerily to get everyone back on track.

And just in case the audience was unclear on what being a writer means, it was spelled out in song. "A working writer means a writer who gets paid. Who knows, I might even get laid." Don't count on it, friend, it never got me laid.

I couldn't decide which character I found the funniest, the timid technical writer played by Mark Persinger who was seduced by the older woman ("Old is the new black") or the ebony goddess poet played by Carolyn Meade, all attitude and adjectives.

Like last time, there was a lot that made me laugh out loud (editor jokes, older woman comments) including the written-to-be-awful manuscripts the would-be writers shared with their peers ("Rickets: The Musical").

And like with all his staged readings, director B.C. Maupin had made sure we got a lot more than just actors with scripts reading in chairs. Characters made eyes at each other, moved as if to dance, met at a bar and just generally suggested a lot more staging than some readings deliver.

Even though I knew the story, it was interesting to hear the songs come out of different mouths this time - and there were some excellent voices in the cast - and watch how these actors put their spins on the characters I'd met last May.

Seeing "Writer's Weekend" satisfied old Ben Franklin's directive to do something worth writing about. As to the other part of his wisdom, I'd even go so far as to say my earlier, unsent letter was worth reading.

Didn't get paid, didn't get laid, but there's always tomorrow. I'll probably write about that, too.

Down versus Pound

It was really too beautiful to spend the evening indoors - 77 degrees in mid-October - unless love was involved.

As it turned out, it was, but I didn't know that. I thought I was getting dinner and a play.

Given the bodacious weather, I was hardly surprised when I arrived at Magpie to find only one couple in attendance. I took a seat at the bar to await my friend's arrival and discuss my theater plans with the bartender.

Although he'd never been to Richmond Triangle Players, he used to work with their bartender, a woman I've bought wine from on many an occasion. Funny how there's never more than three degrees of separation from anyone in this town.

Right on time, my friend arrived (amuse bouche: easter egg radish slice with golden raisin chutney and carrot top) and we lost no time ordering so we could discuss theater without our mouths being full.

My only regret was that he invited me to go with him to see "Book of Mormon," a show I could never afford, and I'll be out of town that weekend. Drat the luck.

Once dinner came, we focused on that.

Not that anyone needs to eat their sweetbreads chicken-fried, but as long as they were offering, why not? These came with turnip hash, pickled relish and house hot sauce and I also shared a side of roasted brussels sprouts with my friend as he ate his huntsman's stew, which smelled divine.

Unfortunately, we had so little time left that dessert wasn't an option so we left for the theater to see 5th Wall Theater's staged reading of John Anastasi's new play, "Transition," without my sweet tooth being satisfied.

Instead, I sublimated it when the reading began with a sex scene between two women, one of whom came noisily moments after the action began. Unfortunately, her partner hadn't come (or enjoyed the strap-on she'd been using), causing her to lament, "I'd rather you went downtown instead of taking me to Pound Town."

Hmm, "Pound Town." That's a new one on me.

"Transition" was the story of a man born in a woman's body who takes 28 years to decide he needs to transition to the male he's always been. The problem is that his partner, the love of his life, is a lesbian who wants a female, not male, partner.

When he tells his mother about his planned hormone treatments and surgery, she's forced to come to terms with what she always knew but never acknowledged: her daughter is her son. "You haven't even started the male hormones and already you're acting just like your father!" Jacqueline Jones as the mother said to a big laugh.

Ditto the laughs when the subject of genital reconstruction surgery came up. "That glorious organ with the head but no brain." Ah, yes, we know the one.

But the most unexpectedly funny moment came when Melissa Johnston Price (as the doctor planning to do the surgery) explained all that was involved, right down to creation of the brain-less head. "So that's it in the nutshell," she said before turning to look at the audience with a classic WTF? look on her face. "I never saw that coming."

The audience laughed long and hard at her reaction to the line in the script.

Danya/Daniel, the woman transitioning, was played superbly by Eva DeVirgilis, who tries to convince her true love Addison (played by Sara Heifetz) that even if she has the surgery, they'll still love each other just the same, pulling out Shakespeare's "A rose by another name would smell as sweet" to prove her point.

Addison is having none of it. "Male hormones do not smell good," she retorts, miserable at the idea of having a male partner when she's madly in love with a woman.

But the bigger issue wasn't about smell or hormones or any of that. The play asks us why do we love the person we do? Is it their heart, their soul, their personality, their body?

The play was terribly poignant in parts, especially in a scene that takes place five years after surgery and the couple's split, when Daniel runs into the doctor who tries to assure him he'll get over the loss of his true love. He corrects her.

"Those who've had a real loss know that it never gets better. You just get better at living with it." I'd like to see someone put that in a fortune cookie.

The play ended ambiguously, leaving the outcome to the viewer's imagination. Some saw a happy ending and others didn't. Sort of like life.

But the biggest question remained. Could you still have real love if one of the people changes?

During the talkback with the playwright, director Carol Piersol and cast, the audience had a lot of questions and a lot of opinions on what needed to be changed and not changed in the script.

That's a major reason I look forward to this kind of reading. Part of its purpose is to provide feedback to the author and another part is to gauge audience reaction to the idea of seeing the play fully produced.

As an opinionated woman and a theater lover, I find it immensely satisfying to have a chance to provide that kind of input.

Playwright Anastasi told us he'd spent a great deal of time talking to a doctor who does this kind of surgery in order to get the finer points right. "I still take a lot of criticism as a heterosexual writing about the trans experience. But, Stephen King, did he kill all those people?"

I think not. Clearly, the man had a sense of humor.

What he did make clear was that what he had written was, more than anything else, a love story. By the end, Daniel has fully transitioned and has finally gotten what he's wanted his whole life. But in the process, he's lost the only person he ever needed. He's alone but acknowledges that that's his choice.

"He chooses not to have someone else if he can't have the love of his life, "Anastasi told us to wrap things up.

And that, if you ask me, makes it a hell of a love story.

As We Stumble Along

My plans were to go to the Quaker meeting house for music. No, seriously.

But then a review and a play dropped in my lap and my evening took a southward turn.

My friend Moira shared the meal with me before returning to work for a photography assignment while I felt my way through the dark to Swift Creek Mill theater, a place I'd never been.

I'm directionally-challenged in broad daylight, so at night, I'm at a complete loss when looking for someplace new to me.

Let's just say I allowed 45 minutes to get someplace that was 20.5 miles away - and 17 of the miles were highway so I was going 60 miles per hour.

In my defense, I got stopped for a train (coming and going, now what are the chances of that?), had to stop and ask for directions twice (once at a 7-11 where a young guy who'd just bought a 40 ounce leered and asked if he could drive me there) and made it to the theater with five minutes before curtain.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, I joined a couple of guys on the elevator up to the theater, listening to them rave that the elevator was the highlight of the renovation.

Explaining that it was my first time there, one of the men extended his hand and introduced himself as the president of the Mill.

I found out during the introduction of the show that the theater's grand re-opening had been just last weekend.

"Make sure that while you're here tonight you pee," the director (I think) told us to great laughter. "You can actually turn around now. And the new elevator is an uplifting ride."

How about that? Brand new to SCM theater and I'd already managed to experience its strengths.

"Act like normal people tonight so the actors can find out where the laughs are so we'll be ready for the paying customers tomorrow night," he added.

All I could do was try.

With that, the dress rehearsal began with a dark stage and a voice intoning, "I hate theater."

The Man in the Chair talking was a key character who narrated the play, set in 1928, deconstructing its story and characters for us throughout the show.

First we were instructed to listen to the overture ("a musical appetizer, a pu pu platter of tunes") and then he explained a few things.

"The Drowsy Chaperone" was his favorite musical and he liked to play the two-record set when he was feeling a non-specific sadness.

So he begins playing the record and the story comes to life in his living room. It's everything a musical-hater hates about musicals. It also won a Tony award and played on Broadway for a year and a half.

The drowsy chaperon of the title was a hilarious character, a seasoned woman who liked to drink despite it being set during Prohibition and the one responsible for ensuring that the bride did not see the groom before the wedding.

When asked if it wasn't a bit early in the day to be drinking, she responds, "I don't understand the question." When asked if she'd ever been married, she says, "No, I drink for pleasure."

Her big showstopper of a number is a rousing anthem about alcoholism.

The groom and best man have a tap dancing scene where they are joined by the narrator, also tapping, and eventually the older butler, who does full on turns and almost steals the scene.

It's been a while since I've seen any tap dancing.

Even more impressive was the scene where the bride ("We spooned briefly, then he proposed") explains that she's willing to give up her show biz career to be married to the man of her dreams.

During the course of the song "Show Off," she sings, "I don't wanna change keys no more, I don't wanna striptease no more," while doing cartwheels, handstands and splits. Oh, yes, and Rockette kicks.

Truly impressive.

Evan Nasteff, as one of two gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, had some of the cleverest wordplay of the evening, not to mention their ability to flip trays of pastries mid-dance step. Then there was their masterful jazz hands as they danced in flowered aprons over plaid knickers.

The bride's Feldzieg Follies producer is determined to stop the wedding so he won't lose his star, so he begins plotting.

"I need someone with loose morals," he muses. "I need, what do you call it? A European!"

Enter Adolpho, played by the always brilliant Matt Shofner, this time in a black pompadour wig with a white streak, a mustache and as full of himself as any Latin lover.

His broad comedy and thick accent had the audience in stitches every time he was on stage.

During intermission, I took my second trip to those fabulous new bathrooms, where I heard several women say they'd seen the play before, including one who saw it on Broadway.

All of them agreed that the play was great entertainment and the notion of a "musical within a comedy" was awfully amusing.

When the show resumed, our narrator asked if we'd enjoyed intermission because he hadn't, didn't like the interruption of reality.

"Whenever a character is in crisis, they sing and dance. That's musical theater!" he said, cheered up that the second act was coming.

Like a good Shakespeare play, eventually all the romantic problems are sorted out and all of a sudden everyone is in love with someone and wanting to marry them.

One of the most hilarious moments comes when the chaperone announces that she and Adolpho are in love. Smiling and putting his hands over her ears, he mouths, "Help me!"

But he doesn't really want help and before long there are four marriages in the offing, with the hostess and her butler singing "Love is Always Lovely in the End," she citing lovers as examples and him reminding her they all ended badly.

"We'll all get married in a clump, like they do in Utah!" they decide.

The nuptials are done on a plane which also flies up (and kind of away), a nice effect, to symbolize happiness and honeymoons in Rio to come. And, musically, the end of non-specific sadness.

Just goes to show you where alcohol and spooning can lead.

I Get to Decide

You don't get to decide what someone else's theme song is.

So when an old friend told me out of the blue what he thought mine was, it led to major discussion of why. A presumption on his part led to a challenge on mine.

That's how we ended up making plans to go to Richmond Shakespeare's staged reading of "Holiday Stories," whatever that meant.

Along the way he offered to make dinner first and we forgot all about my theme song, probably because we were laughing so much.

So why does food always taste better when someone else makes it? Did it have something to do with his stellar music mixes?

Afterwards, we adjourned to the Gottwald Playhouse for a little seasonal theater.

Unlike past readings, this one was three storytellers, each reading a holiday story from a wing chair onstage.

Shadow actors behind a screen acted out "Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins" as Jacqueline Jones read the story of goblins trying to prevent the menorah from used.

Don't worry, by the end all the Hanukkah candles were lit.

Shanea Taylor did  a spirited reading of  "Santa's Kwanzaa," making the audience laugh with its wordplay.

My favorite was "Gift of the Magi" because of the language (Della uses her powder rag to powder her nose) and historical details (their apartment was $8 a week).

The talented Stephen Ryan read it in his red pajama pants and blue robe and again we had shadow acting to go along with the story of gift giving gone sad.

As far as I'm concerned, "Gift" is one holiday classic that's right there in the canon with "It's a Wonderful Life" and "White Christmas."

You know, sentimental, but with a lesson.

That's what my theme songs needs to convey.