Garret Life

The state of tonight's unions were anything but smooth sailing.

An out of town friend called after she finished a work meeting, wanting to meet me for a drink. I had limited time because of plans to see a play, but we settled on Graffiato for a quickie.

Sitting there with a glass of Prosecco, the bartenders began to feel sorry for me after a while, unsure if my friend was going to show up or not. Finally, she walked in, only to inform me there was nowhere to park and would I come help her find a place, making for a delayed union.

A parking space was easily found but by that time, we had barely 45 minutes to chat. We might have had more, but we were too busy stuffing our faces with crack-like ciambellas - mozzarella-stuffed doughnut holes with pepperoni sauce- and a pizzette of broccolini, cherry tomatoes and Provolone to talk as much as we could have.

Promptly at 6:25, I said goodnight and went the three blocks home to meet another friend for the play. She wasn't there, there was no message from her and I was stumped. Should I stay or should I go?

I would up waiting until the last possible minute before heading down to Monumental Church for a reenactment of the plays that had been performed that night in 1811 when the theater caught fire and 72 people perished.

Bad as that tragedy was, just as great was that theater was not produced in Richmond for nearly ten years afterwards. Henley Street/Richmond Shakespeare were putting on the two plays tonight in tribute to that evening and as part of their historical play reading series.

Despite (or perhaps because of) my last minute arrival, I snagged two seats in the second row pew, keeping an eye out for my friend. I was surprised to see that some attendees had arrived in period attire, looking very elegant, but also a sober reminder that 19th century female clothing would not have lent itself well to a fast getaway (perhaps the reason 54 women died and only 18 men).

The artistic director let us know that the room had challenging acoustics and difficult sight lines (and reminded us to keep the center pew doors shut), much as the original space had and encouraged people to move around if need be to hear better. The actors projected beautifully, but the domed space had a decided echo.

The first play, "The Father, or Family Feuds," was a melodrama full of dramatic pauses ("Confusion!") and over-wrought sentimentality dealing with class distinctions (poor people lived in 5th floor garrets) and how they have no regard when it comes to matters of the heart.

During the intermission, many attendees used the time to read signage about Monumental Church and photograph it, but since I'd gone on a tour of it a couple years ago, I stayed put until the play resumed, thinking it was a shame tonight's union with my play-loving friend had not come to be.

The second play, "Raymond and Agnes, or The Bleeding Nun" was the opposite of a melodrama, with the comedy very broad (bad guys played by girls using their fingers to simulate mustaches because, as we all know, bad guys always have them) but consistently hilarious.

When two male characters are heading off into the woods, they bob along, the hero galloping as if on his horse and his manservant making the appropriate clopping noises as he does so.

Favorite line: "Converse with the ladies does improve a man." You see, gentlemen, you've known that bit of wisdom since at least 1811.

Shortly after act two began, the actor playing the hero stops short and calls out, "The house is on fire!" and the play is over for tonight's audience at the same juncture it was the night of the disaster, except without the heartache and trauma.

I have to admit, as cool as it was to sit in the space where the plays originally took place (and over top of the crypt that holds many of those bodies), I couldn't quell a little, nagging worry that something bad might happen to the modern audience tonight.

Fortunately, it did not.

Leaving Monumental Church, the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up as I crossed Broad Street to retrieve my car and make tracks for Balliceaux.

I admit, given the cold and wind, I briefly considered just going home instead, but then I'd have missed this new project by some of the best musicians in town.

Playing tonight was Plush Dagger, which meant nothing to me but the sextet's members' names were all familiar except one, so I at least knew there'd be a lot of talent onstage.

They'd just started when I walked in and the band included drums, upright bass, two trombones, sax and trumpet and they were already locked in a groove. The room was almost exclusively men, including several jazz musicians and a table that appeared to be VCU jazz studies students bobbing their heads and discussing the music earnestly in low voices.

Mixing it up with some original material by drummer Scott Clark ("Stitch," "Purple, Yellow, Green") along with new arrangements of songs such as Fred Henderson's "Little Fox Run," the band kept it tight with lots of extended soloing and seamless transitions back to full band.

"This is our response to the State of the Union," one trombonist said before they did a song called "Plush Dagger" but only after clarifying that it was also the band name. Playing, every one of them looked fully in the moment.

And isn't that how you want everyone in a union to be, fully engaged and committed to being there? Oh, wait, maybe that's just my idea of union bliss. Responses welcome.

Downstairs with the Dead

The dead people outnumbered the living four to one.

We were in the crypt underneath Monumental Church when it occurred to me how many more of them there were than us.

After a recent lecture at the Library of Virginia, here, I'd had a chance to sign up for a tour of the church built on the site of the Richmond Theater fire in 1811.

I'd always been curious driving by the building on Broad Street and here was my chance to see what it looked like from the inside.

When it was built in 1814, the congregation was shocked by its modernity (for the time) and keenly aware of how plain it looked.

And it still looks very unadorned with no ornamentation, no stained glass windows or elaborate sculpture.

As someone who grew up going to Catholic churches, it was downright stark. And lovely in its simplicity.

The color scheme of salmon walls, gray pews and a deep blue altar is original and based on paint analysis so I knew I was seeing the interior as it would have looked in the mid-19th century.

I found it fascinating that the congregation used only the east and west doors, except for at Easter when everyone entered through the front door.

Designed by Robert Mills, who also did the Washington Monument as well as several other octagonal buildings, the design incorporates all kinds of  funerary and Egyptian symbols as a tribute to the theater dead.

Of course like any city project, the funding ran out so the steeple never got added and there's no statue in the portico.

But who needs a steeple when you have a crypt in the basement?

After a perilous walk down a narrow staircase, we were in a low-ceilinged, dirt-floored subterranean space with two mahogany caskets holding the charred remains of the 72 people who died at the theater that night in 1811.

The large bricked crypt didn't just hold the dead, though; it was also part of the foundation of the church.

Beams and joists sat atop the brick crypt to support the floor of the church above.

As I walked around the crypt, I was surprised to see a half dozen folding chairs in a semi-circle at the far end of it.

Seance, perhaps? It would be a convenient place to commune with the nearby dead, I would think.

There was also a door that connected to the infamous underground tunnels around Capital Square.

Our guide postulated that both insane patients from the hospital as well as sneaky politicians used the tunnels to move around out of sight.

On our way back upstairs I saw a small, old wooden box on a mantle labeled "Monumental Church Endowment Fund."

Perhaps dropping something in might have guaranteed me an invitation for the next seance.