Don't Stop Believing

Theater is my temple and my religion and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe together~ Harvey Fierstein

And sometimes that believing gives you a sense of history retold...or foreshadowed.

The Jewish Community Center was the venue for guest director Carol Piersol's production of Israel Horovitz' "Lebensraum," an incredibly powerful piece that had three strong actors plating 50+ roles using a wooden wall of props over 90 minutes.

The premise was both simple and far-fetched: what if a future German chancellor invited six million Jews to come to Germany with the promise of citizenship and full benefits as a way to assuage their sea of guilt for the Jews killed during the Holocaust?

The actors - Stephen Ryan, Matt Shofner, Sara Heifetz- were mesmerizing, shape-shifting from character to character to narrator and back again, sometimes in the course of two sentences.

Simple props, voice inflections and accents helped define characters as the story unfolded.

The chancellor's "project homecoming" is shown eliciting very different reactions. A concentration camp survivor wants to go back for revenge. An out of work Massachusetts dockworker wants to move his wife and son to Germany. Israelis fear for the safety of their people.

In one brilliant scene, Stephen portrayed two men having a conversation, putting on different hats, voices and demeanors to convey the decidedly different essence of each.

There weren't a lot of lighter scenes, but one involved the arrival of a Jewish, married, gay French couple (played to limp-wristed perfection by Matt and Stephen in berets) who want to claim their citizenship. Needless to say, they are not what the Germans had been expecting.

Sara managed to play both the non-Jewish wife of the dockworker as well as the teen-aged Jewish girl with whom her 15-year old son soon falls for and made both believable.

Their blossoming romance was the sweetest part of the film as the two learned that great loves are made not of similarities but of differences.

Him: You think I'm funny?
Her: You are funny!
Him: Then we most definitely need to kiss if you laugh at my jokes.

Piersol's direction was fast-paced so something was happening every moment, from the Boston couple becoming local celebrities to the German workers organizing to protest the jobs being taken from them for the new Jewish arrivals to Israeli activists arriving to become citizens in hopes of protecting their people.

Always someone was speaking, either in character or as narrator explaining the action. After a while, it felt eerily like a live action newsreel unfolding upsetting events even while intellectually, we knew we were watching fiction.

Hands down, it was some of the most powerful theater I've seen due in equal measures to Horovitz's story and completely compelling performances by the trio bringing it to life.

With the added weight of so much of tonight's audience being Jewish, it felt like we were watching something visceral and unforgettable.

My only regret was that I went alone so I didn't have anyone to discuss it with afterwards.

I was meeting a friend for a late dinner and conversation, though, just not about the play. I got to the Roosevelt just as the dinner rush was winding down and ordered a glass of Pollack Rose while bartender T. made sure I'd be at the next DJ night.

A DJ from my neighborhood record store playing late night tunes? Hell, yes.

With soul music uncharacteristically playing, the vibe tonight was slow and mellow, a terrific backdrop to meet up with my friend and find out what she'd been up to.

When the subject of my upcoming birthday arose, she posed a question. "How much technology can you stand?"

I think we all know the answer to that. I use a computer daily and won't own a cell phone until they pry the land line from my cold, dead hands.

"Have you heard of pagers?" she joked because she's so hilarious.

She had skirt steak for dinner while I chose pork belly, little neck clams and potatoes in kimchee broth, a spicy and satisfying bowlful that carried me through our discussion of mothers and daughters, double dragon and conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile I heard my name - first and last- called and there sat a recording engineer I know from the neighborhood, enjoying a cocktail with friends and are clearly surprised to see me somewhere other than Jackson Ward.

Which just goes to prove that he doesn't get out much or he'd know better.

When One is in Town, One Amuses Oneself

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

My dinner date and I were plenty serious about it.

We met at Rowland's and despite them having been open for an hour, he'd taken the first table and already ordered the wine.

Somebody has to.

He was into livestock and I was feeling pescetarian, but that didn't preclude all kinds of food and restaurant talk.

Things like, will we ever have a true Spanish tapas place in Richmond?

After careful consideration, I chose the Sweet Jesus oysters to start, partly because of the name and partly because they come from St. Mary's County, Maryland, site of my last family reunion.

The bivalves were sweet, the mignonette was a hot red pepper and I sucked every bit of juice from the shells while my date ate ravioli.

To each his own.

Next he got the Kick Ass meatloaf (it was an evening of colorfully-named menu items), promising me a slice, and I ordered one of the specials, sauteed soft shelled crab with corn pudding and haricots vert.

The two crispy crabs were smallish, but even sweeter than the oysters and the corn pudding studded with whole kernels underneath every bit as good.

His meatloaf was well-executed and moist, but we weren't fans of the overly sweet tomato sauce topping.

You know what I like cooked into the top of my meatloaf? Onions, that's it.

My date was the curious type, asking my opinion on so many things - patios, New Year's Eve parties, what Richmond needs- and as one who likes to be talked to, I was happy to share my opinions.

I'm a spring inside a clock, wind me up and I'll talk.

When it came time for dessert, we found that we had a shared opinion (dessert = chocolate), but with none on the menu, settled for mixed berry bread pudding with whipped cream and strawberries.

We'd barely finished when it was almost curtain time and we had to jet.

Tonight was preview night for "The Importance of Being Earnest" at Richmond Triangle Players and we didn't want to miss one word of Oscar Wilde's superbly witty dialogue.

Come on, a play with the subtitle, "A trivial comedy for serious people"? Yes, please.

Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with.

It turned out to be a unique seating arrangement because I was in the first row and he was in the fourth with the added bonus of my friend Pru in the second.

All very cozy.

The set impressed from the start, moving from Algie's city digs to Jack's bucolic country house, out and in.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain.

In a magnificent bit of casting, Robert Throckmorton played Lady Bracknell, all spitting righteousness in purple taffeta and painted-on eyebrows.

But the entire cast was strong and dressed beautifully in 19th century costumes.

Though I may marry someone else and marry often, nothing can alter my true devotion to you.

Ian Stearns' Algie was impossibly young, dashing and handsome while Thomas Cunningham (a personal favorite from so many Richmond Shakespeare performances and readings) perfectly evoked the more staid and less confident Jack.

Stephen Ryan, another actor who impresses every time I see him, as the butler Merriman almost stole the show with his understated subservience and well-placed eye rolls.

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Because it was preview night, the actors had no idea what the audience's reactions would be and there were times when our laughter prevented us from hearing the next line.

It's a great problem to have and I've not doubt they'll allow a bit more space in between certain lines going forward.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

It was delightful seeing Audra Honaker play Gwen, a very different role than any I'd ever seen her in.

At turns coquettish, her beautiful hair piled on top of her head, and at times a spitfire, afraid her man has betrayed her, she shone every moment onstage, all eyes on fire, pursed lips and longing glances.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

The play had two brief intermissions and at each one the strangers around me marveled at their delight in the production.

I went to the ladies' room during the second and overheard a woman say to a friend, "Sometimes these previews are a train wreck, but they're doing great!"

That was putting it mildly.

Ripeness can be trusted. Young women are green.

They should have that line put on a t-shirt and sell it during intermission. Looking at tonight's crowd, they'd make a fortune.

Three addresses always inspire confidence, even in tradesmen.

By the end of the play, I think everyone in the room knew that they'd just seen a hit.

With this being the first official production since the merger of Henley Street and Richmond Shakespeare, it's now pretty obvious what a brilliant move that was.

I can't wait for word to get around about what a must-see this production is for Fall.

I'll just sit back nonchalantly and say, yea, I was there preview night, with both a male and female date.

Pretty Oscar Wilde-like, no?

And, just for the record, this ripe woman's favorite line of dialogue?

Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.

I mean that earnestly.

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.