Turns out people were crying out for theater on the southside.
O'Theater at O'Toole's welcomed in more people than they had chairs for to see a staged reading of "The Playboy of the Western World.'
Touted as "plays and pints," tonight was the first in a series of summer readings.
The organizers must be Irish because they brilliantly got Murphy's Irish Stout to sponsor the series and, even better, 100% of the proceeds from the sale of that stout went to the actors.
There's the way to get actors to work -pay them in beer.
And while I don't drink beer, I'm plenty Irish (hello, O'Donnell) and a theater lover of the highest order.
With only one rehearsal under their belts, the cast did a terrific job with a 1907 play about a man who stumbles into a pub, claiming to have killed his father.
You're a fine, hearty girl who'd knock the heads together of any men in the room.
The Irish accents took a bit of getting used to, just like they do in a movie.
Two fine women fighting for the likes of me. I'm thinking this night, wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by?
DeeJay Gray played Christy, the supposed murderer, to perfection, marveling at his new identity as a sought-after man for the first time in his life.
Billy Christopher Maupin played Shawn with a big voice and a timid demeanor, the cowering suitor of the pub owner's daughter, Pegeen, and was hysterical, worried about everything possible.
We'd been warned in advance that the play had two intermissions, the better to relieve ourselves of all that stout we were drinking.
I like a theater group that thinks ahead.
It's the likes of me she's only fit for.
In the second act, David Bridgewater showed up as the father who'd been maimed but not killed and immediately made the audience laugh with his ad-libbing.
Revealing his bandaged head where his son had clobbered him, he was asked who'd hit him.
Momentarily losing his place but eyes twinkling, he looked at the audience and paused. "Wait for it...my own son!" and the crowd cracked up.
The father wastes no time in telling the pub crowd what his son was really like, which was nothing like the brave murderer they'd assumed.
He wasn't even the smooth womanizer they'd taken him for.
If he saw a red petticoat coming over the hill, he'd be running away.
As more women clamored for Christy, he reveled in all the attention.
She'll knock the head off you, I'm thinking.
The pints of stout continued to arrive from the bar during the second intermission, a sure sign everybody was having a good time.
I know I was.
I'm taking a fancy to you.
By Act 3, the other pub denizens were getting a bit tired of Christy's boasting.
He's not able to say ten words without bragging about killing his father.
It was in the final act that we also got a limerick, courtesy of Gordon Bass, who played the drunken pub owner, Pegeen's father.
There was a young man from Kent
Whose tool was exceedingly bent
He put it in double
To save himself trouble
Instead of coming, he went
You can imagine the raucous laughter heard from a roomful of stout-swilling people after that delivery.
What is it to make a woman like me fitting entertainment for the likes of you?
When Pegeen scorns Shawn for Christy, she explains to her father why.
There's no savagery or fine words in him at all.
Savagery aside, what woman doesn't want fine words from her beloved?
By the end, Christy is gone and she woefully laments, "I've lost the only playboy of the western world."
Others, however, saw the positive side of his absence.
For the love of god, we'll have peace now for our drinks.
Maybe it's the Irish in me talking, but frankly, peace for drinking is over-rated.
"Plays and Pints," however, is not. Drink on, theater lovers.
Showing posts with label david bridgewater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label david bridgewater. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Moon Luck Struck
Maybe the full moon gave us luck.
Last Friday, my girlfriend and I had tried unsuccessfully to get rush tickets to see "Red" at Virginia Repertory.
Sadly, when the box office opened, they had only one ticket left and there were two of us.
We waited a week and tried again.
Tonight I arrived before the box office even opened and patiently waited eleven minutes so I could try again.
Not only did I get two tickets, but two in the front row.
Super moon score.
Tickets in hand, I scooped up my girlfriend and we headed back to Magpie for dinner.
It was early enough that we made happy hour, with deals on wine as well as small and medium plates.
The luck was just flowing our way tonight.
We took seats at the bar, thrilled to hear that all wines qualified for happy hour prices.
Despite today's drop in temperature, a Spanish Rose caught my eye and we both ended up with Finca Venta D. Quijote 2011 Rose for its pleasing blend of fresh strawberry and nice acidity.
The bartender tried to woo us to the dark side by letting us taste a blackberry/pear cider very close in color to our Rose, but not nearly as much to my taste.
"Does this have any alcohol in it?" my friend asked after several eminently quaffable sips, clearly tempted.
"Yea, and that's the problem with it," chuckled the barkeep.
We listened to the specials and ordered because we had an 8:00 curtain, but went right back to our discussion once the food was in process.
Friend was doing a mild rant about cultural literacy and her frustration at bringing up things that needed explaining.
In a reference to absinthe at work, she was met by blank stares.
She tried going at it from various angles- art, history, liqueurs, death by wormwood, the Lost Generation, ex-pats- to no avail.
"I finally reduced it to black jellybeans and then they got it," she said in her exasperated way.
Don't get me started.
The food was a worthy distraction from Luddites.
Because it's that time of year, we couldn't resist an asparagus special with Georgian olive oil, ham crumbles and a big, fat poached egg on top.
She had scallops while I went straight for the sausage of the day, a seafood/bacon sausage of crab, scallops, snapper and bacon, served with chevre and pear butter.
The richness of the sausage had my girlfriend saying, "It tastes like meat!"
But it was just the prelude to my next course, snapper collar, served with Romesco and micro basil.
Simply prepared with a crusty skin, the rich collar meat was made even better with the fragrant Romesco and it wasn't long before I was picking pieces off the bone with my fingers.
When the chef came out, I raved about the snapper and, in true fisherman style, he used his hands to show us just how big the whole snapper had been on arrival.
In any case, that explained the large collar.
Not long after, a man came over and asked if I was Karen.
I'd met him and his wife at Secco months ago and we'd since had e-mail contact but hadn't seen each other again.
He's a delightful ad man who managed to compliment us both for multiple reasons within the span of five minutes.
His first order of business was the State of the Plate issue, which he said made them realize they were behind in their new restaurant-going.
Seems he'd spotted me when we'd come in but wasn't sure until his wife confirmed my identity.
I remembered how much I'd liked her when he continued to talk to us even after food started arriving at their table and she looked over and told him to take his time with us.
"I better go because she really will eat it all," he said and since she's a former chef, I didn't doubt it.
By that time, we had to go, too or risk missing our delayed evening with Rothko.
Virginia Repertory was doing "Red," a play about the period in artist Mark Rothko's life when he was painting murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the then-new Seagram's Building.
The period when he was essentially selling out.
But the play was about him taking on a young painter as his assistant and the dynamic of the conversations as the up and comer challenged the old man.
Everyone likes everything nowadays.
Because the play took place in 1958-9, there was much talk of TV's insidious role and how art had become interior decoration.
There's tragedy in every brushstroke.
Even music became part of the discussion because Rothko played classical music throughout the play while his younger assistant once had the audacity to put on Dave Brubek.
When you pay the rent, you can pick the records.
I hadn't anticipated how much actual painting there was to be.
Canvases were primed, brushes dipped and flung and wet paint ended up all over the floor and their clothing.
It's the flashiest mural commission since the Sistine Chapel.
The two-man show had been perfectly cast, with David Bridgewater completely inhabiting the bigger-than-life artist while Maxwell Eddy's understated performance was a revelation as we watched his character grow in confidence and audacity.
Most of painting is thinking.
For me, most of the play was an art history lesson, as I gleaned all kinds of new information about Rothko.
We had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
By the end, Rothko pulls out of the project, giving back the commission, so that he can keep his art from being housed in a commercial space, a soul-less restaurant where pretentious people won't care about it.
It was essentially an incredibly well-acted story of artistic integrity.
And best of all, both of us got all the references, so no over-explaining was required as we left the theater only to be knocked out by the night sky.
Better to admire the perfect full moon that brought me so many good things tonight.
Seems to me I've got nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
Last Friday, my girlfriend and I had tried unsuccessfully to get rush tickets to see "Red" at Virginia Repertory.
Sadly, when the box office opened, they had only one ticket left and there were two of us.
We waited a week and tried again.
Tonight I arrived before the box office even opened and patiently waited eleven minutes so I could try again.
Not only did I get two tickets, but two in the front row.
Super moon score.
Tickets in hand, I scooped up my girlfriend and we headed back to Magpie for dinner.
It was early enough that we made happy hour, with deals on wine as well as small and medium plates.
The luck was just flowing our way tonight.
We took seats at the bar, thrilled to hear that all wines qualified for happy hour prices.
Despite today's drop in temperature, a Spanish Rose caught my eye and we both ended up with Finca Venta D. Quijote 2011 Rose for its pleasing blend of fresh strawberry and nice acidity.
The bartender tried to woo us to the dark side by letting us taste a blackberry/pear cider very close in color to our Rose, but not nearly as much to my taste.
"Does this have any alcohol in it?" my friend asked after several eminently quaffable sips, clearly tempted.
"Yea, and that's the problem with it," chuckled the barkeep.
We listened to the specials and ordered because we had an 8:00 curtain, but went right back to our discussion once the food was in process.
Friend was doing a mild rant about cultural literacy and her frustration at bringing up things that needed explaining.
In a reference to absinthe at work, she was met by blank stares.
She tried going at it from various angles- art, history, liqueurs, death by wormwood, the Lost Generation, ex-pats- to no avail.
"I finally reduced it to black jellybeans and then they got it," she said in her exasperated way.
Don't get me started.
The food was a worthy distraction from Luddites.
Because it's that time of year, we couldn't resist an asparagus special with Georgian olive oil, ham crumbles and a big, fat poached egg on top.
She had scallops while I went straight for the sausage of the day, a seafood/bacon sausage of crab, scallops, snapper and bacon, served with chevre and pear butter.
The richness of the sausage had my girlfriend saying, "It tastes like meat!"
But it was just the prelude to my next course, snapper collar, served with Romesco and micro basil.
Simply prepared with a crusty skin, the rich collar meat was made even better with the fragrant Romesco and it wasn't long before I was picking pieces off the bone with my fingers.
When the chef came out, I raved about the snapper and, in true fisherman style, he used his hands to show us just how big the whole snapper had been on arrival.
In any case, that explained the large collar.
Not long after, a man came over and asked if I was Karen.
I'd met him and his wife at Secco months ago and we'd since had e-mail contact but hadn't seen each other again.
He's a delightful ad man who managed to compliment us both for multiple reasons within the span of five minutes.
His first order of business was the State of the Plate issue, which he said made them realize they were behind in their new restaurant-going.
Seems he'd spotted me when we'd come in but wasn't sure until his wife confirmed my identity.
I remembered how much I'd liked her when he continued to talk to us even after food started arriving at their table and she looked over and told him to take his time with us.
"I better go because she really will eat it all," he said and since she's a former chef, I didn't doubt it.
By that time, we had to go, too or risk missing our delayed evening with Rothko.
Virginia Repertory was doing "Red," a play about the period in artist Mark Rothko's life when he was painting murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the then-new Seagram's Building.
The period when he was essentially selling out.
But the play was about him taking on a young painter as his assistant and the dynamic of the conversations as the up and comer challenged the old man.
Everyone likes everything nowadays.
Because the play took place in 1958-9, there was much talk of TV's insidious role and how art had become interior decoration.
There's tragedy in every brushstroke.
Even music became part of the discussion because Rothko played classical music throughout the play while his younger assistant once had the audacity to put on Dave Brubek.
When you pay the rent, you can pick the records.
I hadn't anticipated how much actual painting there was to be.
Canvases were primed, brushes dipped and flung and wet paint ended up all over the floor and their clothing.
It's the flashiest mural commission since the Sistine Chapel.
The two-man show had been perfectly cast, with David Bridgewater completely inhabiting the bigger-than-life artist while Maxwell Eddy's understated performance was a revelation as we watched his character grow in confidence and audacity.
Most of painting is thinking.
For me, most of the play was an art history lesson, as I gleaned all kinds of new information about Rothko.
We had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
By the end, Rothko pulls out of the project, giving back the commission, so that he can keep his art from being housed in a commercial space, a soul-less restaurant where pretentious people won't care about it.
It was essentially an incredibly well-acted story of artistic integrity.
And best of all, both of us got all the references, so no over-explaining was required as we left the theater only to be knocked out by the night sky.
Better to admire the perfect full moon that brought me so many good things tonight.
Seems to me I've got nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Driving a Life Off the Lot
"When a woman says she wants a new car, she wants a new life."
Let me just start by saying I am mostly happy with my car. It's not perfect and it could use a tune-up, so make of that what you will.
But that was the premise of "Becky's New Car," the new production at Barksdale Theater at Hanover Tavern where I spent my Saturday evening.
My companion and I made sure to get there in time to have a little something to eat and drink before the show, only to roll up and discover that not one, but two weddings were in full swing.
The pub was closed due to one of the weddings and the restaurant was full of everyone who'd made it there before us.
But we weren't bitter because we should have made reservations (apparently) and we were not alone.
Sitting on the wide front porch of the tavern enjoying the night air, almost every person who was arriving for the play was bummed to hear that there'd be no pre-theater food or drink.
As one women put it in her most dire voice, "You mean I can't have a drink during the play?"
No, honey, you're going to have to brave live theater sober.
The story of a woman whose life takes a detour when she meets a rich man was full of comic observations ("Life is chaos and holidays").
David Bridgewater played the loving if not overly romantic husband ("Aw, Becky, we've had a good day. Let's not ruin it by having a talk") in his usual sure-handed way.
Even when he's ad-libbing, he's in full command.
The psychology-studying and spouting son provided all the psychobabble to explain what the characters were experiencing around him, reminding me of Peanuts' Lucy when she hangs out her "Doctor is Real In" shingle.
It was a play where the fourth wall was non-existent.
Melissa Johnston Price, the Becky of the title, was talking to the audience soliciting their opinions about whether to cheat (all three voted no and yet...), helping with her office duties (poorly, as she pointed out) and assisting her in a costume change (that's two full slips I've seen onstage in a week).
Eventually her husband and lover meet ("Things unravel much more quickly than they ravel"), making for an encounter both realistically uncomfortable and wildly hysterical.
It was the unpredictability of the story that kept it from being just another relationship saga. Characters seemed like real people with real issues, just with much wittier takes on everything.
At times it felt a little like a Shakespearean comedy with parallel events happening, like the husband and lover talking to each other on the phone without knowing who the other was.
And Becky's son falling in love with the rich man's daughter without either knowing the other's parents.
But, also like with the Bard, everything came together neatly (including the husband telling the audience how things would end between the lovers..his way) in the last scene.
And the audience, who had been laughing throughout, heard words of wisdom for the ages minus the thees and thous and forsooths.
"Love has made you impossibly stupid."
Well, duh. Who needs a drink to understand (or enjoy) that?
Let me just start by saying I am mostly happy with my car. It's not perfect and it could use a tune-up, so make of that what you will.
But that was the premise of "Becky's New Car," the new production at Barksdale Theater at Hanover Tavern where I spent my Saturday evening.
My companion and I made sure to get there in time to have a little something to eat and drink before the show, only to roll up and discover that not one, but two weddings were in full swing.
The pub was closed due to one of the weddings and the restaurant was full of everyone who'd made it there before us.
But we weren't bitter because we should have made reservations (apparently) and we were not alone.
Sitting on the wide front porch of the tavern enjoying the night air, almost every person who was arriving for the play was bummed to hear that there'd be no pre-theater food or drink.
As one women put it in her most dire voice, "You mean I can't have a drink during the play?"
No, honey, you're going to have to brave live theater sober.
The story of a woman whose life takes a detour when she meets a rich man was full of comic observations ("Life is chaos and holidays").
David Bridgewater played the loving if not overly romantic husband ("Aw, Becky, we've had a good day. Let's not ruin it by having a talk") in his usual sure-handed way.
Even when he's ad-libbing, he's in full command.
The psychology-studying and spouting son provided all the psychobabble to explain what the characters were experiencing around him, reminding me of Peanuts' Lucy when she hangs out her "Doctor is Real In" shingle.
It was a play where the fourth wall was non-existent.
Melissa Johnston Price, the Becky of the title, was talking to the audience soliciting their opinions about whether to cheat (all three voted no and yet...), helping with her office duties (poorly, as she pointed out) and assisting her in a costume change (that's two full slips I've seen onstage in a week).
Eventually her husband and lover meet ("Things unravel much more quickly than they ravel"), making for an encounter both realistically uncomfortable and wildly hysterical.
It was the unpredictability of the story that kept it from being just another relationship saga. Characters seemed like real people with real issues, just with much wittier takes on everything.
At times it felt a little like a Shakespearean comedy with parallel events happening, like the husband and lover talking to each other on the phone without knowing who the other was.
And Becky's son falling in love with the rich man's daughter without either knowing the other's parents.
But, also like with the Bard, everything came together neatly (including the husband telling the audience how things would end between the lovers..his way) in the last scene.
And the audience, who had been laughing throughout, heard words of wisdom for the ages minus the thees and thous and forsooths.
"Love has made you impossibly stupid."
Well, duh. Who needs a drink to understand (or enjoy) that?
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