Agony and the Blown Mind

Sartre was right. Hell is other people and I've concluded that those other people are incoming freshmen.

Somehow I must have missed the dire warnings that the Class of 2019 has been moving in over the past two days, discovering it only when I tried to get to Shoryuken Ramen to meet my dinner date and found Franklin Street closed to cars while over-sized suburban SUVs delivered spawn to dorms.

Another crop of Northern Virginia teenagers who've never lived in a city before have descended en masse to make our life more complicated while they learn to cross streets and parallel park.

I waited an eternity today behind a kid who sat in front of a flashing red light assuming it would eventually turn green. It didn't. And it won't ever.

My dinner companion and I weren't sure whether to expect Shoryuken to be empty or mobbed given the blockades, so we were pleasantly surprised at how uninhabited it was. That said, within half an hour every seat was filled and an awful lot of them looked like parents and or/parents and freshmen.

Translation: none of them looked like Richmonders.

Eating my Hiyashi Chucka - cold ramen in soy-tahini vinaigrette with corn, pulled chicken, scallions, pickled mushrooms, egg and bamboo - facing a window over Franklin Street, I marveled at a student toting a vacuum cleaner (probably his mother's idea) into his new abode. Surely he's not planning on using that thing.

Meanwhile my classic ramen-eating companion told me great stories about a mutual friend who now works at the Ignatius Hat Company in Petersburg. Of course I know someone who works in the hat business.

Replete, we headed to the Firehouse Theater to see Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit," a play I'd never even read, unlike the guy behind me who boasted that he'd read Sartre in philosophy class. Even so, he was the worst kind of person to sit in front of, constantly fidgeting, folding and unfolding his program and moving in his seat non-stop.

I want to choose my own hell.

I was fascinated to learn that the play had been formatted as a one-act play so French audiences could get home before the German-imposed curfew. There was no curfew, but I definitely had plans to get my mind blown afterwards, so I appreciated the brevity tonight.

You can always tell what a man really wants by his actions.

Because it's the Firehouse Theater, no performance would be complete without a fire truck screeching by mid-play. It's nice to know that there are constants in life.

You are your life and nothing else.

It's even better to know that a provocative play cast with three solid leads can take an audience into hell for a night. Of course the lately-ubiquitous McLean Jesse nails the shallow socialite and  DL Hopkins inhabits the cowardly journalist but it's Bianca Bryan's all encompassing portrayal of the lesbian secretary that's most electrifying. Foot tapping, eyes piercing, legs open when sitting, she's a fiercely cruel combatant.

But surely all of us would be miserable in a windowless room with no need to sleep and two people we can't stand our only company for eternity.

Outside on the sidewalk afterwards, we were surprised by fireworks exploding over the Diamond and paused to opine about what we'd just seen while we watched the explosions. "We could talk about the play all night, but you have places to be," he reminded me after 20 minutes of discussion.

As if nubile freshmen weren't enough of a hazard, tonight was also the Down Home Family Reunion in Abner Clay Park, so the streets of Jackson Ward were alive with cars cruising for parking spaces and people lugging chairs to the park.

Clearly Hell was all around me today.

I lugged my own chair to a prime spot and was soon joined by Charlie, a sweet man who has worked at the Pepsi Cola bottling plant in Mechanicsville for 25 years. In fact, he'd come straight from work, intending to stay 20 minutes and go home.

By the time we met, he'd been there five hours. But like me (and probably most of the crowd), he was looking forward to seeing the Delphonics. I give him credit; he knew the words to practically every song and the man could sing.

I've been to enough Down Home Family Reunions to know that by the time the headliner comes on, the show is running seriously behind. Tonight, the Delphonics came on at 10:43 instead of the 9:30 start time listed on the schedule. Not a problem for me, but plenty of people packed up and gave up.

There was a teachable moment tonight when I learned that Major Harris had been a Delphonic back in the '70s (what?), with the band covering Harris' big solo hit, "Love Won't Let Me Wait." The shocker was that Harris was a Richmond boy (Charlie tells me, "I met him in Petersburg a good while back. Nice guy"), news to me.

Maybe because the Delphonics didn't have loads of big hits, their set included a few classics from groups like the Temptations - "My Girl" got the dancing started followed by "Just My Imagination" - and in their shiny red suits, they pulled it off.

Some of the high notes were still there ("I ain't lost nothin'!" the lead singer said after a particularly silvery one), a very good things when they got to the biggies: "La-la Means I Love You" and "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time" which got not only broken down, but an extended jam. The entire crowd sang along in fine voice, plenty swaying in place.

Walking home, mind blown, a guy in a giant truck looks at me and asks if he has enough room to pull out of his parking space. Are you kidding, buddy? There's at least three feet in front of your truck. Just go.

Gack. Too many people harshing my mellow.

Don't let me end up in a locked room with people who wait endlessly at flashing red lights or can't parallel park. Please, no freshmen after death. I want to choose my own Hell.

Nothing to Do

It's rare that I swap day for night. Rarer still when I get up to an empty page in my datebook.

So with absolutely nothing planned for any part of the day or night, I punted, also known as trolling Facebook to see what I'd been invited to while I'd been out of town so much lately.

Barely over a week since my last live music show at a bakery, I returned to Sub Rosa for an afternoon of music by Yeni Nostalji Lite, which is to say vocalist Christina, guitarist Vlad and, on a few songs, Tim on acoustic guitar. It was such a casual performance that they were all seated in the big front window.

Vases of zinnia, marigolds and sunflowers sat on every table, all of which were occupied, in some cases with groups of strangers. I spotted the Italian speaker at the bar, a French food-loving teacher in the back and waited, knowing that the artist would make the effort to come over for a hug and to say hello.

He did.

Between Sub Rosa's usual Sunday business and patrons who came for music but also got seduced by the baked offerings, it was pretty much a constant line at the counter, breaking up my view from a stool butted up against the glass of that counter.

Not that I could blame anyone.

Despite having already eaten, I was unable to resist the siren song of roasted pepper quiche calling to me from behind the glass next to me. "Karen, eat me, eat me..." it wailed directly to me. The guy sitting next to me approved of my choice, noting, "I look forward to that quiche every week." Tellingly, his plate contained nothing but crumbs.

I'd gotten my quiche along with a Pentiman's rose lemonade because it was a hot day, never more obvious than when a woman walked outside and promptly fainted. The Turkish folk songs stopped mid-note and several people rushed outside to help her.

Turns out she'd gone for a long bike ride this morning but hadn't had anything to eat or drink. Foolish girl. She was packed off into her boyfriend's SUV and taken to an undisclosed location, presumably to fuel her body so it didn't give up on her again.

Yeni Nostalji returned to playing things such as 300-year old anti-war songs sung in obscure Turkish dialects (a guy in front of me leans over to his partner and wonders, "What language are they singing in?") with Christina shaking her armful of silver bangles when percussion was needed.

At the counter, the line continued with my favorite customer being the guy who began by asking what everything was and then ordering one of everything - seeded braids, almond croissants, shortbread cookies, chocolate croissants, beef borek - except quiche because I'd gotten the last one.

The attentive audience laughed when Christina announced, "I'm sorry, but this song is typically a duet so I'm going to have to sing a love song to myself." Never was baker (and fellow bandmate) Evrim so missed.

No woman should have to sing a love song to herself.

They ended their set with the same song with which they'd begun, making for perfect Turkish symmetry.

Leaving Church Hill for Jackson Ward, I'd decided to go see TheatreLab's production of "The Altruists" because I'd been hearing so much good about it and they were offering a great deal today. Patrons had only to roll a die and pay whatever the roll was plus five. I rolled a "6" so I paid $11 for my ticket.

The only problem was, I mistakenly assumed everyone had done the same until the woman next to me, a scientist who always enjoys the theater but too rarely makes the time to see it, shared that she'd paid full price ordering her ticket online earlier this afternoon.

Oops. This is why they say loose lips sink ships, Karen.

I spotted a few more familiar faces - an actor, a critic - before the lights went down and the audience was thrown into the back seat of a bus that was already hurtling down the road at breakneck speed.

McLean Jesse was chewing scenery and picking her teeth with the splinters as the actress Sydney (who plays a character named Montana Beach in a soap opera called, what else, "Montana Beach") who is telling off her unfaithful boyfriend Swallow as he sleeps the sleep of the drunk in bed.

"I see now I was just drunk with sex!" she shrieks at the unresponsive Swallow. "No man's perfect, but some are better."

This is the only thing that gives the straight females of the world a reason to keep trying.

In another bedroom, her brother Ronald is professing his love to Lance, a male prostitute, not that Ronald knew that when they hooked up. Already he's in love.

And in the third bedroom of the cleverly designed set, we see that Swallow (played at fever pitch as an unrepentant womanizer by Evan Nasteff, wearing a "F*ck SeaWorld" t-shirt) is just waking up after a drunken night of sex with Cybil, the purported lesbian.

So who was Sydney yelling at in that bed then?

Everyone but Sydney here is an aspiring activist (she doesn't like sweating or too much sun exposure), eager to attend protests and have a part in changing the big, bad world.

The problem is, they only want to do it if it's easy and convenient. Most of the time, none of them can even recall what this week's protest is about. Black lesbian rights or gay Latinos? School funding or government free cheese?

They all claim to want to do the right thing, but they all sponge off Sydney's money, using her house and car for "the cause" and with no acknowledgement of the bigger picture.

Sydney has done a bad thing, a criminal act, but they put their collective consciences on the back burner and protect her rather than losing their cash cow.

If, as John Mayer sang, "Numb is the new deep," these "altruists" are as deep as the ocean. It's tough not to sell your soul down the river when surrounded by nothing but people with no moral compass.

TheaterLAB has done it again, choosing a play with strong and thought-provoking dialog executed by a cast so strong it's impossible to shine a light on just one when all five shone in their roles. The set was brilliant, each room expressing its owner's life and place in the world. Lighting design played a starring role as the action shifted from one room to another at the drop of a hat.

I'd lucked into a fabulous afternoon of ensemble acting at its strongest.

Even after a walk to Cafe 821 for dinner set to a little thrash, I was home by 8:30. As in, before 9:00. Looks like I'll finish my beach read tonight, miles from the sound of the ocean.

Heard some beautiful live music, laughed and winced to a smart play and ate out twice. No days are perfect, but for one that began with an empty slate, I'd say I did pretty well.

Don't go getting any wild ideas about me, though. I still think nights are way better.

All Kinds of Crazy

If you're going to spend an evening experiencing family dysfunction, best to eat first.

But, honestly, nothing could have prepared me for such a visceral experience.

My date and I met at Bistro 27, not at the appointed time (I'd already e-mailed him to move it back 15 minutes) and not at the rescheduled time (I was running late after a last minute errand) but a mere 75 minutes before curtain time.

Luckily, with the November Theater a half block away, the Bistro 27 staff are pros at ensuring customers make their play on time and we sailed through duck confit barbecue sliders (on housemade biscuits, yum) with beets and Brie, a shrimp, avocado and red pepper salad over greens, the bistro steak and a chocolate torte and were picking up our tickets at will call by 7:55.

I think that's what the theatrical community calls good timing.

Cadence Theater Company is producing Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind," a play neither of us knew a thing about. While I usually prefer it that way, my date is known to research and tell all at dinner. Today he'd been subsumed with yard work and brought no factoids to the table.

Just as well. Turns out it was the sort of play you need to experience not bone up on.

The simple wooden set was topped by a platform on which three musicians - keyboards, guitar, fiddle - performed to begin and then sometimes during scenes. It lent a strong sense of location to the story.

At the center of the play were Jake and Beth, both played to dysfunctional perfection by Landon Nagel and McLean Jesse, a married couple in a bad place. Jake has beaten up Beth so badly he assumes he's killed her.

From there, they spiral in different and yet the same directions, each back to their respective crazy (because aren't they all?) families. Home is good because everybody loves you there, or at least accepts you.

But home is also where everyone reverts to long-circumscribed roles, meaning adult children often act and are treated more like their youthful selves. Mothers fret over grown children's problems and siblings maintain long-held secrets.

Of course, in Sam Shepard's world, this happens in the heartland (Idaho, Montana and, most surprisingly, southern California) and the dialog reflects that with phrases such as "you bet your bippy," "darn tootin" and other colloquialisms. "You change streams faster than a trout in heat," Beth's Dad, Baylor, says.

Besides terrific source material, the play boasts a strong and vibrant cast, a necessity of sorts because there is no one main character. Everyone has a story line, everyone is seriously messed up in one way or another, everyone hurts.

When Baylor mistakes Jake's brother for a deer and shots him through the leg, he becomes a virtual prisoner in their house after a blizzard begins. With a bloody hole in his leg and in intense pain, Alexander Sapp as Frankie becomes immobilized on their couch, a witness to another family's major dysfunction.

If you think it's hard to deal with your own family's issues, try having a front row seat for someone else's. No thank you.

His reaction mirrored the audiences' because as the lengthy play - three hours - unfolded, the absurdity of all these relationships and reactions became obvious.

Who acts like that? Oh, that's right, my family. Your family. Everyone's family.

The two mothers couldn't have been more different and yet were just as damaged, just in different ways. Jake's mother Lorraine was bitter after her alcoholic husband (after all, it is a Sam Shepard play) abandons the family. Beth's mother is the obsequious wife, obeying her bully of a husband out of habit rather than love and reminding everyone to stop screaming.

This wasn't a play with a slow build to a big finish, rather it exploded every step of the way as damaged people tried to go about their daily lives.

We've all known mothers who dote on problem sons or blustery old-school fathers who expect the entire household to do their bidding. And sadly, we all know of battered women willing to return to their abuser.

Once again, Cadence has hit it out of the park with a play that will leave its audiences bowled over with the talent onstage and thinking long and hard about the issues raised. The play may have been written in 1986, but the struggles of dealing with family and developing a sense of self outside it are timeless.

I'm guessing that's why I saw so many theater people at the show tonight.

During a scene where Beth's brother Mike has just shot a deer, he comes onstage with a half a dead deer. He's taken the antlers for himself and brought the rest of the animal for his father to clean and dress for meat.

When the lights came up at intermission, the woman near me, herself the artistic director at another theater company, turned to her date and observed dryly, "At least now I know where I can find half a dead deer if I need one."

Darn tootin'. We all take something different from a Sam Shepard play.

Love Wrought These Miracles

I have an ongoing theme this week.

Get lost going to a play in the hinterlands and then sit back and watch love unfold.

A small price to pay for such pleasures.

Instead of south like last night, tonight a friend and I headed west, an even more challenging direction for its homogeneity, both in architecture and street-naming conventions.

After multiple wrong turns and dead ends, at long last we arrived at Steward School's theater for Richmond Shakespeare/Henley Street's must-see production of "The Taming of the Shrew."

Yes, I know there are people who dismiss this play as sexist, male domination over female, blah, blah, but as director Jan Powell pointed out in her notes, it can also be seen as a "deft depiction of how hard it is to make love work in the real world."

Amen, sister.

In a clever staging, it was set in 1930s Hollywood, with ditzy starlets, gangster types and seamed stockings, as a movie cast attempts to shoot TToTS in two hours.

Chalkboards are clapped, lines are forgotten, sets malfunction, and the enormous camera onstage captured it all.

The show began with a film of "coming attractions" showing on the enormous screen behind the stage set to classic newsreel music.

For the feature presentation, of course, it said, "Screenplay by William Shakespeare."

As a bonus, during set changes between scenes, one of the actors would go to the '30s-style microphone and croon a standard.

Blue Moon, I Get a Kick Out of You, Stormy Weather and my personal favorite, The Way You Look Tonight.

Considering it was preview night, the cast was moving seamlessly between movie actors waiting on set and Shakespeare's characters.

I burn, I pine, I perish.

In an interesting bit of casting, Petruchio's servant Grumio was played by a woman, Stacie Reardon Hall, and while such a thing would never have been allowed in Shakespeare's time, it totally worked here.

I'll attend her here and woo her with some spirit when she comes.

Liz Blake White was all fire as Kate, the woman who finally realizes that Petruchio is that rarest of things, a genuine partner, and accepts him on his terms, to the surprise of those who thought her shrewish.

McLean Jesse was her adorable, docile sister, all squeaky voice and delightfully superficial attitude which just made all the men want her more.

For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

When Mark Hackman as Petruchio shows up for their wedding, he is brilliantly and inappropriately dressed in a blue feather boa, pink wings, sunglasses, a wife beater and boots that don't match. With a fake snake wrapped around his arm.

Every girl's dream groom.

During intermission, the couple next to us got up and he returned first but patiently waited in the aisle for her. Climbing back over our legs, he said he'd done that to save us the trouble of being climbed over twice. A very sweet gesture, we said.

"He is sweet. I think I'll keep him," his wife said. I asked how long she'd been keeping him.

43 years, she said. Now that's a man who's been wooing with spirit well.

I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor.

The second act had Petruchio withholding food and sleep to bend Kate to his will and as a woman who thrives on those two things, I can only imagine how well this tactic would work on me.

Kindness in woman, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

The part of the story that dealt with the Hollywood actors had its best moments when the leads, a former happy couple now estranged, can barely spit out their lines at each other civilly.

For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich.

After clamorous kissing (a fabulous phrase for snogging) during the wedding, my favorite scene involves the three new husbands betting each other who has the most obedient wife.

Call me old school, but I find something very romantic abut how Kate shows her love by responding when her husband calls for her while the other wives put their husbands off.

Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado
First kiss me, Kate and then we will
What, in the midst of the street?

You know what?

Yes, in the midst of the street or in the midst of a party or a restaurant or in the midst of anywhere he wants to kiss you.

Thereby hangs a tale...and a lesson in love.

It's enough to make you forget you're lost somewhere out in the bowels of the west end.

Stirring Up the Lewdly-Inclined

With Bootleg Shakespeare, you gotta want it.

Meaning, you gotta be willing to eat a late lunch (3:45 at Garnett's, where I run into the guy who recently gave me a mix tape and thank him for his mix making) and stand in line for a good, long while.

Say, from 4:45 to 6:10 when Pru and I finally procure tickets and are free until the 7:30 curtain time.

Waiting for tickets, the head usher comes out in an ensemble that could stop traffic: leather lace-up pants, a vest, heels and a red, white and blue stars and stripes shirt he bought for his first concert back in the '70s. Naturally, I had to inquire what that show was and was told it was the Fifth Dimension at Franklin Street gym. He came *this* close to dancing with Marilyn McCoo, he said.

Whoa.

Another usher is dressed in silver lame pants with silver boots and lots of bling. It's a magnificently '70s ensemble. The man in line ahead of me eventually joins our conversation about the people butting in front of the line and later gives me a quizzical look and says, "You're the one who writes the blog, right?"

How the hell did you know that? "I figured it out," he claims. Yea, right.

Leaving the ticket line to kill time, we pass the waiting line, now well past Staples, and I hear someone call out to me, "Hey, beautiful!" As Pru and I discussed, those are words no woman ever tires of hearing.

Back inside, director James Ricks explains that the beauty of doing a play like "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is that it's infrequently produced, thus there are no expectations. No ghosts of Richard Burton, as he explains it.

Just 17 actors, no rehearsals and absolute fun.

The bootleg production has a band and they begin the play by playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with the entire cast dancing like Charlie Brown characters in the Christmas special.

Nick Aliff is immediately awesome as Antiochus, complete with Brando-like mumbled vowels and an incestuous relationship with his daughter, played by the lollipop-sucking, knee sock-wearing McLean Jesse. John Mincks' character is at once getting laughs as he continually loses a lens to his glasses.

Fittingly for bootleg, sailing ships are depicted with paper cut outs and sticks bobbing behind the backdrop. When Pericles lands on famine-starved Tarsus, he saves them with candy corn and bags of Cookout burgers.

Because of the lack of rehearsals and time to study lines, the evening is filled with actors calling, "Line!" as well as creative ways to bring dialog onstage: inside a breastplate, written on a palm, using a phone, reading off a "letter."

The French get skewered by Adam Mincks wearing a turtleneck, smoking a cigarette, saying "merdre!" and dancing like a '50s beatnik. Absolutely hysterical.

Led Zep is played between scenes, songs like "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," and, for a moment, "Stairway to Heaven," before the cast revolts and shouts, "No 'Stairway to Heaven'!" Thaisa's suitors do a dance-off to determine who will win her hand while she (Grey Garrett) sips a juice box.

One of the most charming scenes involved baby Marina, held in the arms of the nurse and following Evan/Pericles side to side, watching him everywhere he moved.

During intermission, one lucky attendee won the raffle to play a pirate in the second act, hook, parrot and all.

Late in the play when John Mincks' character is trying to make a deal with McLean Jesse's, his shorts around his ankles, he repeatedly asked for his line until eventually letting prompter Kerrigan Sullivan read the entire passage. "All of that!" Mincks shouted with a flourish and walked off stage.

Yet again, the beauty of the bootleg.

He wasn't the only one feeling the fatigue of a long play and little rehearsal; eventually during Pericles' rough period, Evan said, "I am great with wine," when the line was really, "I am great with woe."

Wine, woe, potato, potah-to.

Because I'd never read or seen "Pericles" produced, it was a pleasure to watch the story unfold, never quite sure what might happen. Who knew there'd be so many presumed dead still alive? So much incest? So much attempted prostitution?

Few love to hear the sins they love to act.

I love to hear whatever the participants of bootleg Shakespeare want to act.

Line!

I am great with bawdy appreciation.

Mid-Summer Madness

Nothing worked out as expected and everything worked out great.

The plan was to go to Petersburg to have a picnic on the lawn and see Sycamore Rouge's free production of  "Twelfth Night."

Free Shakespeare outdoors, hell, yes.

I mean, yes, please.

On the drive down 95, it began to rain.

By the time we got downtown it was more like a monsoon.

We pulled up right in front of the Petersburg Art League and sat there in the car, hoping to wait out the rain and hope that the play would still begin in just over an hour.

I suppose we were a little obvious, sitting there idling and staring, so when a woman stuck her head out the door, I rolled down my window and asked if the play was still happening.

It was, only inside now and, yes, we could bring our dinner in with us.

Being straight-haired women, we opted to wait out the worst of the rain before making a mad dash for the door.

All at once, my friend had a flash of clarity.

"Wine!" she exclaimed, pulling a bottle of Rose d'Anjou from the back seat.

She's brilliant, that one.

So that was us, the two happy theater lovers sitting in the Mini sipping Rose as the rain fell harder and car tires disappeared into the enormous puddle across the street.

Once we'd gotten into the wine, we couldn't help but get into the food we'd brought from Garnett's and next thing you know, I'm eating a farmer's salad and she's downing a black forest ham sandwich and potato chips which had morphed from extra crispy to slightly soggy in the humid air.

About 7:15, a woman came out of the building, indicating we should roll down the window and said, "If you want to come in, we're going to start in about fifteen minutes."

Food and wine consumed, we soon joined the small crowd inside.

No doubt many people had assumed the outdoor show had been called off by the bad weather, but they'd have been wrong.

You know what they say about assumptions.

We had our pick of seats and choose two in the front row, the better to see the mistaken identities and cross-gartered stockings up close.

The cast, full of fine voices, began the show by singing "Walk Like a Man" before they were off and running.

I heard you were saucy at my gates.

"Twelfth Night" is a play I've seen many times (Scott Wichmann was my first Mavolio, what, over a decade ago?) and one I still enjoy with the right cast.

This was the right cast and the right chaise, the only prop.

O, time, thou must untangle this, not I.

This production included a lot of popular music - "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," "Get Off of My Cloud"- played to a guitar strummed by the especially well-acted Feste, the fool (whose voice sent both Friend and I into palpitations).

As I am, all lovers are.

Having the Art League as the backdrop for the play instead of the great outdoors meant that behind the actors hung a show by Adam Juresko, an artist with whom I'm well familiar since two of his pieces hang in my living room.

All I'm saying is, you could do a whole lot worse for set decoration.

Let thy love be younger than thyself.

That's always been my M.O.

When intermission arrived, we stretched our legs by going outside during a momentary break in the rain and admired the little park and stage next door where the play is usually performed.

Seeing it made us both want to come back and try the picnic/play thing again.

But indeed, words are very rascals.

During the second act, I got the payoff for being in the front row when the actor playing Sebastian leered at me mid-dialog and inquired, "So, I'm Sebastian. What are you doing after the show?"

It's always nice to be singled out.

When after a discussion with his servant, Antonio, he finds he has an hour and some cash to kill, he leered again, as if to check if an hour would be enough.

I could work with  an hour.

Why, this is very mid-summer madness.

Despite the small crowd and move to the indoors, the cast was energetic, delivering their lines as if to a lawn full of people.

Which is, I bet, what they will have for all their other performances considering how well-executed and hilarious this production is.

I recognized a couple of people since I was practically up in their faces.

Matt as Sir Andrew was laugh-out-loud funny with his big eyes and effortless broad physical comedy, once even knocking the curtain off the opening to the backstage area in his exuberance.

Despite having seen Nick wow me with show tunes at Ghost Light Afterparty so many times, his turn as Malvolio was a treat, as he played alternately egotistical and angry and oh-so dapperly yellow.

McLean's Olivia was funny, self-involved but enthusiastically devoted to the man/woman she thought she loved.

Besides, by the end of the play, everyone had been found out, marriages made and Malvolio clear that he'd be revenged on the lot of them.

By the end of my night, I'd had wine and dinner in a car during a rainstorm and seen a rollicking good play inside instead of out.

Not what I expected, but what you will.