Everyone's whining about Mercury in retrograde, but I can't say I've noticed any effects myself.
I've read people say that it's a period when communication goes haywire and weird things happen, but I had no problem meeting a charming polymath at the preview night performance of "The Lion in Winter" at VMFA.
Might as well go ahead and admit it, I'd seen neither the play nor the film, although I did look up Eleanor of Aquitaine beforehand so I'd have a little background.
It was easy finding a single seat in the fourth row near a well-dressed man who was also companion-less. The artistic director soon informed us, "You are our ambassadors so if you like what you see, please tell everyone you know. If you don't like it, let's keep it our little secret."
Then, appropriately before a play about a long-time married couple, she wished a couple - Vaughn and Nick - happy 33rd anniversary. Then it was on to a 12th century Christmas.
Through lies, deception, manipulation and posturing, we watched as Henry II's family played out its dysfunction in every relationship - parent/child, husband/wife, siblings - and interaction. Everyone was so busy scheming it was a miracle anyone had time to wage war, father illegitimate children or run the country and isn't that what British royalty did back then?
Much was made of Eleanor's age - 60- with comments such as, "I've heard she's aging badly," followed by her son's gleeful request, "Let's go look!" She directs them, "Take what memory you have of me and mark it out of date." That's what happens to a woman's looks when her husband, the king, imprisons her for ten years for helping her son plan a rebellion against him.
During intermission, I pulled out my Washington Post to read while the man next to me pulled out his book but before long he spoke to me and reading materials were set aside. Even readers can't resist the spoken word.
Turns out he was the theater critic for the Richmond Times Dispatch years ago and for at least the first six years after I moved to Richmond, meaning surely I'd read his work at one point. Interestingly enough, he'd also written critiques for the RTD of opera, ballet and art. I was amazed to hear that one year alone, he'd seen 200 plays (because of trips to NYC and London, lucky dog).
We really clicked when he told me that his only qualifications for the job had been all of his going out to events and a knack for writing. When I shared that I go out every night, he insisted that was proof that I was qualified to write about culture. Imagine his surprise when he heard what I do.
The 1966 play had a contemporary layer to it with humorous asides ("Of course we all have knives. It's 1183, we're still barbarians!") and a surprise plot twist involving a gay tryst ("Oh, no!" someone moaned from the back of the theater when it was revealed). Its twisted middle-aged romance ("I could listen to you lie for hours") was timeless and sometimes brutally honest ("Jealousy looks silly on us, Henry").
My new critic friend admitted afterwards that he'd found the acting a bit stiff but attributed it to the first night of the run. Perhaps the cast just needs a bit more time to get used to each other, sort of like with the early years of marriage or cohabitation.
Walking out of the museum, it was so bitterly cold and windy that I considered heading home but since my drive would take me right past Emilio's and music, that seemed like a foolish plan.
The temptation was twofold: Goldrush was playing, so I could expect friends, frivolous discussion and their familiar yet solid sound. Plus Adam and the Yew Banks were opening and I'd fallen hard for them at the Ghost of Pop show in December.
I scored on all counts. The handsome bass player not only regaled me with stories of hiding things from his mother-in-law's prying eyes, he also told a stranger that I'd given him and his wife a housewarming gift of velvet handcuffs (it should be noted that the gift also included two bottles of wine). Also covered were the folly of bourbon shots on Bourbon Street, moving doors and ego-less sax players
Standing near the front of the crowd where plenty of familiar faces gathered, the only downside was the frequency with which the door opened to admit new guests and allow smokers to escape to freeze their patooties off while feeding their addiction.
One smoker clad in a long, summery-looking skirt complained about her poor choice in attire on such a frigid night. "I shaved my legs, what the hell was I thinking?" she asked rhetorically while hiking up her skirt to show me a bare leg. "All I've got on under this is a thong." Yikes, honey.
Once again, Adam and the Yew Banks blew my mind with their well-executed set, a tantalizing combination of great voices, excellent songwriting and an overall sound both loose and polished that had many of us moving our hips to. A musician friend instructed me to pay close attention to how talented the drummer was, but it seemed to me that they all were.
Goldrush took the stage after a break that allowed for the essentials (drummer extraordinaire Willis to set up and Prabir to do a shot) and for more people to arrive to partake of their hook-laden chamber rock.
Although I've been going to Goldrush shows for years, who knows, some of tonight's crowd could have been experiencing the distinct pleasures of two classical musicians playing violin and upright bass in a pop context for the first time. I'd call them Goldrush virgins but I don't want to give Prabir any ideas.
Or maybe they just wandered in off the street because their thongs weren't keeping them very warm and it's so cold out there. So cold I almost bypassed music tonight.
Maybe that was Mercury in retrograde trying to mess me up. Wait, this is 2015, you call that science?
Bueller, Prabir, anyone?
Showing posts with label richmond shakespeare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richmond shakespeare. Show all posts
Friday, February 6, 2015
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
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.
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.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Peculiar Sorts and Lutzes
Mind first, booty second.
Tonight was the first in Henley Street/Richmond Shakespeare's new historical play reading series dedicated to works descended from Shakespeare's use of language.
Hardly surprisingly, I had a ticket to join a favorite couple for it.
They found me in the second row with enough time to tell me about their trip this weekend to Newport and their recent entry into the world of cooking before the lights went down.
"Omnium Gatherum," a 2003 play (and one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize) about a group of New Yorkers at a dinner party was fascinating, thought-provoking, groan-inducing and topical.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Although the dinner conversation between the seven - and eventually eight - guests ("a collection of peculiar sorts") centered around September 11th and its aftereffects, there wasn't a topic covered that wasn't still relevant today, sadly, eleven years later.
Lively and contentious debate is the heart of every good dinner party.
In addition to all kinds of political discourse, the hostess described in minute detail every dish she was serving her guests, no doubt an early nod to the burgeoning foodie movement.
When a guest asks for ranch dressing for the salad, the hostess, recoils in horror. "Ranch??"
Although it was just a reading, the cast was outstanding, featuring actors I recognized - the always excellent Dean Knight (this time with a British accent) and the Artsie-nominated Katrinah Carol Lewis who sang an off-key version of "The Greatest Love" despite her having a fabulous voice- and some I didn't.
I've never been a fan of frisee. Too wild on the plate.
As was the prevailing sentiment at the time, it was mentioned that "print is dead" (fortunately, still not entirely true) and the New York Times was skewered as "a paper of record or a pacifier of bourgeoisie."
No dinner party is any good unless someone is drinking too fast.
So many "isms" were represented - feminism, capitalism, consumerism, terrorism, heroism - and all were discussed and debated to varying degrees of success.
We're evolving but the power system isn't.
Serious as some of the subject matter was, the play also had many laughs, never more so than when the hostess attempts to smooth things over with a change in topic.
A guest acknowledges it by calling it "a veritable triple lutz of a conversational leap," the line I nominate as indicative of the quality of language in the play.
Afterwards, there was a talkback with a three-person panel, a class from UR and all the attendees resulting in a lot of commentary about the pre-and post-9/11 world.
My friends and I had to laugh when one of the UR freshmen mentioned his grasp of the old world order because he'd been alive when the terrorist attacks occurred.
Of course, he'd been in kindergarten, but he wanted to be counted among those who "knew" the world before the attacks. I don't think so, youngster.
The talkback went on longer than planned because so many people had thoughts to share, questions to ask and points to make about the play.
My friends and I stood outside on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes discussing it ourselves, unable to stop our discourse on all the intriguing points raised.
My mind had been thoroughly goosed.
Then it was on to Balliceaux where I ran into a favorite trumpet player loitering outside Kuba, Kuba as I walked from my car.
Squeezing through the crowd around the front door, I headed to the back for a double bill where garage rock band Cherry Pits was hitting it hard when I walked in.
The Americana songbird spotted me at once ("We need to plan our date!"), the DJ was showing off her pretty toenail polish and the guitarist/foodie questioned my whereabouts ("Where were you this weekend at Fall Line Fest?") only to learn we had just barely missed each other Saturday at two different venues.
When I asked how proto-punk band Death had been, he shook his head and uttered what may the epitaph of the evening.
"You can't re-inflate a souffle," he explained glumly but with a masterful metaphor.
Cherry Pits' thrash-filled set ended with the best possible song: "My Baby's a Bitch," which had the crowd in a frenzy by the end.
While Hot Dolphin set up, I chatted with a friend about when the Valentine will re-open (late October if the contractors keep showing up), why a 40-year old should get carded at the door and why dresses beat pants every time.
Then it was time for main event, a show I was overdue for, not having seen the local rockers since last summer.
The band - drummer, guitarist and bassist - set up on the stage but front woman Lindsey - adorably dressed in a polka dot shirt with peplum, black mini and silver head band - had her mic stand on the floor so she'd have plenty of room to move.
"Thanks to Balliceaux for hosting a rock show!" she said to get things started on a Thursday night.
When I'd first seen Hot Dolphin, I'd been amazed at how she never stopped dancing. Ever.
She still hasn't and that's a very good thing because it ensures that the crowd understands that this is music to shake your tail feathers to.
Like sheep to the slaughter, she totally owns the crowd and they follow along l thrilled to have her leading them.
To give you an idea, her sound check was a scream, then she entreated us to come closer (the better to stick the mic in fans' faces to sing along) and surround her.
A photographer friend planted himself in the front row, the better to capture the energy happening a few feet from his lens.
Simply put, girls want to be her and men want to have her. Everyone was into her and the energetic music.
When she snarled, "Put your hands together," you'd better believe people did.
Each song was a three-minute sensory assault and not since Stevie Nicks has there been such a whirling dervish of a singer dancing, twirling and playing tambourine to a rapt audience.
After their last song, she understandably had quite the sheen and took a swig of her beer, announcing, "We're done! We're Hot Dolphin. We have t-shirts and that's it."
I'd gotten plenty of dancing of my own in, a fitting finish to an evening that had begun with my body still and my mind fully engaged.
Walking down Lombardy to my car after the show, two girls behind me chattered away about what they'd just seen.
"I wish I could be as sexy as her," one said enviously. "If I could wear my hair like that, I so would," said the other.
I considered turning around and telling them that that wasn't the point, that it was the energy, passion and obvious enjoyment she brought to the music that was worth emulating.
A quick glimpse back and I knew there was no point.
They looked like they'd probably been in kindergarten on 9/11. A triple lutz of a conversational leap would fly right over their heads.
New world order.
Tonight was the first in Henley Street/Richmond Shakespeare's new historical play reading series dedicated to works descended from Shakespeare's use of language.
Hardly surprisingly, I had a ticket to join a favorite couple for it.
They found me in the second row with enough time to tell me about their trip this weekend to Newport and their recent entry into the world of cooking before the lights went down.
"Omnium Gatherum," a 2003 play (and one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize) about a group of New Yorkers at a dinner party was fascinating, thought-provoking, groan-inducing and topical.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Although the dinner conversation between the seven - and eventually eight - guests ("a collection of peculiar sorts") centered around September 11th and its aftereffects, there wasn't a topic covered that wasn't still relevant today, sadly, eleven years later.
Lively and contentious debate is the heart of every good dinner party.
In addition to all kinds of political discourse, the hostess described in minute detail every dish she was serving her guests, no doubt an early nod to the burgeoning foodie movement.
When a guest asks for ranch dressing for the salad, the hostess, recoils in horror. "Ranch??"
Although it was just a reading, the cast was outstanding, featuring actors I recognized - the always excellent Dean Knight (this time with a British accent) and the Artsie-nominated Katrinah Carol Lewis who sang an off-key version of "The Greatest Love" despite her having a fabulous voice- and some I didn't.
I've never been a fan of frisee. Too wild on the plate.
As was the prevailing sentiment at the time, it was mentioned that "print is dead" (fortunately, still not entirely true) and the New York Times was skewered as "a paper of record or a pacifier of bourgeoisie."
No dinner party is any good unless someone is drinking too fast.
So many "isms" were represented - feminism, capitalism, consumerism, terrorism, heroism - and all were discussed and debated to varying degrees of success.
We're evolving but the power system isn't.
Serious as some of the subject matter was, the play also had many laughs, never more so than when the hostess attempts to smooth things over with a change in topic.
A guest acknowledges it by calling it "a veritable triple lutz of a conversational leap," the line I nominate as indicative of the quality of language in the play.
Afterwards, there was a talkback with a three-person panel, a class from UR and all the attendees resulting in a lot of commentary about the pre-and post-9/11 world.
My friends and I had to laugh when one of the UR freshmen mentioned his grasp of the old world order because he'd been alive when the terrorist attacks occurred.
Of course, he'd been in kindergarten, but he wanted to be counted among those who "knew" the world before the attacks. I don't think so, youngster.
The talkback went on longer than planned because so many people had thoughts to share, questions to ask and points to make about the play.
My friends and I stood outside on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes discussing it ourselves, unable to stop our discourse on all the intriguing points raised.
My mind had been thoroughly goosed.
Then it was on to Balliceaux where I ran into a favorite trumpet player loitering outside Kuba, Kuba as I walked from my car.
Squeezing through the crowd around the front door, I headed to the back for a double bill where garage rock band Cherry Pits was hitting it hard when I walked in.
The Americana songbird spotted me at once ("We need to plan our date!"), the DJ was showing off her pretty toenail polish and the guitarist/foodie questioned my whereabouts ("Where were you this weekend at Fall Line Fest?") only to learn we had just barely missed each other Saturday at two different venues.
When I asked how proto-punk band Death had been, he shook his head and uttered what may the epitaph of the evening.
"You can't re-inflate a souffle," he explained glumly but with a masterful metaphor.
Cherry Pits' thrash-filled set ended with the best possible song: "My Baby's a Bitch," which had the crowd in a frenzy by the end.
While Hot Dolphin set up, I chatted with a friend about when the Valentine will re-open (late October if the contractors keep showing up), why a 40-year old should get carded at the door and why dresses beat pants every time.
Then it was time for main event, a show I was overdue for, not having seen the local rockers since last summer.
The band - drummer, guitarist and bassist - set up on the stage but front woman Lindsey - adorably dressed in a polka dot shirt with peplum, black mini and silver head band - had her mic stand on the floor so she'd have plenty of room to move.
"Thanks to Balliceaux for hosting a rock show!" she said to get things started on a Thursday night.
When I'd first seen Hot Dolphin, I'd been amazed at how she never stopped dancing. Ever.
She still hasn't and that's a very good thing because it ensures that the crowd understands that this is music to shake your tail feathers to.
Like sheep to the slaughter, she totally owns the crowd and they follow along l thrilled to have her leading them.
To give you an idea, her sound check was a scream, then she entreated us to come closer (the better to stick the mic in fans' faces to sing along) and surround her.
A photographer friend planted himself in the front row, the better to capture the energy happening a few feet from his lens.
Simply put, girls want to be her and men want to have her. Everyone was into her and the energetic music.
When she snarled, "Put your hands together," you'd better believe people did.
Each song was a three-minute sensory assault and not since Stevie Nicks has there been such a whirling dervish of a singer dancing, twirling and playing tambourine to a rapt audience.
After their last song, she understandably had quite the sheen and took a swig of her beer, announcing, "We're done! We're Hot Dolphin. We have t-shirts and that's it."
I'd gotten plenty of dancing of my own in, a fitting finish to an evening that had begun with my body still and my mind fully engaged.
Walking down Lombardy to my car after the show, two girls behind me chattered away about what they'd just seen.
"I wish I could be as sexy as her," one said enviously. "If I could wear my hair like that, I so would," said the other.
I considered turning around and telling them that that wasn't the point, that it was the energy, passion and obvious enjoyment she brought to the music that was worth emulating.
A quick glimpse back and I knew there was no point.
They looked like they'd probably been in kindergarten on 9/11. A triple lutz of a conversational leap would fly right over their heads.
New world order.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Stand Back, Eternal Feminine
Two things were certain tonight: death and taxes.
Actually, it was a tax relief party at Nacho Mama's Boulevard Bar and Grill, an offshoot of Nacho Mama's in Carytown.
Owner Raoul was hosting the party, meaning that bass-heavy dance music was pumping when Pru and I walked in and endless pictures were taken throughout the evening.
When I questioned having to smile for the phone yet again, Raoul lectured me about the importance of self-promotion. No doubt his, not mine.
The tequila menu was more limited than I would have expected for a Mexican place, but I cut my tequila teeth on 1800 and I'd take it over overpriced Patron any day, which I did. Twice.
A DJ was playing full-on 21st century disco, meaning club versions of songs as unlikely as Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back." Hysterical.
Just to prove he knew a little disco history, the DJ even played a thumping version of "MacArthur Park," although not Donna Summer's, but easily one of the sappiest and stupidest songs ever written.
Someone left the cake out in the rain? Who does that? Who writes that?
Despite the pouring rain and falling temperatures outside, people kept arriving (including several Carytown business owners), to celebrate and the bar got really loud while I took advantage of a tax relief deal on flautas.
While enjoying a nicely spiced chicken version Pru told me about a fabulous website she'd found for cute, inexpensive clothes, a company that unexpectedly, she found, also carried rubber lingerie.
This was relevant mainly because, oddly enough, a co-worker had e-mailed her today asking if she knew anything about buying a vinyl bustier. She knew enough to school him on the use of corn starch with vinyl clothing and directed him to her new favorite website.
I'm lucky to have such knowledgeable friends.
With the pool visible through the wall of bar windows, everyone was raving about what a terrific place that's going to be once summer arrives and the pool is open.
Margaritas and scantily clad people, an easy way to go from 0 to 60 in no time flat.
Eventually we had to leave the still-expanding party to make an 8:00 curtain at Richmond Triangle Players. I've been spending a whole lot of time in Scott's Addition lately.
Waiting for the play to begin, I learned a new term when Pru told me about the stash of books she'd scored at the recent main library sale (36 books, $35). I'd skipped the sale because I haven't finished reading the last stack I'd gotten at the library's book giveaway (13 books, $0).
She and a co-worker (not vinyl guy, though) have a long-standing tradition of taking the afternoon off to go to the book sale and then to lunch at Chez Foushee.
In fact, that was the last time I'd seen her, as I was leaving Foushee with a friend after lunch and they'd been arriving.
These two are such accounting nerds that they actually keep colored spreadsheets, with listings for TBR ("to be read," the term I learned), what they've read and what they're looking for in terms of books for others.
They're so hardcore they also don't hesitate to buy a hardcover version of a book they already own in paperback. Okay, I can understand that one.
It's the optimism of that term - to be read - that I was so taken with. If I ever started my own list of TBR, I fear it would consume me. And, honestly, in some cases, I don't even know something needs to be read until I stumble upon it. One of those thirteen books I'd picked up, "Last Train to Memphis," would never have been on my list and I wound up positively enthralled with it.
And while we're on the subject of readers, it's a good thing Pru and I fell into that category because Henley/Shakes' production of "Wittenberg" presumed a literate audience and tossed out erudite witticisms and insider jokes like nobody's business.
It all hinged on that old saw, reason versus faith. Yes, that.
The play revolved around Hamlet and his senior year at Wittenberg University (before his father dies and he ascends the throne), Dr. Faustus, a devilishly provocative teacher of philosophy and Martin Luther, a theology professor who's seriously questioning the church. The fourth character is called the "eternal feminine" and plays every female role.
How brilliant is that assemblage of characters?
There's a local dive called The Bunghole, where Faustus plays some "light lute" and sings "The Seeker" and entreats the crowd to "take care of your bar wenches."
Meanwhile, Martin Luther is aghast at the church's selling of indulgences as "get out of jail free" passes for sinners, using drink to self-medicate as he questions his faith. "Seventy three books in the bible! Know how many mention alcohol? 72!"
One of the most hilarious scene is a tennis match between Hamlet and the unseen Laertes, playing for Paris University. Wearing a white doublet tennis ensemble for the ages, Hamlet lobs the imaginary ball and jabs at his foe with physical grace and biting wit.
One scene began under low light with one character on his knees and the other sitting in a chair beside him, although the motion of his head was not immediately identifiable for what was happening. A few seconds in and someone in the last row said loudly, "Oh!" alerting everyone to the on-stage oral action.
Hello, we were at Richmond Triangle Players.
Laughs continued when Faustus nails up Martin Luther's doctrine, thereby starting the Protestant reformation and pissing off Luther who hadn't planned to share it. He adjusts.
Once Hamlet gets word that his father has died, he has to return to Denmark (and we know where that's going) and Faustus tells him to question everything. "I don't want to end up hearing about the tragedy of Hamlet," he warns. Oops.
Faustus is taking a sabbatical to go "underground" and Hamlet counters by telling him to think before acting so his life doesn't become a cautionary tale. As if.
Our night of intellectual theater ended back at the Bung Hole with Faustus singing "Que Sera, Sera" and the eternal feminine chiming in with "Let it Be."
The beauty of the play was that everybody in the room already knew how the three stories were going to end up right from the start. We knew because we're readers.
Which may or may not explain my favorite quote from the play. The world is a book. Those who do not travel read only a page.
Absolutely true. But the only thing harder to make than a TBR list would be a TBV list.
Besides, I've got no faith in my ability to make a spreadsheet and no reason to try. Que sera, sera, no?
Actually, it was a tax relief party at Nacho Mama's Boulevard Bar and Grill, an offshoot of Nacho Mama's in Carytown.
Owner Raoul was hosting the party, meaning that bass-heavy dance music was pumping when Pru and I walked in and endless pictures were taken throughout the evening.
When I questioned having to smile for the phone yet again, Raoul lectured me about the importance of self-promotion. No doubt his, not mine.
The tequila menu was more limited than I would have expected for a Mexican place, but I cut my tequila teeth on 1800 and I'd take it over overpriced Patron any day, which I did. Twice.
A DJ was playing full-on 21st century disco, meaning club versions of songs as unlikely as Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back." Hysterical.
Just to prove he knew a little disco history, the DJ even played a thumping version of "MacArthur Park," although not Donna Summer's, but easily one of the sappiest and stupidest songs ever written.
Someone left the cake out in the rain? Who does that? Who writes that?
Despite the pouring rain and falling temperatures outside, people kept arriving (including several Carytown business owners), to celebrate and the bar got really loud while I took advantage of a tax relief deal on flautas.
While enjoying a nicely spiced chicken version Pru told me about a fabulous website she'd found for cute, inexpensive clothes, a company that unexpectedly, she found, also carried rubber lingerie.
This was relevant mainly because, oddly enough, a co-worker had e-mailed her today asking if she knew anything about buying a vinyl bustier. She knew enough to school him on the use of corn starch with vinyl clothing and directed him to her new favorite website.
I'm lucky to have such knowledgeable friends.
With the pool visible through the wall of bar windows, everyone was raving about what a terrific place that's going to be once summer arrives and the pool is open.
Margaritas and scantily clad people, an easy way to go from 0 to 60 in no time flat.
Eventually we had to leave the still-expanding party to make an 8:00 curtain at Richmond Triangle Players. I've been spending a whole lot of time in Scott's Addition lately.
Waiting for the play to begin, I learned a new term when Pru told me about the stash of books she'd scored at the recent main library sale (36 books, $35). I'd skipped the sale because I haven't finished reading the last stack I'd gotten at the library's book giveaway (13 books, $0).
She and a co-worker (not vinyl guy, though) have a long-standing tradition of taking the afternoon off to go to the book sale and then to lunch at Chez Foushee.
In fact, that was the last time I'd seen her, as I was leaving Foushee with a friend after lunch and they'd been arriving.
These two are such accounting nerds that they actually keep colored spreadsheets, with listings for TBR ("to be read," the term I learned), what they've read and what they're looking for in terms of books for others.
They're so hardcore they also don't hesitate to buy a hardcover version of a book they already own in paperback. Okay, I can understand that one.
It's the optimism of that term - to be read - that I was so taken with. If I ever started my own list of TBR, I fear it would consume me. And, honestly, in some cases, I don't even know something needs to be read until I stumble upon it. One of those thirteen books I'd picked up, "Last Train to Memphis," would never have been on my list and I wound up positively enthralled with it.
And while we're on the subject of readers, it's a good thing Pru and I fell into that category because Henley/Shakes' production of "Wittenberg" presumed a literate audience and tossed out erudite witticisms and insider jokes like nobody's business.
It all hinged on that old saw, reason versus faith. Yes, that.
The play revolved around Hamlet and his senior year at Wittenberg University (before his father dies and he ascends the throne), Dr. Faustus, a devilishly provocative teacher of philosophy and Martin Luther, a theology professor who's seriously questioning the church. The fourth character is called the "eternal feminine" and plays every female role.
How brilliant is that assemblage of characters?
There's a local dive called The Bunghole, where Faustus plays some "light lute" and sings "The Seeker" and entreats the crowd to "take care of your bar wenches."
Meanwhile, Martin Luther is aghast at the church's selling of indulgences as "get out of jail free" passes for sinners, using drink to self-medicate as he questions his faith. "Seventy three books in the bible! Know how many mention alcohol? 72!"
One of the most hilarious scene is a tennis match between Hamlet and the unseen Laertes, playing for Paris University. Wearing a white doublet tennis ensemble for the ages, Hamlet lobs the imaginary ball and jabs at his foe with physical grace and biting wit.
One scene began under low light with one character on his knees and the other sitting in a chair beside him, although the motion of his head was not immediately identifiable for what was happening. A few seconds in and someone in the last row said loudly, "Oh!" alerting everyone to the on-stage oral action.
Hello, we were at Richmond Triangle Players.
Laughs continued when Faustus nails up Martin Luther's doctrine, thereby starting the Protestant reformation and pissing off Luther who hadn't planned to share it. He adjusts.
Once Hamlet gets word that his father has died, he has to return to Denmark (and we know where that's going) and Faustus tells him to question everything. "I don't want to end up hearing about the tragedy of Hamlet," he warns. Oops.
Faustus is taking a sabbatical to go "underground" and Hamlet counters by telling him to think before acting so his life doesn't become a cautionary tale. As if.
Our night of intellectual theater ended back at the Bung Hole with Faustus singing "Que Sera, Sera" and the eternal feminine chiming in with "Let it Be."
The beauty of the play was that everybody in the room already knew how the three stories were going to end up right from the start. We knew because we're readers.
Which may or may not explain my favorite quote from the play. The world is a book. Those who do not travel read only a page.
Absolutely true. But the only thing harder to make than a TBR list would be a TBV list.
Besides, I've got no faith in my ability to make a spreadsheet and no reason to try. Que sera, sera, no?
Friday, March 7, 2014
May the Bard Be with You
Last time, it was for brisket. Tonight, iambic pentameter.
Tonight the Weinstein JCC lured me in, not for food but because they were hosting HenShakes' one night production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Abridged. Revised."
Abridged so we weren't there until our butts fell off. Revised so they could insert topical humor and current references.
Meaning an evening for the intellectually flaccid of 37 plays in 97 minutes by three of Richmond's finest actors: John Mincks, Evan Nasteff and David Janosik, with a whole lot of fake vomiting, sexual references and dramatic dying going on.
Because, you know, all the world's a stage.
They began with a stripped down version of "Romeo and Juliet" that had Romeo saying, "I wanna kiss you, dude" and Juliet waxing poetic with, "That which we call a nose would still smell."
When Romeo begins to muse, saying, "Call me but love," Juliet interrupts with, "Did you call me Butt Love?" Naturally this becomes her new term of endearment, as in, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, Butt Love."
While the three energetic actors spent a whopping twelve minutes on "Romeo and Juliet," they went much briefer on the primitive revenge drama, "Titus Andronicus," which they managed to turn into a cooking show because after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, who really feels like cooking?
Hilarious.
Moving on, the trio discussed whether they should do "Othello" in black face ("Do you want to piss off Tyler Perry?" pause "Kind of"), finally deciding to don sunglasses and rap it while throwing gang signs.
Seeing that time was ticking, they chose to condense all Shakespeare's comedies into one with hysterical results.
David, easily the largest of the three actors, took all the female roles throughout the evening, including the heroine for the mass comedy.
In a blond wig and skirt, he used his most lilting voice to say, "Oh, Father! I am so young and pubescent on this island," as he skipped around the stage.
But in Shakespeare's plays, girls always pretend to be boys and when he/she comes on to our hero, he responds to her as if she's a he. "I swingeth not that way, boy!" Poor thing, she never realizes she's bi-curious.
Macbeth required the trio to don plaid knickers and adopt thick Scottish accents (very well executed, too), funny enough but the dialog was even better.
I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
I support a woman's right to choose.
"Julius Cesar" lasted about 60 seconds before someone decreed, "On to my play," and "Antony and Cleopatra" got underway.
There was another onstage discussion, this time about the lost play "Two Mobile Kinsmen," except not really. That turned out to be "Two Noble Kinsman," one of the plays that is neither comedy, tragedy or history. An obscure play.
The only one of these the trio deemed worth doing was "Troilus and Cressida" because, as Evan said, "It's not crap at all."
He read a synopsis off his phone while David and John did an interpretive dance of the plot that involved wings and getting between Evan's legs.
"Richard II" and "Richard III" were done as a football game, with each taking a turn as the announcer, often sounding a lot like Howard Cosell, and saying things like, "Poisoned on the ten yard line."
There was a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance and he was disqualified.
They ended with a cheer, yelling, "Henry V, Richard the third, the whole royal family is fricking absurd. Go sports team!"
By now all three were looking pretty sweaty after countless costume changes, much running in and out of the audience and more sword fighting and death scenes than I could keep track of.
As if I was trying. It was enough just to keep up with the rapid fire dialog and shenanigans of the actors.
Then they realized that they still had "Hamlet" to do ("Oh, crap, Hamlet!") and John asks for a summary of it.
"A young prince struggles with his conscience after his uncle kills his Dad." Evan looks at him like he's crazy. "Dude, that's the "Lion King."
Wait a minute...
That's when intermission kicked in but afterwards only John returned. He tried to stall by showing us an index card with all 152 of Shakespeare's sonnets on it, saying Even had told him he couldn't cover them all.
He laid the card on the stage, and laid his hat over it. Covered, done.
The entire second act was given over to "Hamlet" with Horatio being called fellatio and "To sleep, perchance to dream" devolving into, "To sleep, perchance to nap, perchance to snooze, perchance to doze."
During Evan's important "to be or not to be" speech, he broke down about a dilemma on "Full House," a show her admits he's currently watching in reruns.
But it's when David does Hamlet's "Man delights me not" soliloquy that you could have heard a pin drop in the room, his voice and perfect diction feeding the soul of every Shakespeare lover in the room.
A volunteer was plucked from the audience (and called Bob despite her name being Julia) to do the screaming of Ophelia's id, but the audience was soon asked to join her in a group scream-a-thon.
Of course, David played Ophelia and to play her drowning scene, threw a cup of water in his face.
As you may already know, all did not end well there, either. That's why they call it a tragedy.
Just when the last of Shakespeare's plays had ended, the actors got even sillier.
First they did a two minute version of "Hamlet." Then a 30 second version.
Then, perhaps most brilliantly, a backwards version, with the classic line, "Be to not or be to?"
Moving backwards, undying and, yes, Ophelia spitting water out of her mouth to un-drown.
"You thank!" they yelled to the standing ovation the audience gave them.
Effort fine damn, gentlemen. Truly one for the books.
Abridged and revised. I definitely swingeth that way.
Tonight the Weinstein JCC lured me in, not for food but because they were hosting HenShakes' one night production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Abridged. Revised."
Abridged so we weren't there until our butts fell off. Revised so they could insert topical humor and current references.
Meaning an evening for the intellectually flaccid of 37 plays in 97 minutes by three of Richmond's finest actors: John Mincks, Evan Nasteff and David Janosik, with a whole lot of fake vomiting, sexual references and dramatic dying going on.
Because, you know, all the world's a stage.
They began with a stripped down version of "Romeo and Juliet" that had Romeo saying, "I wanna kiss you, dude" and Juliet waxing poetic with, "That which we call a nose would still smell."
When Romeo begins to muse, saying, "Call me but love," Juliet interrupts with, "Did you call me Butt Love?" Naturally this becomes her new term of endearment, as in, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, Butt Love."
While the three energetic actors spent a whopping twelve minutes on "Romeo and Juliet," they went much briefer on the primitive revenge drama, "Titus Andronicus," which they managed to turn into a cooking show because after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, who really feels like cooking?
Hilarious.
Moving on, the trio discussed whether they should do "Othello" in black face ("Do you want to piss off Tyler Perry?" pause "Kind of"), finally deciding to don sunglasses and rap it while throwing gang signs.
Seeing that time was ticking, they chose to condense all Shakespeare's comedies into one with hysterical results.
David, easily the largest of the three actors, took all the female roles throughout the evening, including the heroine for the mass comedy.
In a blond wig and skirt, he used his most lilting voice to say, "Oh, Father! I am so young and pubescent on this island," as he skipped around the stage.
But in Shakespeare's plays, girls always pretend to be boys and when he/she comes on to our hero, he responds to her as if she's a he. "I swingeth not that way, boy!" Poor thing, she never realizes she's bi-curious.
Macbeth required the trio to don plaid knickers and adopt thick Scottish accents (very well executed, too), funny enough but the dialog was even better.
I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
I support a woman's right to choose.
"Julius Cesar" lasted about 60 seconds before someone decreed, "On to my play," and "Antony and Cleopatra" got underway.
There was another onstage discussion, this time about the lost play "Two Mobile Kinsmen," except not really. That turned out to be "Two Noble Kinsman," one of the plays that is neither comedy, tragedy or history. An obscure play.
The only one of these the trio deemed worth doing was "Troilus and Cressida" because, as Evan said, "It's not crap at all."
He read a synopsis off his phone while David and John did an interpretive dance of the plot that involved wings and getting between Evan's legs.
"Richard II" and "Richard III" were done as a football game, with each taking a turn as the announcer, often sounding a lot like Howard Cosell, and saying things like, "Poisoned on the ten yard line."
There was a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance and he was disqualified.
They ended with a cheer, yelling, "Henry V, Richard the third, the whole royal family is fricking absurd. Go sports team!"
By now all three were looking pretty sweaty after countless costume changes, much running in and out of the audience and more sword fighting and death scenes than I could keep track of.
As if I was trying. It was enough just to keep up with the rapid fire dialog and shenanigans of the actors.
Then they realized that they still had "Hamlet" to do ("Oh, crap, Hamlet!") and John asks for a summary of it.
"A young prince struggles with his conscience after his uncle kills his Dad." Evan looks at him like he's crazy. "Dude, that's the "Lion King."
Wait a minute...
That's when intermission kicked in but afterwards only John returned. He tried to stall by showing us an index card with all 152 of Shakespeare's sonnets on it, saying Even had told him he couldn't cover them all.
He laid the card on the stage, and laid his hat over it. Covered, done.
The entire second act was given over to "Hamlet" with Horatio being called fellatio and "To sleep, perchance to dream" devolving into, "To sleep, perchance to nap, perchance to snooze, perchance to doze."
During Evan's important "to be or not to be" speech, he broke down about a dilemma on "Full House," a show her admits he's currently watching in reruns.
But it's when David does Hamlet's "Man delights me not" soliloquy that you could have heard a pin drop in the room, his voice and perfect diction feeding the soul of every Shakespeare lover in the room.
A volunteer was plucked from the audience (and called Bob despite her name being Julia) to do the screaming of Ophelia's id, but the audience was soon asked to join her in a group scream-a-thon.
Of course, David played Ophelia and to play her drowning scene, threw a cup of water in his face.
As you may already know, all did not end well there, either. That's why they call it a tragedy.
Just when the last of Shakespeare's plays had ended, the actors got even sillier.
First they did a two minute version of "Hamlet." Then a 30 second version.
Then, perhaps most brilliantly, a backwards version, with the classic line, "Be to not or be to?"
Moving backwards, undying and, yes, Ophelia spitting water out of her mouth to un-drown.
"You thank!" they yelled to the standing ovation the audience gave them.
Effort fine damn, gentlemen. Truly one for the books.
Abridged and revised. I definitely swingeth that way.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Much to Chew On
You have to appreciate a man who requests your company for a meal that goes down easy and a play that doesn't.
We met at Rappahannock where the bar was full of suits, the tables full of diners and I was greeted by a guy I'd met at Patrick Henry's several summers ago.
Funny the people who remember you with full body hugs.
Seated at a table next to a rambunctious eight-top, we were greeted by our server who squints and remembers me from a recent lunch where my date had been an hour-plus late and he'd suggested I retaliate by ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon (ignoring his advice, I'd chosen Domaine Rolet cremant de Juca rose instead).
Tonight, I repeat myself by ordering a dozen Olde Salts but reconsider when he says, "You want all the same?" and split my order into half Stingrays and half Olde Salts, even though he is not the boss of me.
Without asking if my companion wants an appetizer, he leaves. When I'm finally able to get his attention so my date can order, he apologizes, saying he assumed we were sharing the oysters.
Do I look like I can't down a dozen by myself?
My companion goes with a special of scallop ceviche, finding it unexpectedly spicy near the center, while sharing the restaurant gossip he's heard.
For a person who works in the corporate world, he is amazingly adept at knowing what's going on behind kitchen doors.
With the clock ticking down toward curtain time, we order entrees which arrive surprisingly quickly.
He's more than happy with his pan-seared mahi, but I think my bowl of Olde Salt clams with merguez sausage-stuffed squid, braised shell beans and grilled Tuscan kale in an amontillado sherry and smoked tomato sugo kicks his mahi's butt.
But then, I'm a sausage and beans kind of gal.
Dinner conversations runs the gamut from how the temperature affects my walking/his running, recent movies we've seen and Valentine's day plans.
By the time we finish, we have barely enough time for dessert but we order chocolate ganache buckwheat crepe cake anyway.
If we have to stuff it in our mouths as we put our coats on, we need some sweet to put the period at the end of our savory.
Which we get before scurrying the two blocks to CenterStage to see Henley Street Theater and Richmond Shakespeare's production of "Death and the Maiden," for which we have front row seats for tonight's preview performance.
Arriving at the very last minute, the usher teases us, saying, "There you are!" The shaming is justified and funny.
For a change, having heard what a powerful play this is, I have purposely done no research so that it can unfold for me with no foreknowledge.
Even so, reading the program prepares me for a story about the aftermath of unspeakable acts committed on an innocent woman. It seems likely that the play will be short given the intensity of the topic.
The award-winning, three-actor play has dramatic set design, with blood-stained work clothes making up the enormous back wall and bodybag-looking black plastic curtains on the side.
Set in Chile during Pinochet's brutal 1973 takeover, a story unfolds wherein a woman enlists her husband's assistance to get revenge on one of the men responsible for the tortures inflicted on her.
By the end of the brief first act, her captor is bound and gagged with a black hood on his head and there he stays during the entire intermission.
It's a plot device that has all of us feeling uncomfortable as the lights come up and he is still confined onstage.
In the ladies' room, I discuss the first act with several strangers, all of whom are experiencing knotted stomachs, tension and discomfort with the woman's plight and the depiction of it.
It's unanimous that being made to feel this way is not only superb theater but a unique opportunity to feel something so unlike what theater usually gives us.
The second act is, if possible, even stronger as acts too horrible to be forgiven are attempted to be put in the past.
Katrinah Carol Lewis all but spits out her lines and anguish as the one-time victim in a role that almost has to outshine the two men no matter how well-played theirs are.
Any way you look at it, the play was difficult, challenging, uncomfortable and mesmerizing.
Walking out, I asked my friend what he thought.
"I'm going to come back and see it again," he said, clearly having already made up his mind on that.
Right on. You want your meals easy to digest, but sometimes you need your theater to be just the opposite.
We met at Rappahannock where the bar was full of suits, the tables full of diners and I was greeted by a guy I'd met at Patrick Henry's several summers ago.
Funny the people who remember you with full body hugs.
Seated at a table next to a rambunctious eight-top, we were greeted by our server who squints and remembers me from a recent lunch where my date had been an hour-plus late and he'd suggested I retaliate by ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon (ignoring his advice, I'd chosen Domaine Rolet cremant de Juca rose instead).
Tonight, I repeat myself by ordering a dozen Olde Salts but reconsider when he says, "You want all the same?" and split my order into half Stingrays and half Olde Salts, even though he is not the boss of me.
Without asking if my companion wants an appetizer, he leaves. When I'm finally able to get his attention so my date can order, he apologizes, saying he assumed we were sharing the oysters.
Do I look like I can't down a dozen by myself?
My companion goes with a special of scallop ceviche, finding it unexpectedly spicy near the center, while sharing the restaurant gossip he's heard.
For a person who works in the corporate world, he is amazingly adept at knowing what's going on behind kitchen doors.
With the clock ticking down toward curtain time, we order entrees which arrive surprisingly quickly.
He's more than happy with his pan-seared mahi, but I think my bowl of Olde Salt clams with merguez sausage-stuffed squid, braised shell beans and grilled Tuscan kale in an amontillado sherry and smoked tomato sugo kicks his mahi's butt.
But then, I'm a sausage and beans kind of gal.
Dinner conversations runs the gamut from how the temperature affects my walking/his running, recent movies we've seen and Valentine's day plans.
By the time we finish, we have barely enough time for dessert but we order chocolate ganache buckwheat crepe cake anyway.
If we have to stuff it in our mouths as we put our coats on, we need some sweet to put the period at the end of our savory.
Which we get before scurrying the two blocks to CenterStage to see Henley Street Theater and Richmond Shakespeare's production of "Death and the Maiden," for which we have front row seats for tonight's preview performance.
Arriving at the very last minute, the usher teases us, saying, "There you are!" The shaming is justified and funny.
For a change, having heard what a powerful play this is, I have purposely done no research so that it can unfold for me with no foreknowledge.
Even so, reading the program prepares me for a story about the aftermath of unspeakable acts committed on an innocent woman. It seems likely that the play will be short given the intensity of the topic.
The award-winning, three-actor play has dramatic set design, with blood-stained work clothes making up the enormous back wall and bodybag-looking black plastic curtains on the side.
Set in Chile during Pinochet's brutal 1973 takeover, a story unfolds wherein a woman enlists her husband's assistance to get revenge on one of the men responsible for the tortures inflicted on her.
By the end of the brief first act, her captor is bound and gagged with a black hood on his head and there he stays during the entire intermission.
It's a plot device that has all of us feeling uncomfortable as the lights come up and he is still confined onstage.
In the ladies' room, I discuss the first act with several strangers, all of whom are experiencing knotted stomachs, tension and discomfort with the woman's plight and the depiction of it.
It's unanimous that being made to feel this way is not only superb theater but a unique opportunity to feel something so unlike what theater usually gives us.
The second act is, if possible, even stronger as acts too horrible to be forgiven are attempted to be put in the past.
Katrinah Carol Lewis all but spits out her lines and anguish as the one-time victim in a role that almost has to outshine the two men no matter how well-played theirs are.
Any way you look at it, the play was difficult, challenging, uncomfortable and mesmerizing.
Walking out, I asked my friend what he thought.
"I'm going to come back and see it again," he said, clearly having already made up his mind on that.
Right on. You want your meals easy to digest, but sometimes you need your theater to be just the opposite.
Friday, November 8, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
A Tongue with a Tang
Oddly enough, it was my second time at Maymont in three days.
I'd been there Sunday to see the trees all dolled up in skirts.
I'm always curious to see how the VCU fashion students manage to make muslin look feminine on a tree, no easy challenge.
This year, they did it with a lot of red trim - rick rack, fuzzy balls and red stitching- but after the recent rain, most of the skirts looked kind of bedraggled.
But that was Sunday and tonight was something else entirely, with the skirts stripped off the trees and a stage set up on the carriage house lawn.
It was Richmond Shakespeare's annual gift to the city, a free performance, this year of "The Tempest."
True, I'd seen this very same production as recently as the last week of March, the difference being this time it was free and outside.
Where better to see a play about a storm than under a breezy May Day sky?
I knew from attending the last two years that it's smart to arrive early and secure a good patch of lawn and planned accordingly.
My fellow Bard-lover and I made Garnett's our first stop, getting a salad, a sandwich and coconut cake to tide us over.
Our server suggested we take our goodies away in one of their picnic baskets and it seemed like too good an idea not to take advantage of it.
"Just bring it back tomorrow," she said, waving us off to have a good time.
It wasn't a tough assignment.
We got there early enough to place our chairs front and center and enjoy a leisurely meal under a sky that vacillated between sunny and overcast.
Looking around, I saw lots of families and lots familiar-faced actors.
When I got up to use the port-a-potties just before the show began, I heard my name called and found two friends lounging on a blanket.
They had all kinds of goodies laid out and she promptly handed me her box of Merlot, saying, "Have a drink! I've only had one sip."
If not May Day to share swill, then when?
We chatted about ways to defuse a protest (he was thinking pink frou-frou shorts and a pink Confederate flag would totally disarm the protesters at the Confederate chapel), a worthy topic on this, the day of international workers' protest.
Back in my chair, the play was about to begin when, at the last moment, a couple spread a blanket directly in front of us.
I was all ready to think rude things about latecomers taking prime positions when I recognized a friend.
A friend I'd convinced to come.
The play began moments later when the cloud cover dissipated and blue sky began to show under wispy cloud scraps.
Since I'd just seen "The Tempest" staged, it was fun this time to enjoy the audience's reaction to what they were seeing.
When Prospero referred to "the rotten carcass of a butt," a little boy near me snickered in delight.
He said butt!
Unlike last time, I also got to watch as the sound effects were made.
We were seated very near the guitarist, keyboardist (who also did percussion) and she who rattled the sheet of metal to make thunder.
The beauty of the outdoor setting was how the cast made the most of it, jumping down on to the grass and gesturing to trees and sky.
During intermission, another friend came over to say hello.
Just yesterday, I'd gotten a message from him asking me what I knew about "The Tempest" at Maymont.
Everything, I'd told him, giving him the lowdown.
I was pleased to see he'd heeded my advice and chanced it.
Even if he was responsible for plopping down right in front of me at 6:59.
He and his friend were enjoying the play and we all marveled at John Mincks' energy and athleticism playing the sprite Ariel.
Repeatedly, he'd come out of nowhere, jumping up and over the set or down onto the lawn and springing back up effortlessly.
"I could do all that jumping," Friend claimed, "But not all that popping back up. Too old."
Aren't we all?
That's why jumping and springing is best left to 20-year olds.
By the time the second act began, the sky was a pale gray and the bugs were flitting around the stage lights.
By now lots of people had donned hoodies and blankets were draped over legs and shoulders.
At one point, Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban jumped off the stage and took off through the sea of blankets and chairs, screaming like banshees to great hilarity.
I could have tripped Caliban if I'd wanted to, he was so close.
It might have been funny, but that trio had already provided so many pratfalls and so much physical humor, cracking up the younger members of the audience over and over again, that they didn't need my help to get laughs.
Instead I just kept my rotten carcass in my chair and enjoyed the gift of Shakespeare in the park.
I almost said butt.
I'd been there Sunday to see the trees all dolled up in skirts.
I'm always curious to see how the VCU fashion students manage to make muslin look feminine on a tree, no easy challenge.
This year, they did it with a lot of red trim - rick rack, fuzzy balls and red stitching- but after the recent rain, most of the skirts looked kind of bedraggled.
But that was Sunday and tonight was something else entirely, with the skirts stripped off the trees and a stage set up on the carriage house lawn.
It was Richmond Shakespeare's annual gift to the city, a free performance, this year of "The Tempest."
True, I'd seen this very same production as recently as the last week of March, the difference being this time it was free and outside.
Where better to see a play about a storm than under a breezy May Day sky?
I knew from attending the last two years that it's smart to arrive early and secure a good patch of lawn and planned accordingly.
My fellow Bard-lover and I made Garnett's our first stop, getting a salad, a sandwich and coconut cake to tide us over.
Our server suggested we take our goodies away in one of their picnic baskets and it seemed like too good an idea not to take advantage of it.
"Just bring it back tomorrow," she said, waving us off to have a good time.
It wasn't a tough assignment.
We got there early enough to place our chairs front and center and enjoy a leisurely meal under a sky that vacillated between sunny and overcast.
Looking around, I saw lots of families and lots familiar-faced actors.
When I got up to use the port-a-potties just before the show began, I heard my name called and found two friends lounging on a blanket.
They had all kinds of goodies laid out and she promptly handed me her box of Merlot, saying, "Have a drink! I've only had one sip."
If not May Day to share swill, then when?
We chatted about ways to defuse a protest (he was thinking pink frou-frou shorts and a pink Confederate flag would totally disarm the protesters at the Confederate chapel), a worthy topic on this, the day of international workers' protest.
Back in my chair, the play was about to begin when, at the last moment, a couple spread a blanket directly in front of us.
I was all ready to think rude things about latecomers taking prime positions when I recognized a friend.
A friend I'd convinced to come.
The play began moments later when the cloud cover dissipated and blue sky began to show under wispy cloud scraps.
Since I'd just seen "The Tempest" staged, it was fun this time to enjoy the audience's reaction to what they were seeing.
When Prospero referred to "the rotten carcass of a butt," a little boy near me snickered in delight.
He said butt!
Unlike last time, I also got to watch as the sound effects were made.
We were seated very near the guitarist, keyboardist (who also did percussion) and she who rattled the sheet of metal to make thunder.
The beauty of the outdoor setting was how the cast made the most of it, jumping down on to the grass and gesturing to trees and sky.
During intermission, another friend came over to say hello.
Just yesterday, I'd gotten a message from him asking me what I knew about "The Tempest" at Maymont.
Everything, I'd told him, giving him the lowdown.
I was pleased to see he'd heeded my advice and chanced it.
Even if he was responsible for plopping down right in front of me at 6:59.
He and his friend were enjoying the play and we all marveled at John Mincks' energy and athleticism playing the sprite Ariel.
Repeatedly, he'd come out of nowhere, jumping up and over the set or down onto the lawn and springing back up effortlessly.
"I could do all that jumping," Friend claimed, "But not all that popping back up. Too old."
Aren't we all?
That's why jumping and springing is best left to 20-year olds.
By the time the second act began, the sky was a pale gray and the bugs were flitting around the stage lights.
By now lots of people had donned hoodies and blankets were draped over legs and shoulders.
At one point, Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban jumped off the stage and took off through the sea of blankets and chairs, screaming like banshees to great hilarity.
I could have tripped Caliban if I'd wanted to, he was so close.
It might have been funny, but that trio had already provided so many pratfalls and so much physical humor, cracking up the younger members of the audience over and over again, that they didn't need my help to get laughs.
Instead I just kept my rotten carcass in my chair and enjoyed the gift of Shakespeare in the park.
I almost said butt.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Sea Sorrow and Yellow M & Ms
It was the rough magic and the BOGO that sucked me in.
Not that I'm not always eager to see Richmond Shakespeare's latest offering, but their recent staged reading of "Rough Magic," a play re-imagining characters from "The Tempest" come to life in modern-day New York, had featured actors from their current production of "The Tempest."
Seeing how strong they were in the reading made me want to see the original.
So when Richmond Shakes announced tonight was going to be buy one ticket, get one free, I scratched out the other things in my little red book and found another Bard lover and set sail for St. Catherine's.
We barely made it in time, took seats in the back row available and I immediately realized that the guy in front of me was blocking my view. Almost entirely.
With all the nerve in the world, I nudged my companion and we moved up a row, climbing over the guys who'd been blocking our view.
By then the thunderous storm had begun on stage, a place of fantastical multi-colored trees, a rock holding a sorceress' son and the home of Prospero, the exiled duke of Milan.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
John Mincks as the spirit Ariel was a wonder, sprinting around the stage, leaping across platforms and generally showing the same impressive physicality he'd shown in last year's "Spring Awakening."
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
He was a perfect example of why one of the best things about this production was the casting.
Instead of the usual aged Propsero, here he was played by Charlie Raintree as a vibrant middle-aged man still in his prime and wearing the most magnificent embroidered magical coat.
Keep a good tongue in your head.
Just as impressive was the choice of Isabelle Andrews to play Propsero's daughter Miranda, a role that calls for a 15-year old.
Andrews is a ninth grader at St. Catherine's, meaning she was every bit as fresh-faced as Shakespeare intended her to be.
How often does that happen?
Of course, that also made for a 21st century audience to be vaguely uncomfortable when her father allows her to marry, albeit another teenager, ninth grader Daniel Kunkel as Ferdinand (looking, if possible, even younger than Andrews).
I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
David Janosik as Stephano was his usual hilarious self, getting drunk, wearing women's clothes (well, too) and being chased by hounds.
During intermission, the guy whose head had momentarily blocked my view looked over and said hello.
Surprise, it was a friend, a charming wine geek I know who also happens to be a theater lover and who'd been lured to the play with a friend who'd already seen and loved the production.
He'd just returned from the lobby with a bag of M & Ms, prompting a discussion of them.
Seems he thinks the yellow M & Ms taste the best and he was generous enough to share some with me to prove his point.
His friend had a bag of peanut M & Ms, but no yellows, although he also generously shared.
No tongue! All eyes! Be silent!
It was such a lively and colorful production with the actors in their turn-of-the century garb looking so genteel.
I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat
One of the actors who'd been so impressive at the reading was Jeremy Gershman who played the sorceress' son, Caliban, a deformed native of the island, referred to as a monster.
In a tattered costume, the man hobbled around, living under a rock where he'd been banished and totally selling himself as a miserable human being.
He stayed in character to the point where he even hobbled offstage after the curtain call. Impressive.
You cram these words into my ears, against
The stomach of my sense
Nothing like having Shakespeare's words crammed into my ear for half price.
Twas a clever quibble, for sure.
Not that I'm not always eager to see Richmond Shakespeare's latest offering, but their recent staged reading of "Rough Magic," a play re-imagining characters from "The Tempest" come to life in modern-day New York, had featured actors from their current production of "The Tempest."
Seeing how strong they were in the reading made me want to see the original.
So when Richmond Shakes announced tonight was going to be buy one ticket, get one free, I scratched out the other things in my little red book and found another Bard lover and set sail for St. Catherine's.
We barely made it in time, took seats in the back row available and I immediately realized that the guy in front of me was blocking my view. Almost entirely.
With all the nerve in the world, I nudged my companion and we moved up a row, climbing over the guys who'd been blocking our view.
By then the thunderous storm had begun on stage, a place of fantastical multi-colored trees, a rock holding a sorceress' son and the home of Prospero, the exiled duke of Milan.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
John Mincks as the spirit Ariel was a wonder, sprinting around the stage, leaping across platforms and generally showing the same impressive physicality he'd shown in last year's "Spring Awakening."
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
He was a perfect example of why one of the best things about this production was the casting.
Instead of the usual aged Propsero, here he was played by Charlie Raintree as a vibrant middle-aged man still in his prime and wearing the most magnificent embroidered magical coat.
Keep a good tongue in your head.
Just as impressive was the choice of Isabelle Andrews to play Propsero's daughter Miranda, a role that calls for a 15-year old.
Andrews is a ninth grader at St. Catherine's, meaning she was every bit as fresh-faced as Shakespeare intended her to be.
How often does that happen?
Of course, that also made for a 21st century audience to be vaguely uncomfortable when her father allows her to marry, albeit another teenager, ninth grader Daniel Kunkel as Ferdinand (looking, if possible, even younger than Andrews).
I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
David Janosik as Stephano was his usual hilarious self, getting drunk, wearing women's clothes (well, too) and being chased by hounds.
During intermission, the guy whose head had momentarily blocked my view looked over and said hello.
Surprise, it was a friend, a charming wine geek I know who also happens to be a theater lover and who'd been lured to the play with a friend who'd already seen and loved the production.
He'd just returned from the lobby with a bag of M & Ms, prompting a discussion of them.
Seems he thinks the yellow M & Ms taste the best and he was generous enough to share some with me to prove his point.
His friend had a bag of peanut M & Ms, but no yellows, although he also generously shared.
No tongue! All eyes! Be silent!
It was such a lively and colorful production with the actors in their turn-of-the century garb looking so genteel.
I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat
One of the actors who'd been so impressive at the reading was Jeremy Gershman who played the sorceress' son, Caliban, a deformed native of the island, referred to as a monster.
In a tattered costume, the man hobbled around, living under a rock where he'd been banished and totally selling himself as a miserable human being.
He stayed in character to the point where he even hobbled offstage after the curtain call. Impressive.
You cram these words into my ears, against
The stomach of my sense
Nothing like having Shakespeare's words crammed into my ear for half price.
Twas a clever quibble, for sure.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Luddite Version
It was a pizza and comic book kind of night. Well, sort of.
A friend was in town from Maryland and wanted to catch up over happy hour.
Conveniently, Wednesdays are half-priced wine by the bottle nights at Rowland's, which meant they were practically giving away Pocco Prosecco.
She and I are what her boyfriend calls "fast processors," meaning we often only have to allude to a thought before the other one gets it.
It not only saves time, but allows us to cover so much more ground given our infrequent meet-ups now that she lives somewhere other than Richmond.
I heard about her recent trip to Las Vegas and an artery-clogging meal at Gordon Ramsay Steak while they were there.
Having eaten half of a massive steak at lunch today, I was looking for something a tad lighter tonight, so we agreed to share one of Rowland's new iron skillet pizzas.
I'd have chosen the pizza blanco, but Friend wanted the Plain Jane of Roma tomato marinara and Mozzarella.
Except we couldn't leave well enough alone and added applewood bacon.
And crimini mushrooms, Bermuda onions and roasted garlic.
Suddenly our plain Jane was pretty elaborate but extremely tasty.
By the time I finished hearing about her upcoming trip to Jamaica, it was time for me to cut out for culture while she moved on to Buckhead's with some mutual friends.
She was making the rounds while she was in town.
Tonight's mental stimulant for me was Richmond Shakespeare's Bawdy Bard staged reading at Capital Ale House.
In a unique twist for live theater, the audience was granted permission to tweet and text as long as they did so about the play.
But instead of a staid Shakespeare reading, we were in for a much more recent play tonight.
"Rough Magic" was a laugh-out-loud look at what would happen if the characters from "The Tempest" came to life and decided they wanted to destroy New York City.
And it was the kind of reading where the actors leaped on and off stage, slid down brick walls and removed a severed head from a grocery bag, not the kind with actors in chars reading lines.
The best kind, in other words.
The author writes Marvel comic books and the story very much felt like it had been torn from the brightly-colored pages of comics.
Because Richmond Shakespeare is currently doing "The Tempest," tonight's production used actors from that along with an energetic cast of young Richmond talent.
The story of a young woman named Melanie with the super power to pull characters out of books and into real life and the posse of oddballs who got along for the adventure had some funny dialog.
Working at Morgan Stanley is like committing suicide slowly.
This is New York. I think we can handle a fairy.
Even better, there was so much theater humor that relied on the audience knowing their Shakespeare.
When Melanie needs to pull a character from Shakespeare who will be fearless in the face of the wrathful Prospero, she immediately knows what kind of man she needs: Coriolanus.
"Dumb as a stick and a total Mama's boy."
Yep, just the type a woman can control with no problem.
Luckily, Melanie's posse has her back for all the action.
They're three Greek furies who carry a Nerf gun, a Nerf bow and arrow and a spear of destiny to handle the bad guys.
The only thing they lacked was Batman-like subtitles saying "KaPow!" and "Bam!"
Feet were cut off (and black socks worn to indicate missing feet) and reattached (a zig-zag pattern showing reattachment) and a 17-year old drank a margarita (gasp!).
It was all highly entertaining.
But no doubt you've already heard that from the tweeters and texters.
A friend was in town from Maryland and wanted to catch up over happy hour.
Conveniently, Wednesdays are half-priced wine by the bottle nights at Rowland's, which meant they were practically giving away Pocco Prosecco.
She and I are what her boyfriend calls "fast processors," meaning we often only have to allude to a thought before the other one gets it.
It not only saves time, but allows us to cover so much more ground given our infrequent meet-ups now that she lives somewhere other than Richmond.
I heard about her recent trip to Las Vegas and an artery-clogging meal at Gordon Ramsay Steak while they were there.
Having eaten half of a massive steak at lunch today, I was looking for something a tad lighter tonight, so we agreed to share one of Rowland's new iron skillet pizzas.
I'd have chosen the pizza blanco, but Friend wanted the Plain Jane of Roma tomato marinara and Mozzarella.
Except we couldn't leave well enough alone and added applewood bacon.
And crimini mushrooms, Bermuda onions and roasted garlic.
Suddenly our plain Jane was pretty elaborate but extremely tasty.
By the time I finished hearing about her upcoming trip to Jamaica, it was time for me to cut out for culture while she moved on to Buckhead's with some mutual friends.
She was making the rounds while she was in town.
Tonight's mental stimulant for me was Richmond Shakespeare's Bawdy Bard staged reading at Capital Ale House.
In a unique twist for live theater, the audience was granted permission to tweet and text as long as they did so about the play.
But instead of a staid Shakespeare reading, we were in for a much more recent play tonight.
"Rough Magic" was a laugh-out-loud look at what would happen if the characters from "The Tempest" came to life and decided they wanted to destroy New York City.
And it was the kind of reading where the actors leaped on and off stage, slid down brick walls and removed a severed head from a grocery bag, not the kind with actors in chars reading lines.
The best kind, in other words.
The author writes Marvel comic books and the story very much felt like it had been torn from the brightly-colored pages of comics.
Because Richmond Shakespeare is currently doing "The Tempest," tonight's production used actors from that along with an energetic cast of young Richmond talent.
The story of a young woman named Melanie with the super power to pull characters out of books and into real life and the posse of oddballs who got along for the adventure had some funny dialog.
Working at Morgan Stanley is like committing suicide slowly.
This is New York. I think we can handle a fairy.
Even better, there was so much theater humor that relied on the audience knowing their Shakespeare.
When Melanie needs to pull a character from Shakespeare who will be fearless in the face of the wrathful Prospero, she immediately knows what kind of man she needs: Coriolanus.
"Dumb as a stick and a total Mama's boy."
Yep, just the type a woman can control with no problem.
Luckily, Melanie's posse has her back for all the action.
They're three Greek furies who carry a Nerf gun, a Nerf bow and arrow and a spear of destiny to handle the bad guys.
The only thing they lacked was Batman-like subtitles saying "KaPow!" and "Bam!"
Feet were cut off (and black socks worn to indicate missing feet) and reattached (a zig-zag pattern showing reattachment) and a 17-year old drank a margarita (gasp!).
It was all highly entertaining.
But no doubt you've already heard that from the tweeters and texters.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
I Like My Strumpets
I was told more than once that I'll go see anything, no matter how obscure or obtuse, just to go out.
Tahitian acrobat cymbalists? Sure. Moroccan throat singing mimes? Okay.
So naturally I perked up when I saw that the next in the Richmond Shakespeare Bawdy Bard staged reading series was just such a hybrid.
Improv comedians and Shakespearean actors doing, what else, Shakesprov.
Shoot, I was at Capital Ale House an hour before doors opened.
Don't tempt my sense of humor and my intellect unless you mean it.
I'd brought along an improv master (or so he claimed) to laugh with me.
When the host said we had to wait until 7:30 to go in, I asked of him the time.
Glancing at his watch, he told me it was 7:11, much to my amazement.
That's so cool that you wear a watch, I told him.
He instinctively went to thank me and instead got a knowing grin on his face and said, "Right?"
Right, indeed. We had a ten-minute conversation about the lost art of watch-wearing and I got a peek into why a 25-year old chooses to daily wear the watch his mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday.
Pulling it off his wrist, he pointed to the back of the face proudly. "No battery!" he boasted. "It's got a spring."
Just like in the olden days.
But food waits for no time talk, so we sent him on his way and began by scoring white chicken chili at the bar while waiting for the doors to open.
On the plus side, the cannelini was toothsome and the bits of fresh jalapeno added a nice heat to each bite. On the minus side, it wasn't nearly hot enough, especially on a frigid night like this.
Once the doors opened, it was an easy walk to a front table in the music hall.
Part of the beauty of comedy and iambic pentameter intersecting tonight was that it was happening in a bar, meaning we were supposed, nay, even encouraged, to eat, drink and chatter during the show.
You don't have to tell me twice (Cobb salad, chocolate cake and any number of asides).
The Shakesproving jumped right in with a game where two people had to argue the pluses and minuses of an issue thrown out by the audience.
You now, stuff like, global warming (yea or nay) or lead paint poisoning (good or bad?).
I see now that was just to warm us up, get our laughing muscles loosened up.
Next came a game called Replay where crowd suggestions formed the device, in this case, cross dressing, murder and love, all then executed Shakespearean-style.
The replay came in when they then had to redo that scene through other lenses.
We saw it done with hate, as a coking show and Al Capone gangster-style.
You might be surprised at how the same scene was funny all four ways.
The next game, Playwright, used technology, so I would have been useless to them.
Each of the four onstage had their phone set on the script of one of three plays (Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cesar), ready to use whatever lines from it they chose.
With an improv comedian to facilitate the scene between them, each actor had to use only lines from the play he'd been given to further the dialog.
When Adam grabbed himself and uttered, "I fear it is too choleric a meat," the audience about lost it.
There was a game where they had to mime pre-determined components of a murder (dog park, painter, gouging out eyes and then poisoning) and get the contestant to guess the scenario, "Clue"-like.
You can't imagine how amusing miming eye gouging can be until you've seen it.
Buzz/Ding, the next amusement, required the Bawdy Bard's guiding light, Kerry, to come onstage and, much like with Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" nights, share tidbits about her life, job and friends.
It's overshare and then be skewered for it, pretty much.
From there, four of them improved Kerry's life while she sat there with a human "buzzer" and a human "dinger" and hit the appropriate one depending on how accurately her life was being depicted.
Hysterical as their depictions seemed to the audience, most of the time she was buzzing.
And now all the room knows her boss likes booze humor and bathroom jokes.
So, yes, laughter always comes back to potty humor, even with the Bard.
The longest game was Story, wherein we helped create a many-chaptered book while eliminating people from the stage.
"The Dark Prince Emerges," became the title by default when a man yelled it out first.
He continued to announce the name before each new chapter, varying his voice for dramatic value.
From there we had eight chapters, including a particularly enthusiastic and protracted one on breasts, nipples and milk.
The guys could have run with that all night, but Katie tried to curtail them eventually, suggesting we moved on from mammaries.
Aw, do we have to, their faces seemed to say.
There was a different component added in for each new chapter and whichever person lost the thread (sometimes in mid-syllable or final consonant) was eliminated.
Stacie ended up being last breasts standing, no small accomplishment.
The Dating Game used stock Shakespeare types - Ophelia, a rich father and sad blood (the most melancholy Thomas ever)- as the bachelors while the lusty bachelorette asked animated questions to find her Mr. Right.
Only occasionally did things get a little skeevy.
"We'll edit that out later," host David said to the studio audience more than once.
Soliloquy required any of the four people in the skit to stop and do a monologue when pointed to.
To their credit, each one was fearless about taking center stage with made-up words while all froze around him.
After so much effort on their part (all we'd had to do was cackle), we closed with a fun game, a little number called I Like My Strumpets.
We'd throw out something (clowns, chainsaws, Julius Cesar, ruffled shirts) and they'd take turns making analogies.
"Shakespeare used a lot of puns," host Matt said, "But he also talked about butts a lot."
So you can imagine where that took us.
I like my strumpets like I like my chainsaws...with teeth!
The women in the group quickly tired of strumpets and began using lords instead to convey their points.
I like my lords like I like my ruffled collars...a little rumpled and stiff.
Wah, wah.
So here goes.
I like my evenings like I like my dark princes...funny, smart and good kissers.
And they can mime their choleric meat, but I don't need to see it.
Of course, with Shakesprov, we can always edit that out later.
Tahitian acrobat cymbalists? Sure. Moroccan throat singing mimes? Okay.
So naturally I perked up when I saw that the next in the Richmond Shakespeare Bawdy Bard staged reading series was just such a hybrid.
Improv comedians and Shakespearean actors doing, what else, Shakesprov.
Shoot, I was at Capital Ale House an hour before doors opened.
Don't tempt my sense of humor and my intellect unless you mean it.
I'd brought along an improv master (or so he claimed) to laugh with me.
When the host said we had to wait until 7:30 to go in, I asked of him the time.
Glancing at his watch, he told me it was 7:11, much to my amazement.
That's so cool that you wear a watch, I told him.
He instinctively went to thank me and instead got a knowing grin on his face and said, "Right?"
Right, indeed. We had a ten-minute conversation about the lost art of watch-wearing and I got a peek into why a 25-year old chooses to daily wear the watch his mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday.
Pulling it off his wrist, he pointed to the back of the face proudly. "No battery!" he boasted. "It's got a spring."
Just like in the olden days.
But food waits for no time talk, so we sent him on his way and began by scoring white chicken chili at the bar while waiting for the doors to open.
On the plus side, the cannelini was toothsome and the bits of fresh jalapeno added a nice heat to each bite. On the minus side, it wasn't nearly hot enough, especially on a frigid night like this.
Once the doors opened, it was an easy walk to a front table in the music hall.
Part of the beauty of comedy and iambic pentameter intersecting tonight was that it was happening in a bar, meaning we were supposed, nay, even encouraged, to eat, drink and chatter during the show.
You don't have to tell me twice (Cobb salad, chocolate cake and any number of asides).
The Shakesproving jumped right in with a game where two people had to argue the pluses and minuses of an issue thrown out by the audience.
You now, stuff like, global warming (yea or nay) or lead paint poisoning (good or bad?).
I see now that was just to warm us up, get our laughing muscles loosened up.
Next came a game called Replay where crowd suggestions formed the device, in this case, cross dressing, murder and love, all then executed Shakespearean-style.
The replay came in when they then had to redo that scene through other lenses.
We saw it done with hate, as a coking show and Al Capone gangster-style.
You might be surprised at how the same scene was funny all four ways.
The next game, Playwright, used technology, so I would have been useless to them.
Each of the four onstage had their phone set on the script of one of three plays (Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cesar), ready to use whatever lines from it they chose.
With an improv comedian to facilitate the scene between them, each actor had to use only lines from the play he'd been given to further the dialog.
When Adam grabbed himself and uttered, "I fear it is too choleric a meat," the audience about lost it.
There was a game where they had to mime pre-determined components of a murder (dog park, painter, gouging out eyes and then poisoning) and get the contestant to guess the scenario, "Clue"-like.
You can't imagine how amusing miming eye gouging can be until you've seen it.
Buzz/Ding, the next amusement, required the Bawdy Bard's guiding light, Kerry, to come onstage and, much like with Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" nights, share tidbits about her life, job and friends.
It's overshare and then be skewered for it, pretty much.
From there, four of them improved Kerry's life while she sat there with a human "buzzer" and a human "dinger" and hit the appropriate one depending on how accurately her life was being depicted.
Hysterical as their depictions seemed to the audience, most of the time she was buzzing.
And now all the room knows her boss likes booze humor and bathroom jokes.
So, yes, laughter always comes back to potty humor, even with the Bard.
The longest game was Story, wherein we helped create a many-chaptered book while eliminating people from the stage.
"The Dark Prince Emerges," became the title by default when a man yelled it out first.
He continued to announce the name before each new chapter, varying his voice for dramatic value.
From there we had eight chapters, including a particularly enthusiastic and protracted one on breasts, nipples and milk.
The guys could have run with that all night, but Katie tried to curtail them eventually, suggesting we moved on from mammaries.
Aw, do we have to, their faces seemed to say.
There was a different component added in for each new chapter and whichever person lost the thread (sometimes in mid-syllable or final consonant) was eliminated.
Stacie ended up being last breasts standing, no small accomplishment.
The Dating Game used stock Shakespeare types - Ophelia, a rich father and sad blood (the most melancholy Thomas ever)- as the bachelors while the lusty bachelorette asked animated questions to find her Mr. Right.
Only occasionally did things get a little skeevy.
"We'll edit that out later," host David said to the studio audience more than once.
Soliloquy required any of the four people in the skit to stop and do a monologue when pointed to.
To their credit, each one was fearless about taking center stage with made-up words while all froze around him.
After so much effort on their part (all we'd had to do was cackle), we closed with a fun game, a little number called I Like My Strumpets.
We'd throw out something (clowns, chainsaws, Julius Cesar, ruffled shirts) and they'd take turns making analogies.
"Shakespeare used a lot of puns," host Matt said, "But he also talked about butts a lot."
So you can imagine where that took us.
I like my strumpets like I like my chainsaws...with teeth!
The women in the group quickly tired of strumpets and began using lords instead to convey their points.
I like my lords like I like my ruffled collars...a little rumpled and stiff.
Wah, wah.
So here goes.
I like my evenings like I like my dark princes...funny, smart and good kissers.
And they can mime their choleric meat, but I don't need to see it.
Of course, with Shakesprov, we can always edit that out later.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Curtain Call
To a theater-lover, it was a thing of beauty.
I walked into my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, around 6:00 to find it easily 80% full.
Granted, we were the only ones at the bar, but there were very few empty tables.
Everywhere I looked, couples, groups and families were talking, laughing and eating.
It was so lively it could have been staged.
We took bar seats and cracked the wine list; by the time we'd decided on a Sangiovese, every table was taken.
Within minutes, every bar stool. And then there were people standing just to wait for a stool.
Be still, my dramatic heart.
Don't get me wrong, the meal was lovely, too.
A Caesar salad boasted loads of anchovies and gnocchi with duck ragout had a deep heartiness and was full of duck meat.
Even the fresh tomato and garlic aioli that came with the bread was worthy of not only of commentary but of using every last scrap of bread in the basket.
But my favorite part of it all was that most of these people were theater-bound.
Virginia Rep's rousing production of "The Producers" and Richmond Shakespeare's lyrical "A Child's Christmas in Wales" are playing just across the street from 27.
Tonight was also the Richmond Symphony Pop's "Let It Snow" performance with the talented, lanky and Jewish symphony librarian Matt Gold playing Santa.
That alone would have been worth the price of admission.
I'd heard from someone in the know that Theater VCU's "Avenue Q" sold out the entire weekend days ago (and deservedly so).
Then there was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical" playing mere blocks away at the Landmark.
That would be the same green guy who was in the Christmas parade this morning.
If I had to guess, I'd wager that everyone in that dining room had theater tickets in their pocket or waiting for them at Will Call.
We wanted hazelnut chocolate torte for dessert, but given the waiting throngs and impending curtain calls, we ceded our seats and took dessert home instead.
For years now I've been going to Bistro 27, not just because it's within easy walking distance, but because I love the friendly vibe and stellar food.
I've often seen neighbors there, I've heard bands there, I've done New Year's eve and Easter there, but I don't think I've ever seen every single table taken with pre-theater goers.
The late, great lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein once said, "The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited."
Sorry, Oscar baby, but I'm going to have to put a more positive spin on that thought.
The number of people in Richmond who will go to a show and want to eat out first nearby is unlimited.
Why, it's practically proof positive that we're becoming a real theater town.
Now if only we could have more places where we could eat after the show.
Can I get an "amen" from the theater community?
I walked into my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, around 6:00 to find it easily 80% full.
Granted, we were the only ones at the bar, but there were very few empty tables.
Everywhere I looked, couples, groups and families were talking, laughing and eating.
It was so lively it could have been staged.
We took bar seats and cracked the wine list; by the time we'd decided on a Sangiovese, every table was taken.
Within minutes, every bar stool. And then there were people standing just to wait for a stool.
Be still, my dramatic heart.
Don't get me wrong, the meal was lovely, too.
A Caesar salad boasted loads of anchovies and gnocchi with duck ragout had a deep heartiness and was full of duck meat.
Even the fresh tomato and garlic aioli that came with the bread was worthy of not only of commentary but of using every last scrap of bread in the basket.
But my favorite part of it all was that most of these people were theater-bound.
Virginia Rep's rousing production of "The Producers" and Richmond Shakespeare's lyrical "A Child's Christmas in Wales" are playing just across the street from 27.
Tonight was also the Richmond Symphony Pop's "Let It Snow" performance with the talented, lanky and Jewish symphony librarian Matt Gold playing Santa.
That alone would have been worth the price of admission.
I'd heard from someone in the know that Theater VCU's "Avenue Q" sold out the entire weekend days ago (and deservedly so).
Then there was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical" playing mere blocks away at the Landmark.
That would be the same green guy who was in the Christmas parade this morning.
If I had to guess, I'd wager that everyone in that dining room had theater tickets in their pocket or waiting for them at Will Call.
We wanted hazelnut chocolate torte for dessert, but given the waiting throngs and impending curtain calls, we ceded our seats and took dessert home instead.
For years now I've been going to Bistro 27, not just because it's within easy walking distance, but because I love the friendly vibe and stellar food.
I've often seen neighbors there, I've heard bands there, I've done New Year's eve and Easter there, but I don't think I've ever seen every single table taken with pre-theater goers.
The late, great lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein once said, "The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited."
Sorry, Oscar baby, but I'm going to have to put a more positive spin on that thought.
The number of people in Richmond who will go to a show and want to eat out first nearby is unlimited.
Why, it's practically proof positive that we're becoming a real theater town.
Now if only we could have more places where we could eat after the show.
Can I get an "amen" from the theater community?
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Seasons for Love and Prudishness
There's brainy and then there's bawdy and, fond as I am of the former, tonight I went with the latter.
Richmond Shakespeare was doing their Bawdy Bard staged reading series at Capital Ale House and where better to get bawdy than a beer house?
We got there early enough to pay our respects to the local grape and have a little dinner beforehand.
Our affable server didn't even smirk at having to bring us Autumn Hill Cabernet Franc in a place where hops reign supreme.
We went right for the "seasonal" portion of the menu, ordering crisp ale glazed pork osso buco-ettes served over an apple/walnut salad.
That glaze? Sweet on the pig.
And, yes, I ended up sucking bones.
The salad had the distinction of being not crisp but so imbued with the dressing that the apples and nuts had an almost soft consistency.
I thought it was heavenly, unique in its flavor and texture.
Next up I had white chicken chili, seasoned with enough heat for a spicy finish but not so much it delivered anything painful.
Bellies mostly full, we moved to the music room for the reading of "Moliere."
No, the Bawdy Bard wasn't doing Shakespeare this time, but Moliere is almost as good and this one was set during election season.
"The Misanthrope," a 17th century comedy of manners would provide the verse I love hearing along with the human commentary for which he was known.
It was all good for me (and the $5 price tag didn't hurt, either).
The producer noted that Cap Ale was less stuffy than Center Stage, where the readings used to be held.
I'm all for less stuffy, although there were times when the servers were talking to customers and drowning out the actors.
As is not unusual for Richmond Shakes, this staged reading benefited from blocking and even full-on action.
There were many times when the terrific Adam Mincks as Alceste was chewing scenery, zipping up his fly, whatever, from the middle of the music hall.
I thank you, Madam, for that soothing dart.
Stacie Reardon Hall played Celimene in a tight red dress that required exaggerated pulling up every time she tried to mount the steps in front of the stage.
He has a bent toward total contradiction.
Intermission came all too soon and while using the facilities, I overheard a commentary on the inane.
"Yea, Christmas songs and Lady Gaga, those are the ones that get stuck in your head forever," one woman observed.
"Yea, but once you forget 'em, they're just gone," her friend commented.
Sometimes a bathroom break delivers more than mere relief.
I'll confront her in no uncertain terms with her villainy, confound her utterly and then bring to you a heart entirely freed from her perfidious charms.
Jacqueline O'Connor played Arsinoe to great hilarity, complete with southern accent and snapping fingers when she wanted an assist to dismount the steps.
The play was full of laugh-out-loud moments (and I did) and it seemed to be over way too soon.
Even so, we'd learned our lessons from Moliere.
I expect you to be sincere and as an honorable man, never to utter a single word that you don't really mean.
Let me assure you, I mean every single word of mine.
Richmond Shakespeare was doing their Bawdy Bard staged reading series at Capital Ale House and where better to get bawdy than a beer house?
We got there early enough to pay our respects to the local grape and have a little dinner beforehand.
Our affable server didn't even smirk at having to bring us Autumn Hill Cabernet Franc in a place where hops reign supreme.
We went right for the "seasonal" portion of the menu, ordering crisp ale glazed pork osso buco-ettes served over an apple/walnut salad.
That glaze? Sweet on the pig.
And, yes, I ended up sucking bones.
The salad had the distinction of being not crisp but so imbued with the dressing that the apples and nuts had an almost soft consistency.
I thought it was heavenly, unique in its flavor and texture.
Next up I had white chicken chili, seasoned with enough heat for a spicy finish but not so much it delivered anything painful.
Bellies mostly full, we moved to the music room for the reading of "Moliere."
No, the Bawdy Bard wasn't doing Shakespeare this time, but Moliere is almost as good and this one was set during election season.
"The Misanthrope," a 17th century comedy of manners would provide the verse I love hearing along with the human commentary for which he was known.
It was all good for me (and the $5 price tag didn't hurt, either).
The producer noted that Cap Ale was less stuffy than Center Stage, where the readings used to be held.
I'm all for less stuffy, although there were times when the servers were talking to customers and drowning out the actors.
As is not unusual for Richmond Shakes, this staged reading benefited from blocking and even full-on action.
There were many times when the terrific Adam Mincks as Alceste was chewing scenery, zipping up his fly, whatever, from the middle of the music hall.
I thank you, Madam, for that soothing dart.
Stacie Reardon Hall played Celimene in a tight red dress that required exaggerated pulling up every time she tried to mount the steps in front of the stage.
He has a bent toward total contradiction.
Intermission came all too soon and while using the facilities, I overheard a commentary on the inane.
"Yea, Christmas songs and Lady Gaga, those are the ones that get stuck in your head forever," one woman observed.
"Yea, but once you forget 'em, they're just gone," her friend commented.
Sometimes a bathroom break delivers more than mere relief.
I'll confront her in no uncertain terms with her villainy, confound her utterly and then bring to you a heart entirely freed from her perfidious charms.
Jacqueline O'Connor played Arsinoe to great hilarity, complete with southern accent and snapping fingers when she wanted an assist to dismount the steps.
The play was full of laugh-out-loud moments (and I did) and it seemed to be over way too soon.
Even so, we'd learned our lessons from Moliere.
I expect you to be sincere and as an honorable man, never to utter a single word that you don't really mean.
Let me assure you, I mean every single word of mine.
Monday, July 30, 2012
By Cock and Pie
"Wait till you see me in my doublet sweating my heiney off."
If that isn't an invitation to experience Shakespeare in the courtyard of Agecroft Hall, I don't know what is.
And it wasn't even said to me, merely overheard.
As if I needed more incentive, it was the closing night of "Merry Wives of Windsor," the weather was decidedly less July-like than usual and a friend had been called a standout in the cast.
We picnicked on the grass behind the grand house, with a view of the James and a series of trains chugging along the riverside.
Members of the company's young troupe, calling themselves Lord Moxley's Players, wandered from picnic to picnic, offering to do monologues.
When it was our turn, I chose Kate from "Taming of the Shrew" and heard Kate lament her fate as Petrucchio's soon-to-be wife.
Waiting in line to enter the courtyard, I spoke with some first-timers to Agecroft and Richmond Shakespeare.
When they asked me where the best place to sit was, I didn't hesitate.
The front row is my favorite because it allows me to see the actors spit, both literally and figuratively.
As proof, spit began flying during the first scene,
That's what I'm talking about.
I spy entertainment in her. She discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation.
Personally, I would be flattered if a man spied entertainment in me.
The story of the large and boastful knight Falstaff wooing two middle-aged wives who in turn trick and degrade him is one of my favorites, mainly for the substance of the characters.
The appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning glass!
The role of Falstaff is key to this play and Todd Schall-Vess nailed it, doing buffoonery and humanity equally well.
It's so easy to overdo the role and leave the audience uncaring about Falstaff, but that wasn't the case.
After he is dumped into the river with the laundry and comes out sputtering and sneezing, a tiny fish comes out of his nose (mouth?) as he blusters about such indignities.
Brilliant.
Can I love her? I hope so.
The entire cast was assured, no doubt partly a function of this being the fourth week of production.
Evan Nasteff as the French Dr. Caius managed to be hysterical and dashing at the same time.
Use your art of wooing. Win her to consent to you.
That particular line was followed by a flock of geese flying over Agecroft, honking in the dark blue almost-night sky.
It was a sky that eventually changed over to a moonlit one which we enjoyed from the veranda during intermission.
I assure thee, setting the attractions of my good parts aside, I have no other charms.
Guitar and cello music came courtesy of Matt Treacy, whom I've seen at Richmond Shakespeare's staged readings.
He managed to imbue any kind of scene, comical or fighting, with just the right musical emphasis.
I must advance the colours of my love.
If ever a play focused on the art of wooing, it's this one.
Watching men, young and old, try to win the affection of the objects of their affection (or at least, lust) was probably the equivalent of a chick-flick.
And while I don't go see those, I'd happily watch Shakespeare's characters woo and charm any night of the week.
Sure, partly it's the language ("I rather will suspect the sun of cold than you of wantoness"), but also the humor ("I'll no pullet sperm in my brewage").
And all from the front row where twice actors gazed into my eyes to deliver their lines.
No rom-com at a multi-plex is capable of giving me that distinct pleasure.
Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one who makes fritters of English?
Have I lived to savor a talented cast who woo with language on a moonlit night?
I hope so. After all, there is entertainment to be spied in me.
If that isn't an invitation to experience Shakespeare in the courtyard of Agecroft Hall, I don't know what is.
And it wasn't even said to me, merely overheard.
As if I needed more incentive, it was the closing night of "Merry Wives of Windsor," the weather was decidedly less July-like than usual and a friend had been called a standout in the cast.
We picnicked on the grass behind the grand house, with a view of the James and a series of trains chugging along the riverside.
Members of the company's young troupe, calling themselves Lord Moxley's Players, wandered from picnic to picnic, offering to do monologues.
When it was our turn, I chose Kate from "Taming of the Shrew" and heard Kate lament her fate as Petrucchio's soon-to-be wife.
Waiting in line to enter the courtyard, I spoke with some first-timers to Agecroft and Richmond Shakespeare.
When they asked me where the best place to sit was, I didn't hesitate.
The front row is my favorite because it allows me to see the actors spit, both literally and figuratively.
As proof, spit began flying during the first scene,
That's what I'm talking about.
I spy entertainment in her. She discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation.
Personally, I would be flattered if a man spied entertainment in me.
The story of the large and boastful knight Falstaff wooing two middle-aged wives who in turn trick and degrade him is one of my favorites, mainly for the substance of the characters.
The appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning glass!
The role of Falstaff is key to this play and Todd Schall-Vess nailed it, doing buffoonery and humanity equally well.
It's so easy to overdo the role and leave the audience uncaring about Falstaff, but that wasn't the case.
After he is dumped into the river with the laundry and comes out sputtering and sneezing, a tiny fish comes out of his nose (mouth?) as he blusters about such indignities.
Brilliant.
Can I love her? I hope so.
The entire cast was assured, no doubt partly a function of this being the fourth week of production.
Evan Nasteff as the French Dr. Caius managed to be hysterical and dashing at the same time.
Use your art of wooing. Win her to consent to you.
That particular line was followed by a flock of geese flying over Agecroft, honking in the dark blue almost-night sky.
It was a sky that eventually changed over to a moonlit one which we enjoyed from the veranda during intermission.
I assure thee, setting the attractions of my good parts aside, I have no other charms.
Guitar and cello music came courtesy of Matt Treacy, whom I've seen at Richmond Shakespeare's staged readings.
He managed to imbue any kind of scene, comical or fighting, with just the right musical emphasis.
I must advance the colours of my love.
If ever a play focused on the art of wooing, it's this one.
Watching men, young and old, try to win the affection of the objects of their affection (or at least, lust) was probably the equivalent of a chick-flick.
And while I don't go see those, I'd happily watch Shakespeare's characters woo and charm any night of the week.
Sure, partly it's the language ("I rather will suspect the sun of cold than you of wantoness"), but also the humor ("I'll no pullet sperm in my brewage").
And all from the front row where twice actors gazed into my eyes to deliver their lines.
No rom-com at a multi-plex is capable of giving me that distinct pleasure.
Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one who makes fritters of English?
Have I lived to savor a talented cast who woo with language on a moonlit night?
I hope so. After all, there is entertainment to be spied in me.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Saucy and Audacious Eloquence
"No doubt they rose up early to observe the rite of May."
There was no rising involved, but early I did arrive for Richmond Shakespeare's free production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Maymont.
Doing so got me in the front row, as much as there were rows, where I found several blankets spread and a friendly couple already entrenched.
Like me, they'd attended last year's production and remembered how early and large the crowd had been.
Learning from our mistakes, we were having none of that this year.
Meanwhile, a couple of hawks circled overhead as we made introductions.
Ah, nature. That's why we go to Maymont, right?
With over an hour and a half until show time, I chatted with them, ate my picnic supper of fried chicken, legume and olive salad and watermelon and read.
I was not unique; looking around, most of the early arrivals were either eating or reading a book. I can't recall the last time I saw so many book readers in one place.
Coincidence? I think not.
Meanwhile the actors practiced their lines silently or sotto voice, ran around the stage flexing the stage boards or rehearsed songs.
"I am out of breath in this fond chase."
I would advise getting more exercise or eating more fruit if you want to keep up.
The performance began with the announcement of where the facilities were and the information that, "The Port-a-Potties are over there, they just arrived and they're freshly done."
I think we can all agree that there is nothing quite like a freshly done portable toilet. I know I took advantage of them.
With that reassurance began the play about how the course of true love never does run smooth (and if it does, how concerned should we be?).
And especially in a comedy about people loving the wrong person.
Even more so when the entire cast is in pajamas and robes (and kudos to Hermia for her alluring peignoir).
"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind."
If you ask me, they should teach that in Romance 101.
As if the misguided lovers weren't amusing enough, the ragtag group of amateur actors who are painfully rehearsing a play for the Duke's wedding provided non-stop hilarity.
When the dim Snug agrees to take on the role of the lion, his Cowardly Lion imitation was laugh-out-loud funny.
Quince's barely restrained impatience with his slow-witted associates was written all over his face and in every muscle of his tensed body, ensuring that we felt his pain.
"Mine ear is much enamored of thy note."
Puck was a bundle of red union-suited energy, mounting stools, bouncing around the stage and leaping off the end of it.
The surrounding trees and lawn were the ideal setting for a story that takes place in a fairy-inhabited woodland (well, except for the children climbing the nearby tree).
That said, I was glad I wasn't in pajamas since once the sun set, it was a tad cool out there in the grass.
"We cannot fight for love as men may do. We should be wooed and were not made to woo."
For me, the pleasure of this play, which I've seen performed many times, comes with the chemistry of the actors playing the three sets of lovers, all of whom shone tonight.
At intermission, we were instructed, "Please feel free to go wherever you want to now."
For me, that was straight to the ice cream truck for a double scoop of butter pecan while a couple of musicians played Paul Simon and Kenny Loggins tunes.
And, yes, someone called out, "Free Bird!" Is that book-reading crowd behavior, people?
All the mix-ups and tomfoolery of the first act were finally righted in the second (whew!) act so everybody ended up happy with their partner and the over-the-top Bottom and his band of actors put on their histrionic play.
That brought to a close this year's gift from Richmond Shakespeare and another fine evening of feuding fairies and love and madness.
"To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days."
Did they ever?
There was no rising involved, but early I did arrive for Richmond Shakespeare's free production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Maymont.
Doing so got me in the front row, as much as there were rows, where I found several blankets spread and a friendly couple already entrenched.
Like me, they'd attended last year's production and remembered how early and large the crowd had been.
Learning from our mistakes, we were having none of that this year.
Meanwhile, a couple of hawks circled overhead as we made introductions.
Ah, nature. That's why we go to Maymont, right?
With over an hour and a half until show time, I chatted with them, ate my picnic supper of fried chicken, legume and olive salad and watermelon and read.
I was not unique; looking around, most of the early arrivals were either eating or reading a book. I can't recall the last time I saw so many book readers in one place.
Coincidence? I think not.
Meanwhile the actors practiced their lines silently or sotto voice, ran around the stage flexing the stage boards or rehearsed songs.
"I am out of breath in this fond chase."
I would advise getting more exercise or eating more fruit if you want to keep up.
The performance began with the announcement of where the facilities were and the information that, "The Port-a-Potties are over there, they just arrived and they're freshly done."
I think we can all agree that there is nothing quite like a freshly done portable toilet. I know I took advantage of them.
With that reassurance began the play about how the course of true love never does run smooth (and if it does, how concerned should we be?).
And especially in a comedy about people loving the wrong person.
Even more so when the entire cast is in pajamas and robes (and kudos to Hermia for her alluring peignoir).
"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind."
If you ask me, they should teach that in Romance 101.
As if the misguided lovers weren't amusing enough, the ragtag group of amateur actors who are painfully rehearsing a play for the Duke's wedding provided non-stop hilarity.
When the dim Snug agrees to take on the role of the lion, his Cowardly Lion imitation was laugh-out-loud funny.
Quince's barely restrained impatience with his slow-witted associates was written all over his face and in every muscle of his tensed body, ensuring that we felt his pain.
"Mine ear is much enamored of thy note."
Puck was a bundle of red union-suited energy, mounting stools, bouncing around the stage and leaping off the end of it.
The surrounding trees and lawn were the ideal setting for a story that takes place in a fairy-inhabited woodland (well, except for the children climbing the nearby tree).
That said, I was glad I wasn't in pajamas since once the sun set, it was a tad cool out there in the grass.
"We cannot fight for love as men may do. We should be wooed and were not made to woo."
For me, the pleasure of this play, which I've seen performed many times, comes with the chemistry of the actors playing the three sets of lovers, all of whom shone tonight.
At intermission, we were instructed, "Please feel free to go wherever you want to now."
For me, that was straight to the ice cream truck for a double scoop of butter pecan while a couple of musicians played Paul Simon and Kenny Loggins tunes.
And, yes, someone called out, "Free Bird!" Is that book-reading crowd behavior, people?
All the mix-ups and tomfoolery of the first act were finally righted in the second (whew!) act so everybody ended up happy with their partner and the over-the-top Bottom and his band of actors put on their histrionic play.
That brought to a close this year's gift from Richmond Shakespeare and another fine evening of feuding fairies and love and madness.
"To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days."
Did they ever?
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Hot Wenches and Hard Whisks
"That which we call a hog would taste as sweet by any other name."
So there you have my evening: pig and Shakespeare.
Things got rolling at Six Burner where change is a-brewing.
Already the door in the back corner of the restaurant has been uncovered, thus providing natural light in a notoriously dark corner.
Booths will soon go missing, a banquette is coming and, best of all, a menu with more options for the wallet-challenged.
Until then, half-priced wine night will have to suffice and it did magnificently with $3.50 glasses of Gavi.
On top of that, I broke my no-cocktail rule and tried a cilantro gimlet with sugar/chile rims, a lovely warm weather refresher, the recipe for which the bartender had stolen from his favorite piano bar in the West Village.
I think I must have been crazed by all that sunlight pouring in the back door to drink something so uncharacteristic.
Deciding about what to eat was easy: house-made Cotechino pork sausage came with toothsome lentils and broccoli rabe; any bite which included all three was superb.
Then there was local asparagus ('tis the season) with escargot barigoule in a lemongrass sauce and a roasted garlic custard that got my vote for best savory pudding ever.
Can I put in my vote for more like it on menus?
While discussing Matt dressing up as Marilyn Monroe to sing happy birthday to a Ukrop (oh, it'll happen) and the difference between serving bar food and knowing good food, we looked up to discover it was Shakespeare time.
And not just any Shakespeare, but a Richmond Shakespeare Second Tuesday staged reading of "Shakespeare in the Trailer Park" at the Gottwald Theater.
Could there be a better use of my time after a meal of snails and Cotechino?
The play turned out to be a pastiche of "Hamlet" ("My father's spirit roams these trailer parks") "Macbeth," "Merchant of Venice," "Romeo and Juliet" and probably any number of others I wasn't able to catch in the fast-paced story.
The action took place in Frog Level and began with three witches stirring a pot of Brunswick stew made with road kill and magic mushrooms.
I may have found this even more hysterical than the rest of the audience since I have actually eaten Brunswick stew in Frog Level.
Mine had neither street scrapings nor hallucinogenic fungi, but I was told I could find a husband if I came back.
And for the record, I've also eaten a salt fish breakfast in Frog Level, but that's another story.
The story revolved around competing families of chefs versus bakers ("You fondle meat, I beat the batter") who lived in double wides ("Double wides are twice the trouble") in warring trailer parks (Montague Acres and Capulet Hills).
The dialog was cleverly written combining Shakespearean rhymes and language ("What light by yonder bug zapper breaks?") with modern references ("Forsooth, I am mellow").
The raunch factor was high ("I pray another part of thee is as hard as thy whisk"), frequent ("She's curdled my codpiece, the hot wench. Let's shack up") and non-stop ("It would have killed the mood if thee were butt ugly").
A pair of pink flamingos, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, were "trusty pink spies," moving side to side when they overheard some juicy tidbit.
The cast was completely on point, bringing the NASCAR-obsessed, incestuous characters to life as they battled over which trailer park would be the last one standing when the new Walmart got built.
As you might expect, there was something rotten in Frog Level.
Once Cheese MacBreath was sauced, it was up to his heir to punish the murderer ("To sauce or not to sauce, that is the question").
When the guilty parties have been poisoned with tofu-laden barbecue sauce, the perp, Homeo MacBreath, awakens to find his beloved, the very hot Barbie-Q Bacon, dead by the dagger attachment on her Swiss Army knife.
His despair was evident. "No more shall I nail her."
If ever Shakespeare missed an opportunity to write a play, it was this one about tong-brandishing chefs, cold ones kept in the Kenmore, chefs who train at Blackensburg Culinary College, and spirits who roam the trailer parks to vindicate their untimely death.
The kind of trailer park trash who say of their own, "He swaggers a lot like a drunken sailor and eats us out of home and trailer."
Wisely, playwrights V. Mark Covington and Sharon Caccuabaudo (present in tonight's crowd) kept the trademark couplets so evocative of the Bard, even while having the characters mock their own rhyming language.
"In the haze of last night's rum. something wicked this way comes."
Wickedly funny, well directed and engagingly performed, it was the kind of play that left my motor revving like a stock car, with a huge grin on my face and a desire for a good whisk.
Luckily, the play had advised me how to deal with that aftermath.
"Find someone who will lick the sauce."
You gotta love a staged reading where they say it all out loud.
So there you have my evening: pig and Shakespeare.
Things got rolling at Six Burner where change is a-brewing.
Already the door in the back corner of the restaurant has been uncovered, thus providing natural light in a notoriously dark corner.
Booths will soon go missing, a banquette is coming and, best of all, a menu with more options for the wallet-challenged.
Until then, half-priced wine night will have to suffice and it did magnificently with $3.50 glasses of Gavi.
On top of that, I broke my no-cocktail rule and tried a cilantro gimlet with sugar/chile rims, a lovely warm weather refresher, the recipe for which the bartender had stolen from his favorite piano bar in the West Village.
I think I must have been crazed by all that sunlight pouring in the back door to drink something so uncharacteristic.
Deciding about what to eat was easy: house-made Cotechino pork sausage came with toothsome lentils and broccoli rabe; any bite which included all three was superb.
Then there was local asparagus ('tis the season) with escargot barigoule in a lemongrass sauce and a roasted garlic custard that got my vote for best savory pudding ever.
Can I put in my vote for more like it on menus?
While discussing Matt dressing up as Marilyn Monroe to sing happy birthday to a Ukrop (oh, it'll happen) and the difference between serving bar food and knowing good food, we looked up to discover it was Shakespeare time.
And not just any Shakespeare, but a Richmond Shakespeare Second Tuesday staged reading of "Shakespeare in the Trailer Park" at the Gottwald Theater.
Could there be a better use of my time after a meal of snails and Cotechino?
The play turned out to be a pastiche of "Hamlet" ("My father's spirit roams these trailer parks") "Macbeth," "Merchant of Venice," "Romeo and Juliet" and probably any number of others I wasn't able to catch in the fast-paced story.
The action took place in Frog Level and began with three witches stirring a pot of Brunswick stew made with road kill and magic mushrooms.
I may have found this even more hysterical than the rest of the audience since I have actually eaten Brunswick stew in Frog Level.
Mine had neither street scrapings nor hallucinogenic fungi, but I was told I could find a husband if I came back.
And for the record, I've also eaten a salt fish breakfast in Frog Level, but that's another story.
The story revolved around competing families of chefs versus bakers ("You fondle meat, I beat the batter") who lived in double wides ("Double wides are twice the trouble") in warring trailer parks (Montague Acres and Capulet Hills).
The dialog was cleverly written combining Shakespearean rhymes and language ("What light by yonder bug zapper breaks?") with modern references ("Forsooth, I am mellow").
The raunch factor was high ("I pray another part of thee is as hard as thy whisk"), frequent ("She's curdled my codpiece, the hot wench. Let's shack up") and non-stop ("It would have killed the mood if thee were butt ugly").
A pair of pink flamingos, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, were "trusty pink spies," moving side to side when they overheard some juicy tidbit.
The cast was completely on point, bringing the NASCAR-obsessed, incestuous characters to life as they battled over which trailer park would be the last one standing when the new Walmart got built.
As you might expect, there was something rotten in Frog Level.
Once Cheese MacBreath was sauced, it was up to his heir to punish the murderer ("To sauce or not to sauce, that is the question").
When the guilty parties have been poisoned with tofu-laden barbecue sauce, the perp, Homeo MacBreath, awakens to find his beloved, the very hot Barbie-Q Bacon, dead by the dagger attachment on her Swiss Army knife.
His despair was evident. "No more shall I nail her."
If ever Shakespeare missed an opportunity to write a play, it was this one about tong-brandishing chefs, cold ones kept in the Kenmore, chefs who train at Blackensburg Culinary College, and spirits who roam the trailer parks to vindicate their untimely death.
The kind of trailer park trash who say of their own, "He swaggers a lot like a drunken sailor and eats us out of home and trailer."
Wisely, playwrights V. Mark Covington and Sharon Caccuabaudo (present in tonight's crowd) kept the trademark couplets so evocative of the Bard, even while having the characters mock their own rhyming language.
"In the haze of last night's rum. something wicked this way comes."
Wickedly funny, well directed and engagingly performed, it was the kind of play that left my motor revving like a stock car, with a huge grin on my face and a desire for a good whisk.
Luckily, the play had advised me how to deal with that aftermath.
"Find someone who will lick the sauce."
You gotta love a staged reading where they say it all out loud.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
As I Like It
"Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak."
If I were looking for a statement of life philosophy, that might be it, although I'd have to give Shakespeare credit for the wording, if not the sentiment.
So with lots on my mind and the resulting lots to speak, I met a friend at Six Burner after she messaged me, "You have a lot to share!"
You talking to me?
And while we weren't exactly outside on this gorgeous day, all the front windows in the restaurant were wide open, allowing balmy, spring-like air to waft through the restaurant.
The only thing lacking by not being outside was the exhaust fumes of Main Street traffic.
"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?"
Despite my friend's penchant for chewy red wine, even she had to acknowledge that today was not a day for it.
Instead, we went the sparkling route with Fita Azul Passion Rose because who couldn't use a little more passion in their life?
"I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine."
Over talk of men with beards that need trimming, terribly attentive dates and homecomings, we slurped up a bowl of P.E.I. mussels with bacon, bleu cheese, white wine and garlic broth.
The creamy broth was so good we got extra bread for sopping. My friend wanted to drink it with a straw but thought better of it.
We ran into someone she knows who's doing a piano bar here Brooklyn-style that sounds like something I need to check out.
After all, it's important not to wait too long to do what you need to do.
It's not like anyone is getting any younger.
"Sell when you can, You are not for all markets."
Just when we were trying to make plans for another get-together, I noticed the time and had to beat feet.
Richmond Shakespeare waits for no man (or woman).
This month's staged reading was "As You Like It," or another play about true love (and masked identities).
My favorite kind.
Tonight's twist was that nine of their Young Company were doing the reading, meaning lots of skinny jeans and promising talent.
"That flattering tongue of yours won me."
Nathan Johnson was especially strong as the romantic lead Orlando, but also as the fool Touchstone in a madras blazer.
Could one infer that only fools would wear such a thing?
When Orlando wants to proclaim his love for Rosalind by posting poetry all over the Forest of Arden, the actor stuck pink Post-it notes to the front row's foreheads to simulate what he was doing.
Despite being in the front row, I wasn't one of the few, the proud, the stuck.
"And faster than his tongue did make offense, his eye did heal it up."
Even with a young cast occasionally tripping over the heady language of love, it was hard not to enjoy the story of a man who's willing to woo what he thinks is a guy but is really the object of his affection.
Because doesn't a smart man woo his object any way he can?
"Answer me in one word."
If I were looking for a statement of life philosophy, that might be it, although I'd have to give Shakespeare credit for the wording, if not the sentiment.
So with lots on my mind and the resulting lots to speak, I met a friend at Six Burner after she messaged me, "You have a lot to share!"
You talking to me?
And while we weren't exactly outside on this gorgeous day, all the front windows in the restaurant were wide open, allowing balmy, spring-like air to waft through the restaurant.
The only thing lacking by not being outside was the exhaust fumes of Main Street traffic.
"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?"
Despite my friend's penchant for chewy red wine, even she had to acknowledge that today was not a day for it.
Instead, we went the sparkling route with Fita Azul Passion Rose because who couldn't use a little more passion in their life?
"I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine."
Over talk of men with beards that need trimming, terribly attentive dates and homecomings, we slurped up a bowl of P.E.I. mussels with bacon, bleu cheese, white wine and garlic broth.
The creamy broth was so good we got extra bread for sopping. My friend wanted to drink it with a straw but thought better of it.
We ran into someone she knows who's doing a piano bar here Brooklyn-style that sounds like something I need to check out.
After all, it's important not to wait too long to do what you need to do.
It's not like anyone is getting any younger.
"Sell when you can, You are not for all markets."
Just when we were trying to make plans for another get-together, I noticed the time and had to beat feet.
Richmond Shakespeare waits for no man (or woman).
This month's staged reading was "As You Like It," or another play about true love (and masked identities).
My favorite kind.
Tonight's twist was that nine of their Young Company were doing the reading, meaning lots of skinny jeans and promising talent.
"That flattering tongue of yours won me."
Nathan Johnson was especially strong as the romantic lead Orlando, but also as the fool Touchstone in a madras blazer.
Could one infer that only fools would wear such a thing?
When Orlando wants to proclaim his love for Rosalind by posting poetry all over the Forest of Arden, the actor stuck pink Post-it notes to the front row's foreheads to simulate what he was doing.
Despite being in the front row, I wasn't one of the few, the proud, the stuck.
"And faster than his tongue did make offense, his eye did heal it up."
Even with a young cast occasionally tripping over the heady language of love, it was hard not to enjoy the story of a man who's willing to woo what he thinks is a guy but is really the object of his affection.
Because doesn't a smart man woo his object any way he can?
"Answer me in one word."
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Most Brisk and Giddy-Paced Times
Standing on a corner in Jackson Ward and the familiar faces just keep coming.
The aviator, the intrepid trekker, the DJs.
Inside, "Invisible Weight," a show by Sean Mahan displays paintings on wood of figures connecting, floating and being.
"Sewing 4," already sold when I arrive, depicts a young girl and old-fashioned sewing machine. Its purity is striking.
In the back gallery, "Moving Moments" by Erin Tobey takes a whimsical look at tables crashing through rooves and sisters transmuting into furry, winged creatures.
A friend buys a piece of a figure taking in air through a pipe to help her confront her asthma issues..
At 1708 Gallery, "Everything is Under Control," a video piece by Sara Pomerance is part of a larger video series, "Telling Tales."
The short clips of her family and friends leading their lives is melancholy and mundane, like far too many people's.
And because it is Twelfth Night, Richmond Shakespeare presents a reading of, what else, "Twelfth Night" with its themes of merriment (Jeff Clevinger's Sir Toby perfectly nailed the drunken shenanigans of an instigator) and love, always love.
"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
It was suggested to me that it could also be phrased as, "I want you to want me."
Daylight and champagne discovers not more."
Avalon, mobbed and with a steady influx of people, provides duck pizza, pepperoni pizza,Thurston Wolfe Family Red (at the owner's suggestion) and questions of growing old.
Moments after our server told us it was last call, I look over to see a girl applying deodorant at her booth. Fortunately, there is no one else sitting with her.
I have seen many things in bar, but never anyone addressing their pit wetness. I suppose it was her last chance to find someone tonight.
Meanwhile, my long-time companion (eight hours at this point) hilariously and half-seriously explains to me that our friendship can be traced back to Abe Lincoln.
Everything hinges on something else and a perfect storm was required to bring it to fruition.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will. That's exactly what we're figuring out.
The aviator, the intrepid trekker, the DJs.
Inside, "Invisible Weight," a show by Sean Mahan displays paintings on wood of figures connecting, floating and being.
"Sewing 4," already sold when I arrive, depicts a young girl and old-fashioned sewing machine. Its purity is striking.
In the back gallery, "Moving Moments" by Erin Tobey takes a whimsical look at tables crashing through rooves and sisters transmuting into furry, winged creatures.
A friend buys a piece of a figure taking in air through a pipe to help her confront her asthma issues..
At 1708 Gallery, "Everything is Under Control," a video piece by Sara Pomerance is part of a larger video series, "Telling Tales."
The short clips of her family and friends leading their lives is melancholy and mundane, like far too many people's.
And because it is Twelfth Night, Richmond Shakespeare presents a reading of, what else, "Twelfth Night" with its themes of merriment (Jeff Clevinger's Sir Toby perfectly nailed the drunken shenanigans of an instigator) and love, always love.
"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
It was suggested to me that it could also be phrased as, "I want you to want me."
Daylight and champagne discovers not more."
Avalon, mobbed and with a steady influx of people, provides duck pizza, pepperoni pizza,Thurston Wolfe Family Red (at the owner's suggestion) and questions of growing old.
Moments after our server told us it was last call, I look over to see a girl applying deodorant at her booth. Fortunately, there is no one else sitting with her.
I have seen many things in bar, but never anyone addressing their pit wetness. I suppose it was her last chance to find someone tonight.
Meanwhile, my long-time companion (eight hours at this point) hilariously and half-seriously explains to me that our friendship can be traced back to Abe Lincoln.
Everything hinges on something else and a perfect storm was required to bring it to fruition.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will. That's exactly what we're figuring out.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
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.
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.
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