You know what the problem with tonight was? No eunuchs.
It's not like dinner at Acacia wasn't fabulous because when isn't dinner at Acacia fabulous?
My chilled cucumber/avocado soup with creme fraiche tasted clean as a cuke and creamy as an avocado. I'd rank my tile fish collar (probably my favorite part of the fish) over summer succotash with curry sauce as the star of the table (and the epitome of the chef's mad skills with seafood), except each of my table mates would probably have made a case for their soft shells, their wahoo and their crab cake.
Sipping a refreshing beverage of Lindera farms strawberry vinegar, honey, mint and soda, I was comfortably cool, but one at our table was feeling a tad flushed (despite her Anton Bauer Zweigelt Rose), hardly an unusual occurrence.
What we needed, she thought, was someone to stand on either side of her at the table with palm frond fans. My suggestion was that they be shirtless, wear harem pants and include peacock feathers in the fans.
"That's what this restaurant is missing! Eunuchs!" she exclaimed, metaphorically smacking her forehead with the realization.
Consider that this was prior to an explanation by another friend of why I shouldn't go more than three days without showering and you have some idea of the scintillating dinner conversation we enjoyed.
Seems her research turned up the rather gruesome sequence of personal deterioration that would ensue sans bathing: the first day, sweat, the second, bacteria and the third, mold.
Growing on one's body, mind you.
I suppose the best news was that because we had theater tickets, we lacked the time for a proper linger over dessert and after-dinner drinks or god knows how much lower the conversation might have degenerated.
It was our take two for Quill Theater's "Merchant of Venice" at Agecroft after being sent home last weekend due to the arrival of thunderstorms. Fortunately, a look at the weather just before leaving home had assured me there was no chance of any rain or storm activity until 9:45.
With any luck, we were hoping the play, which began at 7:30, would be finished by then.
But fish not with this melancholy bait
Of all Shakespeare's plays, "Merchant" is surely one I've seen the least often and probably last as done by this same company when they were called Henley Street. The rarity of productions can undoubtedly be attributed to the play's problematic treatment of Jews, making for an easy analogy with treatment of other religious groups today.
Love is blind
From the opening scenes, the play was strong, in large part due to the uncompromising yet sympathetic portrayal of Shylock, the moneylender, by Matthew Radford Davies, a handsome Shakespeare professor at Mary Baldwin.
I think it's safe to say that his students must leave his tutelage well schooled in the mechanics of total character immersion. Simultaneously, he conveyed the years of persecution he'd endured and the effects of it in his now-merciless need for revenge.
We have friends who practice merriment
Completely compelling as the production was, the sweat factor - at intermission, the heat index still registered at 101 degrees - necessitated fans of the hand-held and battery-powered varieties and copious amounts of water in order to stay alive, forget about comfortable.
Once again, tragically, we were suffering from a lack of eunuchs.
Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
In fact, at intermission, I was questioned on my ability to exist in my un-air-conditioned apartment given the heat dome that's dominated Richmond the past week and a half.
"Does anyone check on you?" one friend inquired. "If you mummified up there, who would find you? Would anyone even know you were gone?" Negative.
Madame, you have bereft me of all words
Probably the most moving moment of the evening happened when Shylock gave his "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" speech, which took place under a sky being lit up by lightening and which competed with the rumble of a train along the riverfront.
I never knew so young a body with so old a head
Now, here's the kicker.
We got through the trial scene, albeit uncomfortably watching Shylock ridiculed for and then stripped of his faith, money and dignity, before the house manager came out and insisted we go inside Agecroft to stay safe from the impending storm.
The time was, it should be noted, 9:48. Kudos, weather.com.
A straw vote settled the matter for our quartet and we headed directly to the car. Those not acclimated to heat (that would be everyone but me) had long been miserable and had no intention of waiting 15 minutes to determine if the play would be continued.
Besides, all we'd miss would be the so-called happy ending - reunited lovers, unexpected inheritances and ships coming in - and, if I'm honest, while I'd have loved to see the last bit, I was ready for some rain relief, too.
You know, in hopes I won't be mummified tonight. No eunuchs, sadly.
Showing posts with label the merchant of venice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the merchant of venice. Show all posts
Friday, July 29, 2016
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Folly of Word Nerds
Because being on a screened porch strung with fairy lights while a July rain falls just outside is a practically transcendent way to wile away an evening.
That the gentle night also involved mocking, condescension and outright compliments only attests to our unlikely activity: my first foray into the oh-so popular game that's swept the nation.
You read right, last night I was introduced to Cards Against Humanity.
That's right, I killed new age music. How, you ask?
...An ice pick lobotomy.
It wasn't the plan. That had been determined months ago and consisted of dinner and "The Merchant of Venice" at Agecroft. Given the play's talking points about Jewish-ness, I'd chosen Dinamo for its fusion of Jewish and Italian food.
He Who Shall Not Be named (aka Mr. Google Scheduler) had us there before the propeller even began spinning. Naturally, we were the first eager beavers in the place other than staff. Ouch.
Not that I cared once I was sharing octopus salami that looked like paper-thin slices of a jeweled window and tasted like a seaside meal or polishing off my own cold plate of marinated seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and octopus. Keeping it simple, I finished with a Nutella cookie and we left for Agecroft.
We were a well-oiled machine, seated, with new Shakespeare fans in hand when the entire audience was directed inside due to "pool rules." Thunder and lightening were fast approaching and they didn't want any of us good patrons to be electrified, as house manager Noah so quaintly put it.
A brief wait, a decision to go back outside and begin and then the cold, hard facts. The show was called.
So, you see, it wasn't like we didn't try to get some culture before descending into the gutter of sexually offensive and politically incorrect conversation.
It was my first time on the porch since it had been fully tricked out, meaning I couldn't help but admire all the little touches - Wellies by the door, cushioned chairs of various styles, tables with candles and lamps, flowering plants and antique window frames.
The sole male commented that the ledge covered in necessaries - various bug sprays for body and room, aloe if you did get a bite, sunscreens of myriad strengths - was the only jarring note in an otherwise lovely space, but I disagreed. Vehemently.
A screened porch is an outdoor room, but also a utilitarian one. Such a ledge was completely appropriate, in my opinion, because all the assorted sundries you could possibly require while enjoying the porch were readily available. You never had to leave the porch to stay comfortable.
Decorating roundtable finished, we got down to the serious business of cracking each other up.
As a CAH virgin, I immediately was curious about the fact that there were black and white cards. You mean like the races? Setting the tone for the evening, my hostess arched an eyebrow and announced without so much as a chortle, "All cards matter."
Not going to lie, we had all kinds of fun trying to figure out what combination would win the favor of the round's card czar (or, more accurately, czarina, since men were outnumbered 3 to 1), taking into account who leaned toward corny and who always opted for sick or intellectual humor.
A girl's best friend?
...David Bowie flying in on a tiger made of lightening
Brilliant, right? Okay, but so is this one:
A girl's best friend?
...Licking things to claim them as her own
Turns out this game's underlying purpose is encouraging players to inadvertently remember things or share personal history. Now I know I have a friend who's not ashamed to say she's a territorial licker.
Sorry, teacher, I couldn't finish my homework because of...sniffing glue.
"Oh, yea, I remember that," one of the participants says. I wouldn't have pegged her for the glue-sniffing type, but who am I to judge? That said, no one would admit to being "balls deep in a squealin' hog" when that came up as an answer, but the night was still young then.
I soon learned that some black cards came with two blanks, necessitating each of us to choose not one, but two phrases that best completed the sentence.
The Academy award for...flightless birds
Goes to...battlefield amputation
To have two such disparate cards in your hand, much less to combine them so cleverly, well, kudos to me.
Although we'd begun playing around 9:30, it was probably sometime around midnight (post-Pimm's pops, Pimm's cups and Miraval) when we got our first card with three blanks.
"Having to come up with three cards is gonna take forever," our hostess warned, specifically looking at a certain slow player. "We're slow with two! We're good with one, one card, that's it."
What's George Bush thinking about right now?
...Not reciprocating oral sex
...Fiery poops
...Third base
Plausible, all of them, right?
As the night wore on, we especially enjoyed questions that referred back to the person asking. So when I read, "What's my anti-drug?" the friend in the colorful dress exclaimed, "Yours?" and stares at me as if she can discern it from my countenance.
Ultimately, it led to a big discussion of what exactly constitutes an anti-drug. That's one we didn't fully resolve.
After a while, I knew my competitors well enough to tickle their fancies with my answer, as when the formerly soggy one delighted at my response to his card.
I got 99 problems but...Count Chocula...ain't one.
Oh, he laughed. Man, if you only knew how long I held onto the Count Chocula card before finding the ideal place to drop it. A far better player, though, was the Bermudian, who caused us to about lose it when she proffered this:
Daddy, why is Mommy crying?
...The patriarchy
When I read the card, "What is my secret power?" a friend looked askance. "That's the question? I was about to answer!" No, please, tell me my superpower. I'm curious.
Looking at the answers submitted, the Czar mused, "It's between inappropriate yodeling and Toni Morrison's vagina," a sentence I would stake my life on has never having been uttered before in the history of humankind.
One minute we were playing, laughing almost constantly and next thing we knew it was after 1 a.m., and this is not a crowd that stays up late. With that in mind, I got up to leave, a different person than when I'd arrived.
Of course I didn't win, but I didn't do too badly, either. There's already talk of procuring other versions since we practically went through an entire box of black and white cards in one marathon session. Cards Against Humanity may be five years old to the rest of the first world, but it was brand new fun for me tonight.
Let's put it this way: I understood the game well enough to find my seatmate's two-part answer absolutely hilarious.
Step one...folly of man
Step two...Cards Against Humanity
That the gentle night also involved mocking, condescension and outright compliments only attests to our unlikely activity: my first foray into the oh-so popular game that's swept the nation.
You read right, last night I was introduced to Cards Against Humanity.
That's right, I killed new age music. How, you ask?
...An ice pick lobotomy.
It wasn't the plan. That had been determined months ago and consisted of dinner and "The Merchant of Venice" at Agecroft. Given the play's talking points about Jewish-ness, I'd chosen Dinamo for its fusion of Jewish and Italian food.
He Who Shall Not Be named (aka Mr. Google Scheduler) had us there before the propeller even began spinning. Naturally, we were the first eager beavers in the place other than staff. Ouch.
Not that I cared once I was sharing octopus salami that looked like paper-thin slices of a jeweled window and tasted like a seaside meal or polishing off my own cold plate of marinated seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and octopus. Keeping it simple, I finished with a Nutella cookie and we left for Agecroft.
We were a well-oiled machine, seated, with new Shakespeare fans in hand when the entire audience was directed inside due to "pool rules." Thunder and lightening were fast approaching and they didn't want any of us good patrons to be electrified, as house manager Noah so quaintly put it.
A brief wait, a decision to go back outside and begin and then the cold, hard facts. The show was called.
So, you see, it wasn't like we didn't try to get some culture before descending into the gutter of sexually offensive and politically incorrect conversation.
It was my first time on the porch since it had been fully tricked out, meaning I couldn't help but admire all the little touches - Wellies by the door, cushioned chairs of various styles, tables with candles and lamps, flowering plants and antique window frames.
The sole male commented that the ledge covered in necessaries - various bug sprays for body and room, aloe if you did get a bite, sunscreens of myriad strengths - was the only jarring note in an otherwise lovely space, but I disagreed. Vehemently.
A screened porch is an outdoor room, but also a utilitarian one. Such a ledge was completely appropriate, in my opinion, because all the assorted sundries you could possibly require while enjoying the porch were readily available. You never had to leave the porch to stay comfortable.
Decorating roundtable finished, we got down to the serious business of cracking each other up.
As a CAH virgin, I immediately was curious about the fact that there were black and white cards. You mean like the races? Setting the tone for the evening, my hostess arched an eyebrow and announced without so much as a chortle, "All cards matter."
Not going to lie, we had all kinds of fun trying to figure out what combination would win the favor of the round's card czar (or, more accurately, czarina, since men were outnumbered 3 to 1), taking into account who leaned toward corny and who always opted for sick or intellectual humor.
A girl's best friend?
...David Bowie flying in on a tiger made of lightening
Brilliant, right? Okay, but so is this one:
A girl's best friend?
...Licking things to claim them as her own
Turns out this game's underlying purpose is encouraging players to inadvertently remember things or share personal history. Now I know I have a friend who's not ashamed to say she's a territorial licker.
Sorry, teacher, I couldn't finish my homework because of...sniffing glue.
"Oh, yea, I remember that," one of the participants says. I wouldn't have pegged her for the glue-sniffing type, but who am I to judge? That said, no one would admit to being "balls deep in a squealin' hog" when that came up as an answer, but the night was still young then.
I soon learned that some black cards came with two blanks, necessitating each of us to choose not one, but two phrases that best completed the sentence.
The Academy award for...flightless birds
Goes to...battlefield amputation
To have two such disparate cards in your hand, much less to combine them so cleverly, well, kudos to me.
Although we'd begun playing around 9:30, it was probably sometime around midnight (post-Pimm's pops, Pimm's cups and Miraval) when we got our first card with three blanks.
"Having to come up with three cards is gonna take forever," our hostess warned, specifically looking at a certain slow player. "We're slow with two! We're good with one, one card, that's it."
What's George Bush thinking about right now?
...Not reciprocating oral sex
...Fiery poops
...Third base
Plausible, all of them, right?
As the night wore on, we especially enjoyed questions that referred back to the person asking. So when I read, "What's my anti-drug?" the friend in the colorful dress exclaimed, "Yours?" and stares at me as if she can discern it from my countenance.
Ultimately, it led to a big discussion of what exactly constitutes an anti-drug. That's one we didn't fully resolve.
After a while, I knew my competitors well enough to tickle their fancies with my answer, as when the formerly soggy one delighted at my response to his card.
I got 99 problems but...Count Chocula...ain't one.
Oh, he laughed. Man, if you only knew how long I held onto the Count Chocula card before finding the ideal place to drop it. A far better player, though, was the Bermudian, who caused us to about lose it when she proffered this:
Daddy, why is Mommy crying?
...The patriarchy
When I read the card, "What is my secret power?" a friend looked askance. "That's the question? I was about to answer!" No, please, tell me my superpower. I'm curious.
Looking at the answers submitted, the Czar mused, "It's between inappropriate yodeling and Toni Morrison's vagina," a sentence I would stake my life on has never having been uttered before in the history of humankind.
One minute we were playing, laughing almost constantly and next thing we knew it was after 1 a.m., and this is not a crowd that stays up late. With that in mind, I got up to leave, a different person than when I'd arrived.
Of course I didn't win, but I didn't do too badly, either. There's already talk of procuring other versions since we practically went through an entire box of black and white cards in one marathon session. Cards Against Humanity may be five years old to the rest of the first world, but it was brand new fun for me tonight.
Let's put it this way: I understood the game well enough to find my seatmate's two-part answer absolutely hilarious.
Step one...folly of man
Step two...Cards Against Humanity
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Of WIne and Being Read To
Once upon a time back in the late 90s, I had a boyfriend who liked me to read to him, so he'd pour a glass of wine and we'd lay in bed and night after night, I'd read a book of his choosing. He was slow reader, so that was part of it, but mostly he just enjoyed hearing someone else read to him. I thought of him tonight as I spent an evening drinking wine and being read to.
I met my most hipster-like friend for wine at Ipanema (where else?) and to catch up since we hadn't gotten together since before Christmas. I went with the Beyond Sauvignon Blanc out of Constantia, South Africa, an area I've visited and one which produces superior white wines. My friend presumed I was drinking white wine in hopes of Spring coming soon ( a girl can wish, can't she?). We had a lot of ground to cover, he and I, in terms of what we'd each been up to for the past two months and then I had to run. He accused me of using him to fill an empty interim period, but actually he had canceled on me last week, so I felt no friend guilt and left.
I wanted to catch the Richmond Shakespeare Second Tuesday staged reading. I know it's the fourth Wednesday, but snow had rescheduled things a bit. It's a great deal; they gather actors to do a show using minimal scenery, props and rehearsal and it's for one night only. While I've never been to one of theirs, most staged readings I've attended were essentially seated actors rising when they read their lines. In this case, the action was staged (although they did hold their scripts throughout; it is a reading after all)) with a fair amount of physicality and interaction. And the extremely reasonable cost of admission ($15) entitles you to wine with the reading.
Tonight they were doing The Merchant of Venice, notorious for its perceived anti-Semetism, an attitude which clearly made the audience uncomfortable in places (there were a lot of students there tonight). More striking to me was the glaring and obnoxious superiority of the Christians in the play. But it's Shakespeare, so there was also hidden identities, lovers wanting to be together and wonderfully comic characters. And of course, beautiful language, like, "Choose me and risk everything you've got." But is he referring to marriage being a gamble or just to a drastic turning point in life?
I would have been satisfied with just wine and being read to and ended up with even more. For one thing, they had dessert; the chocolate sponge cake with cherry whipped cream filling was to die for. And while I wasn't stretched out in bed, I didn't have to do the reading either.
I think my former BF was on to something.
I met my most hipster-like friend for wine at Ipanema (where else?) and to catch up since we hadn't gotten together since before Christmas. I went with the Beyond Sauvignon Blanc out of Constantia, South Africa, an area I've visited and one which produces superior white wines. My friend presumed I was drinking white wine in hopes of Spring coming soon ( a girl can wish, can't she?). We had a lot of ground to cover, he and I, in terms of what we'd each been up to for the past two months and then I had to run. He accused me of using him to fill an empty interim period, but actually he had canceled on me last week, so I felt no friend guilt and left.
I wanted to catch the Richmond Shakespeare Second Tuesday staged reading. I know it's the fourth Wednesday, but snow had rescheduled things a bit. It's a great deal; they gather actors to do a show using minimal scenery, props and rehearsal and it's for one night only. While I've never been to one of theirs, most staged readings I've attended were essentially seated actors rising when they read their lines. In this case, the action was staged (although they did hold their scripts throughout; it is a reading after all)) with a fair amount of physicality and interaction. And the extremely reasonable cost of admission ($15) entitles you to wine with the reading.
Tonight they were doing The Merchant of Venice, notorious for its perceived anti-Semetism, an attitude which clearly made the audience uncomfortable in places (there were a lot of students there tonight). More striking to me was the glaring and obnoxious superiority of the Christians in the play. But it's Shakespeare, so there was also hidden identities, lovers wanting to be together and wonderfully comic characters. And of course, beautiful language, like, "Choose me and risk everything you've got." But is he referring to marriage being a gamble or just to a drastic turning point in life?
I would have been satisfied with just wine and being read to and ended up with even more. For one thing, they had dessert; the chocolate sponge cake with cherry whipped cream filling was to die for. And while I wasn't stretched out in bed, I didn't have to do the reading either.
I think my former BF was on to something.
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