brilliance

Learned something new today:

The same man, Michael Frayn, wrote "Noises Off" and "Copenhagen." Huh.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-sublime-chaos-of-noises-off?mbid=social_twitter

Theater Project

Hello, All!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We rehearsed today and decided to change our schedule.  Please give us your feedback about the following dates:

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 5 - 7 pm, at Ulysses Language School.  Characters needed:  Alajos, Franny, and Rozi.

Tuesday, Dec. 4, 5 - 7 pm, at Janet's.  All characters needed

Monday, Dec. 10, 5 - 7 pm, at Janet's.  All characters needed.  ****This date is changed to Monday because Aniko is not able to come on that Tuesday.  We could do it Monday with her OR meet on Tuesday without her.

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 5 - 7, at Janet's. All Characters needed.

Saturday, Dec. 22, 7 pm  THE SHOW!


thanks,

janet

Another Day in Budapest

It was an overcast day yesterday. After a slow food lunch--arugula salad with Parmesanand walnutsfor me and rabbit with paprikas for my two lunch companions, we strolled the city streets. A shop here. The new Apple store. A shoe store. A store devoted to selling those machines that make coffee from those new pods. An art gallery or three. We made our way to my favorite tea shop, 1,000 Teas.

Since my last visit here (maybe more than a year ago) they have entirely renovated. It is still divine. We sat on low cushions. L. had a brief nap. I threw caution to the wind and had a strong Turkish tea with heavy doses of raw sugar crystals. We smoked my first waterpipe, which felt definitely exotic and even slightly illegal. Of course, ala Clinton, I don't inhale. In fact, I am abashed to say that I am constitutionally incapable, thank goodness. Not to mention that my body (thankfully) has no reaction to nicotine. A waterpipe sucks the smoke down into steam before you suck it into your mouth. Very steamy. Loads of hilarious pictures.

After the tea and smoke, we headed to the theater to see Lefele a hegyrol by Arthur Miller. We sat in the front row. L. and I had to move our legs each time an actor crossed the stage. It was a wonderful play skillfully acted. I have no idea what the English title of the play is. But the story involved a Lyman Felt who has two wives. A tricky situation. I loved that on occasion I would catch myself NOT translating and just enjoying the action.

Theater for the brain needs food for the gullet. We headed out thinking that we would haunt one of our favorite bars, the Castro, a Szerb place, on Raday utca about a thirty minute walk. Not a half block from the theater, there it was: the Castro. Since our last trip here the Castro had lost its lease and moved next to the theater! No tourists here. Just important cheap haircuts, scarves, and cigarettes all a dangle during intense conversations about who knows what.

Caroline, or Change

Last night L. and I saw the brilliant musical "Caroline, or Change," book and lyrics by Pulitzer and Tony Award Winner Tony Kushner. It has been a long time since I willingly attended a musical and even longer since I might have even considered using brilliant to modify musical, but. The musical is witty, true. I suppose I mean brilliant in that quirky impressed British way of saying it. Brilliant! Sans irony, of course,which might leave me with beautiful as a better choice to describe the work.

I purchased tickets for the show because it received rave reviews from all local sources. It was so successful that it even extended its run by two weeks. Read: You have two weeks to run out and see if for yourself here in Boston. Read reveiw excerpts and buy tickets here: http://www.speakeasystage.com/

When you consider the many tasty treats you can have at local restaurants and eateries near the Boston Center for the Arts, how can you resist? L. and I dreamed of a dark chocolate calzone at the Picco, but there was a menu change during our over-long absence. So we happily went out on a dessert limb and had the ice-cream cookie. So simple, yet so decadent. We gushed over the play while we shared our chocolate drenched delight. Powerful. Witty. The music--not even the lyrics--gave me goosebumps and made my body want to cry. Here is the synopsis:

Set in a small town in Louisiana in 1963, CAROLINE, OR CHANGE tells the powerful story of Caroline, a black maid working for a Southern Jewish family while struggling to raise her own children amidst the swirling social changes sweeping the country. At the heart of this beautiful musical is Caroline's relationship with the family's young son, Noah, who bonds with Caroline after the death of his mother. Everything changes for these friends, however, when Noah's stepmother decrees that Caroline can keep any change that Noah leaves in the pockets of his laundry. This decision ultimately sparks a confrontation that rips apart both households and mirrors the conflicts outside their doors.

Caroline, or Change left me with a fresh sense of the power of good writing and the joy that lingers from experiencing performance art. L. worked out how to shape a narrative he had been trying to puzzle out.

While the performers were very good, three cheers go out to the young Jacob Brandt, who played the part of Noah. Well done!

NPR Interview with Tony Kushner

New Yorker: John Lahr Discusses Kushner's work

NPR Interview with Kushner
(discussing his co-authorship of Spielberg's movie, Munich)

Island of Slaves and Burdick's

This past weekend L. and I invested some time in Cambridge. Living in the Back Bay, we most often stay on our side of the Charles. Certainly there is plenty to do. The event was trip to the theater to see Island of Slaves, by Pierre Marivaux in a new translation by Gideon Lester. Here is a brief synopsis provided by the show's website:

Many years ago, a group of fugitive slaves colonized a remote island and established a society of absolute equality. They determined to do away with all class distinctions; any former masters arriving on the island would have to be retrained in the ways of democracy, or else put to death.

Now a storm at sea maroons four people - two aristocrats and their slaves - on the island. They are met by an administrator who instructs the masters and slaves to switch names, clothes, and roles, so beginning their lesson in humanity.

I am thinking this play, originally produced in 1725, did not include drag queens. Luckily, this newest interpretation did! The acting was finely done. For lots of reviews and articles about the play and this production visit this website: http://www.amrep.org/slaves/

Before the show we stopped at Burdick's café located just next to the venue. We have been hearing about this place forever. L. even visited there once eons ago, but had since erased its exact location. Friends, if ever we shall meet in Boston, you will be taken there to indulge. I know this because I do not forget such rich, dark chocolate and can hone in on it from Harvard Square. And, more importantly, it is henceforth linked to in my external memory drive (otherwise known as this blog).

Yo-Yo Ma (and me)

L. and I made the short walk to the symphony tonight for an 8 pm concert. It was our second trip this year, our first time to hear Yo-Yo Ma. We were fortunate to see James Levine conduct our first visit (he is currently undergoing surgery for an arm injury suffered during on on-stage tumble a few weeks ago). Yo-Yo Ma was the superstar draw and he did give an impressive performance wailing away at this cello. Both L. and I, however, preferred the Ligeti piece. He is one crazy Transylvanian composer, excuse or bias.

Symphony hall is impressive with its wall of organ, ornate gilding, mythological statues, and eclectic crowd. It is worth going just to eavesdrop on the rich array of strange, strange conversations. There are some serious orchestra fans out there.

It is amazing to live within walking distance to the hall, and so many other art venues (not to mention independent book stores, boutiques, etc.--and, of course, a Dunkin Donut on every corner.)

This year in Boston reminds me of the riches of living in Rome, where I studied during college. Indeed, it does feel like I am "living abroad" here in Boston for the year. Only this time I have the cash to go to concerts and eat in restaurants. Truthfully, the free concerts in Roman churches still rival any ticketed event here. The romantic memories of a college year in bella italia are hard to top.

While Yo-Yo Ma was making his cello sing, my mind drifted here and there. I thought of my first cello solo experience back in college. It was a fall night at Notre Dame, waiting in line to buy football tickets. Matt came by (I don't remember his last name! roommate of B.) and played a simple piece (was it by Bach?). I was entranced by that impromptu cello under the stars. In my book, his performance beats Yo-Yo. So, wherever you are Matt, I am sending you my thanks!

Here is a link to the program notes for the concert we heard this evening:

David Robertson, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Ligeti, Shumann, Strauss

And an excerpt from Shumann's Cello Conerto

Eve is Coming! Eve is Coming!

Eve Ensler is coming to Boston March 21 - 26 to perform her newest play "The Good Body." I bought myself a nearly-front row ticket the better to see her expressive face by. I won't rave about Eve here and now, but I could (and should) in a later entry, perhaps. I do want to encourage local Bostonites to check out the show. I can't vouch for the play yet; but I do support her activism to end violence.

In honor of Eve, here is a poem that I have been working on. I am still not "finished" with it. Or perhaps it is not yet finished with me!

The Scent of Belief
for Eve Ensler

My vagina speaks two words from the pulpit of her: "I believe!"

Hallelujah! Praise be to the Living God
on High from High,
I have found the scent smack between my warm white thighs.

Pink-folding rose purpled red, brown-bleeding,
ocean depths of deep-crystalloid wet,
torn fire-breathing,
ripped from cry of laughter
that stinks up,
wretched river of sweat,
civilizations gone into your wide-mouthed face,
deep into the proteins of your rusty-forgotten red soul until

you cannot stand hushed before such truth—

Wash over me! You on my skin gentle, skilled. Deep down water. Yes, yes.

That smell, my smell,

you can name it now.

Alluring-repulsive invitation with waxy seal, always there, unspoken.

We believe you will beg,

lament on hard—blistered fists pounding and kneeling—sore knees aching,
for sugar blackened incense.

Agitated, never right, no peace. Only impressed upon.

Waiting

until you too find your voice,
find your words stolen, and then

speak softly

through folds of bruised flesh collapsing in praise:

amen.

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Tonight we will finally make our first trip (at least my first trip) to the Boston Symphony. Here is the Boston Globe review that convinced me to get my act together:

Passion rules the night in BSO's 'Gurrelieder'

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | February 24, 2006

Many in the audience were on their feet, applauding, before intermission of last night's performance of Arnold Schoenberg's ''Gurrelieder" by James Levine the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and by the end of the concert the response was unanimous.

''Gurrelieder" is one of the composer's early masterpieces, composed mostly in 1901 and 1902, although Schoenberg didn't complete the orchestration for another decade. The work is a series of narrative songs that recount the old Danish legend of King Waldemar, his beloved Tove, and his jealous Queen who engineers Tove's death. The King mocks God and is condemned to ride nightly from dusk to dawn for eternity, but the King finds Tove again in the splendor of the natural world.

In the music, as the work progresses, you can hear the 19th century pass into the 20th, and Schoenberg evolve from the world of Brahms, Mahler, and Richard Strauss into the world that he both perceived and helped to create.

The work always stirs an audience but it is seldom performed because of its size, cost, and difficulty. Last night the orchestra assembled a world-class team of soloists. It took tenor Johan Botha and charismatic soprano Karita Mattila awhile to warm up and ride their voices over the orchestra in the songs for Waldemar and Tove, but both came through in the later songs which Schoenberg scored more considerately -- Mattila did seem swept away by passion, and rose thrillingly to the great climax of her last song. Botha, who looks like a cross between a scholar and a bounty hunter, surmounted the most strenuous passages with impressive security and he never forced. Given the opportunity, he can also deliver text with sensitivity. The rolling bass-baritone of Albert Dohmen was luxury casting as a peasant; tenor Paul Groves achieved a convincing physical and musical characterization of the fool/jester without quite meeting every vocal demand.

The veteran Viennese tenor Waldemar Kmentt has sung three roles in this work in the course of his 56-year career. As the narrator, he delivered the speech/song with musicality, insight and instinct, occasionally coloring a word with his fondly remembered singing voice. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was magnificent in the tragic narrative of the Wood-Dove who sings of Tove's death. Wearing a period dress in dove gray, her hair done in feathery style, Lieberson sang with flaring, all-giving tone; tragic splendor; and soul-sharing communication.

The huge orchestra -- 8 flutes, 10 horns -- covered itself with glory throughout. It also covered the men of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus too much of the time, but the full TFC sounded like a sunburst at the end. Levine has probably conducted more performances of ''Gurrelieder" than anyone in the work's history; he helped the performers deliver every dimension of the piece -- its roots in tradition and its modernity; its peculiarities and its reassurances; its particularity and its universality.

James Levine, conductor Karita Mattila, soprano (Tove) Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, (Wood Dove) Johan Botha, tenor (Waldemar) Paul Groves, tenor (Klaus Narr) Albert Dohmen, baritone (Peasant) Waldemar Kmentt, tenor (Speaker)

Dance: Keigwin + Company

I will head out in the rain to do some errands and see this show tonight:

http://www.larrykeigwin.com/company.php

Michiana Chronicles: Vagina Monologues

April Lidinsky, one of the five local writers who write
"Michiana Chronicles" for the local (South Bend, Indiana)
NPR station, broadcast this yesterday.

http://www.mchron.net/ee/radio/the_plays_the_thing/

Friday, January 27, 2006

The Play's the Thing

Ok, folks – time for a literature quiz that should take you back
to, oh, maybe your Sophomore language arts class.  So: Who said the
following line:  “The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the
conscience of the king.” Anyone?  Ah ... I see lots of hands.
And yes, “Hamlet” is correct.  But with that line, Shakespeare
illuminates something larger than Hamlet’s desire for revenge.
That line reminds us that the best theater catches everyone’s
conscience, and makes all of us shift a bit in our seats. 
Art is political– it’s about power.

A friend once gave me a t-shirt, decorated with Andy Warhol
images and the jaunty motto, “Art can’t hurt you.” I wore it a few
times, feeling pretty bohemian-hip, until a colleague said, “You know,
that t-shirt is totally wrong! It can too hurt.” And ... he was
right.  To say art can’t hurt us is to say it doesn’t have any teeth, any
power– that art doesn’t matter. A quick reflection on the long
history of censorship reminds us that art has always been under suspicion
for blasphemy or sedition.  Art makes arguments we don’t always want
to hear.

But unlike editorials or ranting TV commentators, art rarely
presents one single perspective, which might be its greatest virtue.
Perhaps you, like me, have stood in front of a painting, or in a theater
lobby at intermission, muttering darkly, “Huh ... I don’t get
it.”  Art, at its best, reminds us that we should never assume we
“get” anything at first glance. Even those pastel-pretty landscape
paintings by Claude Monet say to us, “You think you know what a
pile of hay looks like?  Think again.  Look at a haystack in this
light. And now late in the day.  And again in a storm.
And again in wintertime.” First impressions are always partial, imperfect.

Art usefully undermines our assumption that we know it all; it keeps
us from thinking simply, and from simply taking sides.

In my college classrooms, sometimes students feel sopassionately
about ideas they want to pick a fight with everyone who disagrees
with them.  Not so fast, I urge them – if you tell people
they’re full of hooey, you’ll only get an “Am not!” for every one of
your “Are too!”s.  So how do you invite someone to try on a new
perspective?  Well, reach back to your childhood, and remember
how those interactions with friends went.  Something like: “Ok, now
you play like you’re a such-and-so, and then I’ll play like I’m a
something-or-other, and then let’s play like ...” and on and on.
Remember?  Yeah – the play’s the thing.  Trying on new roles is
a skill that weakens, sadly, with our harrowing passage to
adulthood.

But art reminds us to play with ideas. To empathize with
perspectives that stretch us, however uncomfortably.

And that is why I teach plays like Eve Ensler’s The Vagina
Monologues, and why college students everywhere have found power
in producing the play themselves, despite the controversy that
often surrounds it.  The Vagina Monologues is a response – a creative
response – to a terrible truth about power, and that is that
women worldwide suffer – and resist – the mental and physical effects
of sexism in ways that are both readily apparent and everywhere
ignored.

But instead of dashing off a rant in the face of gruesome
statistics, Ensler wrote a play, with a multitude of perspectives
for us to try on.  Now I’m not comfortable, myself, with every
voice in that piece.  But when I watch students practicing for
the production, I see the power of art at work as they inhabit
these different roles, empathizing with an amazing range of
human experience.  I test myself by the students’ brave example:
How could I become a person who wouldn’t leave a battering husband?
How might I live a life in which fear or belief led me to
inflict violence on others?  What would it be like not to
feel vulnerable in my own body?  And I wonder,
why are these questions threatening to ask right now?

I think of a playwright controversial and censored in his own
time, Molière, and the pleasure I get every year when I attend the
exuberant undergraduate performance at Notre Dame, all in
French, and this year coming in February, just like some productions
of The Vagina Monologues.  While full of humor, Molière’s political
satires still leave tooth marks, thanks to talented student performers
who inhabit his hypocritical, unjust, and foolishly lovable
characters so fully they feel familiar to us, despite the period costumes.

The cliché says that, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” But how
much better off we’d be if we acted as if it were. Art strengthens
our atrophied empathy muscles.  It says, play like you’re born into
a Bangkok slum and sold into sexual slavery.  Play like you’re a
president.  Play like you’re a person who lets someone tape a
bomb to your chest, and really feel the power of your belief, the
strange weight of metal and wires, the pull of the duct tape on your
skin.

What is your life like?  And what powers of imagination might
revise your story?

The play is the thing.  And the conscience that needs catching
is always our own.

Theater: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

As you can tell from my previous entries, I have devoted quite a bit of time to reading over the holiday break. Lots of time on planes--to KS and then to South Bend last weekend--is always a boost for my reading shelf. It was vital for me to connect with friends and places in South Bend. Thanks to all who made time for me! Currently I am between novels and spending my reading time on various literary magazines.

Of course one shouldn't squander away all the fun of Boston between the pages. Both of us enjoy the theater and so last night we went to see another piece by the Huntington Theatre Company (in residence at Boston University). The playby Christopher Hampton is based on the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses written by Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderlos de Laclos and both published and set in 1782. The center of the plot are two sexually liberated upper-class French snobs who use the bedrooms of Paris and its environs as a playground for their own tortured "love" affair. They use other people's bodies as a way to show their emotional superiority. All of this depravity, or at least the cynical spirit of it all, captures the very reasons why the peasants revolted in the French Revolution in 1789 shortly after Laclos penned the original epistolary novel (his one and only novel).

I have to admit, the play appealed more to L.'s sensibilities than mine. I just never connected to any of the characters--either the acting or the writing left me cold. At times I was disgusted at the events, but I suppose that was the point. There was one scene that positively exasperated me. The old aunty gave the following bit of wisdom to a young niece: men are happy when they have feelings, women are happy when they cause others to have feelings. Is this true? Or worse, still true? L. found it witty and a classic period piece. True, the costumes (with a few exceptions) were well done and the staging was finely choreographed. It was well executed, but soap operas -- even dark ones-- have never been my style.

This might be a good novel to accompany a study of the French Revolution, however. You most often get poignant stories of the poor and this offers another perspective--a portrait of the poor in spirit.

The play runs through February 5th at The Huntington.

Ansel Adams and Lyambiko

It was a crowded weekend. The lovely mother-to-be Ms. A. arrived in Boston Friday night for her much to brief first visit to Bean Town. We joined a casual crowd celebrating the end of a conference on Friday night for a memorable meal at Bertucci’s. Gastronomical note: next time, pizza only.

Saturday we snuck into the Trident for brunch just ahead of the crowd. We were seated dead center in the front dining room and enjoyed our shared freshly squeezed orange juice (very pulpy indeed) and the breakfast burrito. As usual, the buzz of the morning crowd was lively. We didn’t stop talking for even an instant.

We made our way down Newbury Street, stopping in various boutiques and galleries. In the heat of the dressing room I gave in and bought a pair of AG jeans. They do fit like magic. But I admit that I have having morning-after regrets. I may take them back, I may give them a few days to acclimate to my world. We’ll see. The sales girl was very kind. Thankfully she was not buy break dancing on the show floor as her colleague was.

Amazingly enough it was soon time to head back the other way and find the Museum of Fine Arts. We had 2:30 entrance tickets to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. The walk was a bit farther then I remembered and we were a few minutes late, but it was no problem. The real problem was the crowd. We entered the first exhibit room to find a wall of people and overwhelming body heat, not to mention a toddler who was coughing, crying and literally repeating, “no, no, no” in a tiny plaintive voice.

Many of the photographs were Mona Lisa size. Thus you had to be within a foot or two to appreciate the fine detail. Hordes of people are not conducive to this kind of viewing. It would have been ideal with half the people in attendance. It was hard to love the art under such conditions. Yet, how could we not fall in love with every shot? The photographs are amazing. It is well worth your time to see the show….but not on a weekend and not in the middle of the afternoon. Crowds. It was a theme that day.

By then it was almost three and we needed calories. Sadly the upstairs café, which appeared quiet and relaxing, closed at three. Ms.A. made the executive decision to exit the building. We made our way to the nearby Au Bon Pain for soup and more conversation.

After the walk home and a quick planning session with L., we headed off for the North End to find a table at The Daily Catch. For those in the know, it is a heavenly stink. Literally the kitchen is in the eating area and the place serves about fifteen people tightly crammed at closely packed tables. Crowds. We had mussels, black pasta with putanesca, linguine with shrimp and the calamari plate. There was a calamari meatball.

We walked across the street to Mike’s Pastry Shop where we scored a table. The crowd in front of the pastry display cases was three to four people deep. Impossible. L. spotted a pastry at the next table and ordered the Lobster Tail. I shared his; it was easier than trying to order. It was a crisp pastry shell filled with whipped cream. So simple. So divine. And yes it was shaped like a lobster tail. Ms. A.’s pistachio cookie, well, let’s just say they deliver across the country.

We then taxied over the Cambridge to the Real Deal Jazz Club to see Lyambiko perform. Lyambiko is a German Jazz artist who is backed up by a jazz trio. It was not all together displeasing show. A mixed bag. She walked on stage, eyes downcast and performed her first number without making eye contact. I was underwhelmed. I wasn’t sure if her style was by choice—was she restrained or did she lack the depth and range to hit notes? I am no singer. Yet I felt that she was reaching.

Then, her attire. I am not known for my sharp dressing or eye for accessories. But I realized that I wanted an attempt at a stage presence that she was unwilling to make, for whatever reason. Casual black pants, a casual top. As Ms. A noted, the downcast eyes and casual attire set a tone for the whole night. I was not uplifted by the tone, rather I was busy making up excuses in my head. I want a jazz singer to be in control and be cool. I was worried that she was acting the part of a jazz singer instead of being a jazz singer.

L., on the other hand, felt that she her appearance was cool in an “European way.” Hhhmmm. Not sure what he meant by that, other than he was sticking up for a fellow non-American.

A few of her numbers did amaze me—especially the songs in French and Portuguese. She is a chameleon on stage. Each song was brilliant or decidedly not brilliant. Maybe she is still finding her voice? Her style? Certainly she has got it, whatever that it might be. But it needs to be it for the whole show. Would I recommend her performance? I don’t have a clear YES on that. Nor do I have a definitive NO. Did we enjoy ourselves? Of course. Did I mention that it was crowded? It was packed.

Luckily we avoided the crowds, finally, Sunday morning as we enjoyed pastries and tea as the snow fell. Time was too short, however. Soon Ms. A. was off to the airport and we were left too un-crowded. Next time, less crowd for sure.

My New Hat and Theater Offensive

L. and I had a lazy afternoon defined by our search for a real, sinful hamburger with all the fixings. We ended up at Harvard Square and settled into our 3 o’clock plates of beef for him and tuna salad for me. I had actually gone to the gym that Saturday morning and I wasn’t about to invalidate my sweat with French fries (although I did steal a few of his, of course). It was snowing huge, wet flakes outside. I still haven’t gotten my winter coat ready for the season and was a bit chilled in my leather jacket. Then, the hat.

I swear I have been waiting thirty years for this hat to happen to me. What a revelation to have a warm head. We had ducked into the Cambridge Artists Cooperative, mostly to get out of the snow, and found our way into the back where hats galore adorned the walls. I walked out of there with a “Wild Tibetan” in green and black made by Susan Bradford. The hat came with instructions. I love it. I wish I had a picture of it. More important than the impressive rim, however, is that it keeps my entire body warm. This is amazing. My whole life I have been missing this hat.

The hamburger and the hat tired us out and we headed home for a late afternoon nap. The physical pleasure of a Saturday afternoon nap makes the entire week go down a bit easier. It was good that we napped because we decided at the last minute to go to the theater. It was another first for me. Readers beware: the production was by The Theater Offensive, whose mission statement reads:

To form and present the diverse realities of queer lives in art so bold it breaks through personal isolation and political orthodoxy to help build an honest, progressive community.

The play we saw, “Varla Jean Merman’s Girl With a Pearl Necklace: An Act of Love” was part of the 14^th Annual Queer Theater Festival called “Out on the Edge 2005.” With my Wild Tibetan perched on my head, it was no problem to brave the snow and walk to the theater. We headed toward the theater early enough to grab a bite to eat nearby before the 10:30 show. Luckily we had been to the same arts complex before and know a place, Garden of Eden on Tremont Street, that has tasty sandwiches and desserts.

We headed into the theater a few minutes before the show to find a lively crowd and an open bar (though I think the drinks were nonalcoholic). That evening's show was the last of a four-day run for the actor, Jeffery Roberson, and there was a spirit of celebration in the air.

This was our first time to see a show performed by a man in drag. It was hilarious—pure outrageous, campy fun. We were definitely in the straight minority, but we were not “outed” in any way or made to feel uncomfortable. Varla Jean Merman regaled us with her stories about looking for love in all the wrong places, impressed us with her medleys (especially the Puccini/Beyonce number) and delighted audience members with jokes and her amazing ability to sing and eat cheese at the same time. Hilarious.

After the show, thanks to our nap, we were wide awake as we strolled home. It was a beautiful night, and we marveled about the show we had seen---we certainly are not in the Midwest anymore.

Carol Mulroney: Review and My Response

Here is the review posted in today's Boston Globe about the play I blogged, Carol Mulroney. Let me just say, I thought the review was off the mark. Way off. So, for the first time, I emailed the reviewer my thoughts. I have pasted my email below. I know that most of you have not seen the play, but alas, for posterity.

Here is the review:

STAGE REVIEW
Up on the roof
In 'Carol Mulroney,' actors reach heights the script can't match
By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff October 28, 2005

Stephen Belber's ''Carol Mulroney," in its world premiere by the Huntington Theatre Company, has many clever lines, an ingenious structure, thoughtful acting, solid design, and the kind of commitment and backing from a significant company that most playwrights only dream of. It is painful, therefore, to report that the play has a hollow core where its heart ought to be.

Belber, whose credits include ''Match," ''Tape," coauthorship of ''The Laramie Project," and multiple episodes of ''Rescue Me" and ''Law & Order: SVU," has said that he wanted to write a play about ''someone with a sort of inexplicable sadness."

Carol Mulroney, who spends most of the night on the roof of her urban town house, is indeed inexplicably sad. Belber gives us some of the reasons -- a troubled marriage, a childhood tragedy, a complex relationship with her father, an untrustworthy friend -- and has the characters around this young woman spend a lot of time describing her sadness. He also has them talk about her other qualities, and we see her in a variety of moods. Clearly, he wants to depict a complicated person whose motives and desires are often mysterious, even to herself.

But there's a difference between mystery and confusion. In plays, if not in life, we look for some kind of exploration of the mystery -- not a tidy resolution, but a coherent, emotionally satisfying narrative that, by the end, makes us feel that we have walked a path with a real human being and gained some insight into her sorrows and joys. What ''Carol Mulroney" gives us instead is a collection of monologues and images, some wonderfully intelligent and some depressingly crude in both language and thought, that leave us, 90 minutes later, struck mainly by the observation that Carol's most typical line is ''I don't know."

As Carol, Ana Reeder manages to inflect this line with various shadings of puzzlement and wonder; she speaks and moves like an exploring, tentative child, which feels right. Like the other gifted actors onstage with her, however, Reeder is hamstrung by a script that at once under- and over-explains. Belber's speeches can run almost shockingly long, and they're full of literary-sounding phrases. But somehow you can't quite get a grip on who these people are; it's as if the language obscures, rather than clarifies, their true natures.

Would Carol's blustery salesman of a father, for example, really say of the women's cosmetics that have made his fortune, ''It's the face we put on to face the folly; it's our savior, our Apollonian veil spread delicately across the void"? Would Carol's complicated best friend, a smart and apparently feminist artist, really use the most hateful word for female genitalia, repeatedly and bizarrely, in a strange and nasty soliloquy that winds up with her imagining her ''spores" being inhaled by a despondent Turkish sailor?

Belber is lucky to have fine actors -- Larry Pine as the father, Johanna Day as the friend -- bringing as much nuance and dimension as possible to such speeches. Tim Ransom and Reuben Jackson also do what they can with the thankless roles of Carol's husband, Lesley, and rival salesman Ken. And if Lisa Peterson's direction sometimes veers too far toward cheap laughs at the expense of character, it's only partly her fault. The script is already tilting in that direction, with its persistent favoring of clever phrasing or neatly worked-out structure over believable human feeling (as when the characters joke at the most unlikely moments or repeatedly mention the time in order to clue us in to how the narrative timeline is circling back on itself).

The Huntington has been working on ''Carol Mulroney" with Belber since 2003, when the play received a staged reading in the company's ''Breaking Ground" program. Its designers have given it their all, particularly in the multilevel set by Rachel Hauck that evokes Carol's rooftop. So much effort; so little reward. It's enough to make a person explicably sad.

Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.

And my email response to her:

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

I have never responded in writing to a review of any sort, but I have been moved to respond to your scathing review of Carol Mulroney.

I recently saw the play myself and found its raw, yet poetic language effective. I loved the cunt spores.

I also recently saw Stoppard's play, The Real Thing, and it helps to draw a comparison between the two in terms of language use.

When I leave a Stoppard play, my cerebral g spot is in a tizzy from all the clever language and multi-layered meanings. I feel smart because I get some of his allusions and excited to go out and better educate myself to understand more of his allusions next time.

Belber's language, especially the self-justifying histrionics of the self-deluded father "Apollonian veil spread delicately across the void" juxtaposed with the cunt spores dissolving on the tongue of a strange man as her salvation for the bitch-feminist friend made me walk out of the theater knowing that I am human. And, unlike Carol Mulroney, still alive. True, my brain didn't sizzle, but my heart did.

After a Stoppard play, you have little to discuss. You feel that you need to see the text, underline the clever bits and discuss it in a Socratic Seminar to uncover its meanings.

After Belber, my boyfriend and I hashed out the characters and the ways they interacted with fervor and energy.

Yes, I thought there were weak moments in the play, but it was hardly the failure you present in the the Globe.

This is a play that my generation can really get. We make jokes at the "wrong time." We have grown up with The Vagina Monologues and are not afraid of cunt spores on stage. Belber is a fresh new voice. What is sad about the play is that your voice might prevent Belber from the audience who can appreciate his work.

Just my thoughts,

J.K.Kelley

Play: Carol Mulroney

L. had wanted to go see a theater piece ever since our arrival in Boston. I had seen Stoppard's play while he was out of town. Finally last week we decided we would see something together, even though the listings were not too enticing. We put off buying tickets.

Wednesday morning I read an article in the Boston Globe about the playwright Stephen Belber, which noted that he had co-written and acted in The Laramie Project. My interest in the playwright was peaked. I have never seen The Laramie Project, but intend to do so. But that work was on my mind because of a story in the news about a production of that play last week in Kansas that faced the threat of protesters who see the play as "pro-gay." Imagine that. The horror. The real horror is that the protesters claim they act in the name of Christ. I digress.

I also learned that the play was a world debut. That did it. Thursday morning we bought the tickets online to see Carol Mulroney that same night.

We were almost late, but thanks to a speedy Greek, who showed me what it means to DRIVE in Boston, we were just in time.

I won’t give away too much about the play. Here is an official blurb:

The allure of the simple life often finds its way into the souls of complicated characters. But matrimonial love and home-grown potatoes are not enough to overcome the demons that haunt Carol Mulroney. Sitting on the roof, overlooking the beauty of the city from a distance, she contemplates her tempestuous past with her father and her uncertain future with her husband in this compelling world premiere drama.

The whole play takes place on the roofs of New York, a fresh idea that Belber claims he developed as he stood onstage during a long scene in The Laramie Project that required the actors to stand still and avoid the fidgets. Most of us would have let our minds turn to mush while we waited for our stage exit. He wrote a play inside his head.

The language, his diction, is natural and unaffected. After Stoppard, your cerebral pleasure zone tingles. After Belber, you know that you are human.

When we left the theater, the temperature had dropped and we were freezing in the wind. Hot drinks were necessary. Actually we stopped in a nearby café/bistro and had red wine—for our health—and pumpkin cheesecake (for me) and a chocolate-raspberry concoction (for him). Naturally we shared. Tannins and fat do effectively raise one’s internal heat.

Show Information:

Carol Mulroney
by Stephen Belber
Directed by Lisa Peterson
Virginia Wimberly Theatre
October 14 - November 20, 2005
Tickets

Stoppard, Tom that is, and Me

Last night it was Benoit Mandelbrot, tonight my man was Tom. Tomorrow is the last show of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (written in 1984) playing at the Huntingtom Theatre Company, directed by Evan Yionoulis. Not that I know Evan, but I thought I should give credit to her for staging such a lovely play.

Tom. What can I say? If you know his plays, and screenplays (not to mention his fiction and nonfiction and just about every word out of his mouth, I’m sure), then you know how it is to be post-Tom. So, at any rate, tomorrow is the last show and I finally got my act together and went online to see if there were seats available. When you look for one ticket, there is always a prime seat stage center so that your single seat status is no secret. Alas. I don’t hate going to plays, movies, dance, whatever alone. But I don’t love it either.

Of course, since it was Tom, all was good. My affair with Tom started back in college when we read his play Arcadia. In the intervening years I saw glimpses of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (I had to leave the theater early for some unfathomable reason). I saw Shakespeare in Love and Enigma, for which he wrote the screenplays. I saw The Invention of Love on Broadway, I think? Or was that in Chicago? I remember the stage set, but I can’t recall the city. Finally, last year, I saw a production of Arcadia at Notre Dame. I adore play analysis, but seeing a play in the flesh is always so much, well, more. So tonight I happily went along to see The Real Thing, even though I had no idea where the plot might take me. Even though it is raining like crazy out there and I had to make the fifteen minute walk in my heels. Okay, so that last part, about the heels, was a choice.

Of course, it was witty and dense with allusions—an English teacher’s wildest dream on stage. The four main characters, who lived in London in the early 1980s, worked through the verbal gymnastics of their relationships as they vaulted over and tumbled across whatever the "real thing" might be, or not be. Lots of quoteable lines, only I can't quite remember them. It is more like I feel them still. I should buy the script of The Real Thing and underline all those bits. The worst part of seeing something great when you are alone is that it seems less great somehow. Darn it.

I am no Stoppard expert and so here is a link or two and a quote for your enjoyment. My advice, if you see a Stoppard play in production: Go.

http://www.geocities.com/stoppard2004/index.html

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Tom_Stoppard/


"I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contra-dicting yourself. I'm the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrogdown the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly." — Tom Stoppard from an interview with Mel Gussow in the New York Times, 26 April 1972.

Concert: The White Stripes

The White Stripes. WoW.

We arrived at the Boston Opera House at 7:20 pm to see the 7:30 show. We should have known that there would be an opening band. Time was ours to kill. We sat in the front row of the mezzanine seats, just right of center. The place was bathed in a warm glow from acres of ornate golden plasterwork. Warm chandeliers lined the side walls and the deep red of the seats was a ready sea for White Stripes aficionados. The fans barely trickled in for the opening band. We sat there, mouths agape, as music pounded our eardrums. A drummer and two guitar players pounded and screamed and generally looked and sounded great. Too great. After several rocking tunes abused our bodies, L. glanced at his watch. It had been eight minutes. We felt old. We meekly went to the lavish foyer for a glass of something to dull our senses. I opted for a shot of vodka. It was key.

We sat on a marble step in an empty niche near the impressive bust of Benjamin Franklin Keith (B.F Keith), who commissioned the original building. The tiny plaque beneath his oversized bust had tinier print. We watched people stroll over and squint at it. We watched the crowd descend and ascend the curving staircase in front of us. A rough-around-the-edges crowd. Some fashionistas, but mostly semi-dolled up girls with guys in jeans. A distinctive couple popped up the steps, each with two drinks. They had outwitted the bar line. He had better hair than her, dark and artfully hung across his forehead. They both wore the trendy new pencil thin jeans. They bounced with anticipation. Finally the lights dimmed and the masses headed for their seats.

The mostly empty theater filled up rapidly as we found our seats again. The lovely pencil pants couple had the two seats next to us. They hit their feet and jiggled, in the best sense possible, for almost every tune. At the end of the concert I heard them tell someone that they were over from London for just this one night. See you in London, then, right.

The White Stripes strolled onto the black, white and red stage and it was energy, noise and that relentless and deeply satisfying drum beat for an hour and a half. I have to say they are fucking good. They have these clean lines and a deep, sexual connection to the music they spin. It is fun to watch them. Meg, the drummer, exudes chill. Jack, the other half, exudes pleasure. And then, at about the second song, Jack took off his long black coat and bent down to chat with the front row. He plucked a nine-year-old girl from the row, after a nod from Dad, and got her comfy just behind the piano. That tiny tot enjoyed the entire show from her privileged vantage. When Meg come stage front to sit and play her bongos, Jack held the little girl’s hand and brought her forward. They gave her a tambourine and she happily tamped that thing off beat for two songs. The audience loved this. A punk rocker, doing his own thing, wearing togs from Hot Topic and sporting a razor thin mustache, man of pleasure who can sing to a nine year old like the ultimate cool Dad. It could have been creepy, Michael Jacksonesque, but he was straight level wholesome when he offered his hand and she clutched it having the time of her nine year old life.

Did I mention the noise? WoW. I have never gotten the bazillion decibels thing. I guess this is why I have never really been a concert fan. I prefer the intimacy of a back waters blues bar, where you can see the eyes of the singer and he can, and does, talk to you. Not that the Whites are impersonal. Meg and Jack, formerly married to one another, had an undercurrent of modern love in their stage work that turns intimacy on its head and gives me a kind of hope for all of us.

This White Stripes concert was worth every sacrificed brain cell and any irreparable damage to inner ear drums. I don’t know the first thing about Detroit, garage rock, punk, British pop and couldn’t name a band in the same league as the White Stripes. But I know that they put on a damn good show. And probably once was enough, for me.

Red Sox v. Angels

I vowed to have all the right Red Sox gear—hat with brim appropriately worn and curved over the eyes and baseball jersey—before we went to our first game. Alas. I was out scoping the city and had found myself in Chinatown when L. called. He was on his way home from work and was passing the scalpers at Fenway Park. We decided to go for it.

In true Eastern European style he paid only $5 over the ticket price for two seats. We found out later that Red Sox tickets are the most expensive tickets in the baseball market. He had no idea what constituted a good seat, but we had seats and it was less than an hour until the first pitch. I hurried home and my usually comfortable blue rubber Crocs rubbed raw spots on the tops of my feet, but I didn’t want to slow down and be late for the fun. I was hungry too, but ate only an apple in anticipation of the ball park goodies.

When we converged at the house, L. had already donned his red t-shirt, but I settled for a green t-shirt, jeans and comfortable shoes. We made it to the park on time (about 20 minutes walking), found our seats and settled in for the event. Our seats were straight down the first base line all the way out past the yellow foul line. It was field level, but just across from the bull pen. We were happy. In fact, it was perfect. The weather was pristine. I hardly needed the light sweater I had brought and a breeze kept the American flag fluttering at half mast to honor the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

We had it all: beers, foot-long hotdogs (with mustard, raw onion and relish, oh my!), a few peanuts from our friendly neighbors (who have a four-year son adopted from Korea with the pictures to brag about him), the friendly drunk a few seats over, the rowdy drunks who got thrown out, fly balls in our direction, a homerun, the seventh-inning stretch, we sang “take me out the ball game,” Wally the frog mascot came by to spread good cheer and of course several rounds of the Wave. Not to mention a 6 – 3 Red Sox victory over the Anaheim Angels.

I still plan to get a hat.