Theatre review: Architecting

“How old are you, my dear?”…
“Twenty-eight,” she answered dully…
“That’s not a vast age. It’s a young age to have gained the whole world and lost your own soul, isn’t it?”
--Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With the Wind

As a transplanted Southerner, naturally I appreciate plays that feature both Gone With the Wind and post-Katrina New Orleans—this is the first play I’ve ever seen that examined Gone With the Wind, one of my favorite books but one that isn’t exactly politically correct. The TEAM has created several plays in one, all overlapping into a crazy quilt of ideas, fictional characters, actual people, and time periods. An architect comes to New Orleans to aid in the rebuilding; along the way, she encounters Margaret Mitchell (who died in 1949), Henry Adams (real-life nineteenth-century historian), Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, Ashley Wilkes, beauty pageant contestants, an overbearing Hollywood producer who wants to remake Gone With the Wind, and an irate bartender who objects to having her flood-damaged business torn down. Architechting touches on a swirl of ideas, among them reconstruction, the Old South, Southernism in general, racism, historical fact vs. literary fiction, the movie business, New Orleans, war, romance, natural disasters, architecture, and sweet tea, set against video footage and clips from the movie.

Times and attitudes change, of course; despite the enduring popularity of the movie version of Gone With the Wind (1939), the story is now seen as condescending at best and flat-out bigoted at worst. Margaret Mitchell never meant for her only book to be considered racist or offensive; to her mind, she had written a eulogy for a civilization and a way of life now inexorably lost—a way of life still fetishized in that part of the world. Indeed, as she once remarked, she was ten before she realized the South lost. She wanted to examine those people that against all odds manage to survive when their worlds collapse, and those that seem no different—but don’t (a quality Mitchell deemed “gumption”). Famously, Scarlett O’Hara survived and prospered when so many of those around her succumbed to despair, wounded pride and spiritual starvation.

This part of the story suddenly seems eerily prescient, when dropped into post-Katrina New Orleans. While the spirit of New Orleans survived mostly intact, the city is still struggling, still full of crumbling houses, flood lines, empty lots, and literal and figurative ghosts. Architecting draws subtle connections between the Reconstruction after the Civil War, the rebuilding of post-Katrina New Orleans, and other attempted reconstructions—the one that leaps most notably to mind is the one going on now in Iraq. To paraphrase Rhett Butler, there is more money to be made in the breaking apart of a civilization than in the building of one.

This is an ambitious play, and its true genius lies in the characters created by the TEAM, a group of theatre artists that bonded as freshmen at NYU many years ago. Margaret Mitchell herself was my favorite—the stereotypical Atlantan with a sugar-sweet voice hiding a spine of steel. Scarlett O’Hara in the first act was mirrored by a 24-year-old Arkansan who is traveling to New Orleans to compete in the “Miss Scarlett O’Hara” pageant in the second (played by the same actress, of course). The historian’s appearances are too few and too brief, while the same actor makes a poetic turn as both Mammy and Ashley Wilkes.

For all the genius of the characters and their postmodern interactions, however, the story itself is one act too long; the first act is full of energy and surprises, while the second act falls flat. It fails to capitalize on the quiet poetry of the first, and the play’s momentum sputters to a halt long before the actual ending. But the story is a distinctly secondary attraction—the real reason to see this play is to see TEAM’s genius and ensemble in action. After all, where else can you see men in corsets dancing to “Dixie”?



Created by and starring the TEAM: Jessica Almasy, Frank Boyd, Heather Christian, Jill Frutkin, Libby King and Jake Margolin
Directed by Rachel Chavkin
Set and Costume Design: Nick Vaughan
Lighting Design: Jake Heinrichs
Sound Design: Matt Hubbs
Video Design: Brian Scott
Running Time: 150 minutes with one ten-minute intermission
PS 122, 150 1st Avenue at East 9th Street; 212-352-3101
Tickets $20
Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 5 pm
January 22—February 15, 2009

Roommate dinner

Last night my roommates and I decided to have a dinner in, since a) it was cold, b) we never really see other or get a chance to hang out, c) we didn't have other plans. We got a bunch of firewood and several good bottles of wine and settled in. I made a pork loin with port sauce, an onion tart, sauteed broccoli rabe, and found some spanokopita in the freezer that Shelby made. I attempted the green tea ice cream--which turned out more like a sweet tea sorbet--and a very rich and decadent dark rum ice cream with crystallized ginger bits. Kind of like a Dark and Stormy, only ice cream. It was the best ice cream so far, except I'll add more ginger next time.

It was lovely to cook and hang out, and we went to a couple neighborhood bars afterwards. The highlight was finding a rum-and-ginger infusion, which smelled exactly like the rum-and-ginger ice cream.

And now I'm sitting around in my bathrobe, eating leftovers. Winter is great for cooking and drinking wine in front of the fire, but it would nice to have a man around for next time. I haven't been dating at all, and I've been thinking I need to get back in the game. Of course, being shot down spectacularly twice in the past two weeks hasn't helped my resolve, but two cats can only provide so much warmth at night.

Theatre review: Sixty Miles to Silver Lake

Ky: you gotta trust me, okay?
We’ll get there soon
But first
First we gotta make sure that it’s Safe

Denny: But how do we know when it’s Safe?

With Sixty Miles to Silver Lake, Dan LeFranc has vaulted his way onto my own personal Playwrights to Watch list. Despite a spate of productions both here and across the country, he’s remained under New York’s theatrical radar. Hopefully this play will get him into the spotlight.

Sixty Miles to Silver Lake is the story of a young boy and his father, trapped in a car ride after soccer practice, both dealing with the fallout of a nasty divorce. Time and space warp in the play—the young boy, Denny, is 15, then 11, then 13, then going to college and back again. The entire play takes place in the front seat of his father’s Volvo, driving to a joint-custody weekend in Silver Lake. Ky is desperately trying to reconnect with his son, now nearly lost to him thanks to adolescence and the divorce. As time wraps back on itself, again and again, we gradually learn the horrifying details of the divorce and its long-term effect on Denny’s life.

Dane DeHaan is heartbreaking (and accurate) as Denny, mortified by his father one moment and trying to impress him the next. Joseph Adams as Ky is as embarrassing as every dad is at that age; his Ky overflows with gruff, friendly attempts at contact, playful punches, pinches, head-pats, and completely inappropriate dating advice (“Got your fingers fishy yet, son?”). For a play that takes place entirely in the front seat of the car, it’s strangely active—both actors are fidgety, constantly moving. It’s obvious their characters feel trapped with each other. Being men, they’re both trying to find their way out of the quagmire of bad emotion surrounding the divorce, and their now-hesitant bond. It’s a nuanced look at a troubled relationship, written in an oddly poetic syntax that sounds natural to the ear.

The direction (by Anne Kauffman, of God’s Ear fame and others) isn’t without its flaws; the car breaks apart in strange ways in the last minutes of the play, moving all over the stage, which frankly was a distraction. The dialogue should have taken precedence. And the “is it safe” bits are segregated into weird montages of horror-movie lighting and microphone sound effects; it was almost as if the play were being shoehorned into a naturalist production, when the play is anything but naturalistic. Nevertheless, it’s a great production, and a new play by a hot playwright—a perfect follow-up to SoHo Rep’s success with Sarah Kane’s Blasted.


Written by Dan LeFranc
Directed by Anne Kauffma
With Joseph Adams (Ky) and Dane DeHaan (Denny)
Set and Costume Design: Dane Laffrey
Lighting Design: Tyler Micoleau
Running Time: Seventy-five minutes with no intermission
SoHo Rep, 46 Walker Street; 212-352-3101
Tickets $35
Tuesday through Sunday at 7:30 pm; Saturday at 3:00 pm
January 15—February 8, 2009

Theatre review: Ride

Ride spins eighty minutes out of the most unlikely of premises—that a man and a woman wake up together, neither having any idea who the other is or how they got there, and yet somehow manage to stick around for 12 hours and talk.

The two people in question live in Melbourne, Australia, and wake up together after an epic night of debauchery. Neither remembers meeting the other, much less how they ended up naked in bed with each other. But some small spark of attraction must remain, since they stay and talk to other. She had been to the wedding of her first love—in fact, was the maid of honor—and while she claims she’s happy for them, her bender that night says otherwise. He was out barhopping with friends, trying to get over his ex’s abrupt departure. Somehow, they are drawn to each other, and they seem desperate to fill in the missing pieces of the evening.

While the story line is implausible (1. when people in real life find themselves naked in bed with a stranger, the first instinct is usually to bolt, not to stick around for tea, and 2. if they’d had so much drink they couldn’t remember several hours of the previous evening, they’d be too hungover to talk), there’s something charming about the concerted effort these two make to get to know each other. Several times the conversation hangs, and it seems they have absolutely nothing in common—and still, they manage to soldier on to the bitter end, when some new and vital information is revealed.

Jeremy Waters and Melissa Chambers are charming in their morning-after awkwardness, if a bit brusque at times. They do a good job of portraying their hidden loneliness without seeming needy, and while initially their characters don’t seem to have much in common, they do have an undeniable chemistry. The set, by James Hunting, naturally centers around the bed, but he’s cleverly hidden an additional element that comes into play in the last moments—aided by Cory Pattak’s lovely lighting.

Surprisingly, there’s very little mention of sex, and very little touching. Whether or not they had sex seems irrelevant next to the larger issue—did they want to? And do they still want to? These two create their intimacy in the most old-fashioned way—by talking.

Written by Jane Bodie
Directed by Nick Flint
With Jeremy Waters and Melissa Chambers
Set Design: James Hunting
Lighting Design: Cory Pattak
Running Time: Seventy minutes with no intermission
59E59, 59 East 59th Street; 212-279-4200
Tickets $25
Tuesday through Friday at 8:30 pm; Saturday at 2:30 pm and 8:30 pm; Sunday at 3:30 pm
January 15—February 8, 2009

Homemade ice cream

I cracked out the new Cuisinart ice cream maker today. Last year I'd purchased a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, which turned out to be a big disappointment. The stand-alone type ice cream maker is much better. I started with the basics--vanilla.

Vanilla Ice Cream
1 1/2 c. whole milk
1 1/8 c. sugar
3 c. heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
(I used extract rather than whole vanilla beans, as I was out of vanilla beans and it was too cold to run get some at the store around the corner.)
Mix milk and sugar until the sugar dissolves; add rest and pour into ice cream maker.

I'm very happy with the results. Later today I'm making green tea ice cream.

Green Tea Ice Cream
1 1/2 c. water
3/4 c. sugar
2 tablespoons loose green tea or 3 green tea bags
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/4 c. whole milk
Combine water and sugar; bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add tea, cover and steep five minutes. Strain into a bowl, discard tea leaves. Add lemon juice, chill completely. Add milk and pour into ice cream maker.

Another play written!

I've finished the first draft of another play. It's still a little more autobiographical than I'd like (to me, anyway), but it feels good to have a solid, finished draft. I'm soliciting feedback, too--if anyone wants to read it and offer comments, I'd be most grateful.

Theatre review: Wickets

“Woman is not a human being. She is 1) a mystery, 2) another species, 3) as yet undefined, 4) unpredictable.”
--Julia, Wickets

Doing an old play with a new concept can be tricky. If done correctly, it offers a new and invigorating perspective; if not, it’s pretentious at best and confusing at worst. You can do Richard III in Nazi Germany, for example, but you cannot set it in a disco. The script won’t support it. When I first heard about Wickets, I admit I was skeptical. Marie Irene Fornes’ notoriously postmodern 1977 play, Fefu and Her Friends, which explores the dark underbelly of feminism, set on an airplane? I girded myself for pretension.

Happily, Wickets is one of the best reinterpretations I’ve ever seen, and the only version of Fefu and Her Friends I’ve seen that actually made sense. Despite being written in 1977, the message of Fefu and Her Friends remains ever the same: women don’t what to do with feminism. Or rather, they don’t know what to do with themselves. It’s a strange, unsettling play, not least because the strong women characters are at a loss with each other and with themselves. Without a man to center around, they disintegrate into cattiness and then madness.

But Fefu is probably deranged to begin with. She “pretends” to shoot her husband with gun that may or may not be loaded. She likes men better than women and finds women “loathsome.” In Fornes’ plays, she and her friends are a group of 1935 society women, bored and affected in the manner of society women who have too much free time. In the last act, the women turn giggly, then bitchy, and then everything takes a really tragic turn for the worse.

It’s not a realistic play, but it’s not strictly allegorical either. It centers around the dark imagery and emotional backwash at the heart of the play. Full of self-loathing and self-doubt, the women only gradually realize the dual reality of their lives; the glossy surface and the dark underbelly. It’s thought-provoking but challenging; this is not a play for those who enjoy escapism in their theatre.

In Wickets, these same women are airline stewardesses in the heyday of luxury air travel, 1971. Fefu, written in 1977, looks back forty years at 1935, in an attempt to see how far women have come, and how far they have yet to go. This production looks back almost forty years, to 1971, when feminism was beginning to shift but had not yet permeated everyday life. The characters are stewardesses on a trans-Atlantic flight to Paris; the original script of Fefu is largely intact, with additions from Bernard Glemser’s 1969 pulp novel, The Fly Girls, a 1969 3-D porn firm called The Stewardesses, Valerie Solanas’ “Scum Manifesto,” and an Emily Dickinson poem. There are original songs, dance numbers to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” with a wholly original in-flight movie called “Perfect Surf.” There are, of course, the usual flight announcements. The title takes its name from the hoops used in croquet; the last scene involves an onboard game.

The small space at 3LD has been ingeniously transformed into an airplane by Jenny Rogers, with narrow aisles, drink carts, tiny windows, and a curtain separating first class from steerage. The characters serve us warm nuts, Tang, water, pillows and wet towels, then collect trash, while speaking their lines. The second act of Fefu calls for the action to take place in four separate rooms, while the audience moves from room to room; here, the stewardesses section the plane off into four parts for the “turn-down service,” then move through the plane, so that the four scenes come to us. The crisis at the end becomes severe turbulence, accompanied by the arrival of a mysterious angel.

As stewardesses, the characters embody the inherent contradictions in feminism far better than bored society women ever could. These women work for a living, but in a job which requires them to be beautiful, flirty, and a little dim. The gifted actors allow bits of individual personality to surface, even while playing stereotypes; this is a fantastic example of ensemble acting, led by equally gifted directors Clove Galilee and Jenny Rogers. It’s odd how the script actually supports the concept—while it never would have occurred to me to put the two together, it works, and it’s heartwarming to see new life breathed into a classic in this way. Wickets brings out the central message—and humor—in Fefu in a way that traditional productions often don’t.

This may be the only time I’ve ever actually enjoyed being on an airplane.


Adapted from Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes, by Jenny Rogers
Created and directed by Jenny Rogers and Clove Galilee
With Katie Apicella, Elizabeth Wakehouse, Christianna Nelson, Jessica Jolly, Kristen Rozanski, Lee Eddy, Jona Tuck, Maria Parra, Eric Walton and Lucas Steele
Set Design and Videography: Jenny Rogers
Lighting Design: Burke Brown
Sound Design: Dean Parker
Costume Design: Candace Knox
Running Time: One hour and forty minutes with no intermission
Trick Saddle at 3LD Art & Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street; 212-352-3101
Tickets $18
Thursday through Sunday at 8 pm
January 3-25, 2009

Theatre review: Ecstasy

Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy is set in London, in December of 1979. Much like the US now, an impending financial crisis was about to hit the working class with a vengeance. These characters, however, already live life on the brink; their lives are only going to get worse, and on some level, they know that.

Jean (Mary Monahan) works in a gas station and lives in a tiny one-room flat. Her best friend, Dawn (Gina LeMoine) got married young, and has four small children. Jean’s current boyfriend, Roy (Josh Marcantel), is clearly only interested in the sex, and has conveniently forgotten to tell his wife about Jean. One night, after the wife arrives to confront Roy and Jean, Jean and Dawn decide to go out. They return late, after many drinks, with Dawn’s husband Mick (Brandon McCluskey) and his friend Len (Stephen Haskett) in tow. After many more drinks, Dawn and Mick leave, and Jean is left to face the gaping void that is her life. Boozing only partially obscures their stultifying lives.

It’s a play about the minutiae of 1979 working class life in London. Nothing much happens in this play, but that’s the point—nothing much will happen in these people’s lives, either. The space at 85 East 4th Street is appropriately claustrophobic, long and narrow, affording us the true joy of a one-room coldwater flat. The actors are surprisingly adept at the broad Cockney accents, and I don’t mean to sound patronizing—it is really difficult for a non-native to nail a broad Cockney accent. Their collective performances capture the grinding sameness of these people’s lives—without a good cast, this play would be too passive and depressing by far. As it is, it’s pretty depressing, but Mary Monahan’s portrayal of Jean is layered enough to keep the whole thing from collapsing into one-dimensionality. Gina LeMoine as Dawn is an appropriate foil, jocular enough to provide some laughs while unintentionally highlighting Jean’s loneliness. Director Sara Laudonia wisely keeps the focus on the actors, with simple blocking and a quick pace.

Best known in America for his films Life Is Sweet, High Hopes and Naked, Mike Leigh’s plays tend to be more naturalistic, especially this one. Through his use of casual personal detail, coupled with the ensemble’s quality and compassion, Leigh gives us a society on the edge. This particular production is very well-done, but be forewarned—it is depressing. Nothing like watching characters on the cusp of financial, emotional and spiritual crisis to make you enjoy the current recession.

Directed by Sara Laudonia
With Mary Monahan, Gina LeMoine, Stephen Heskett, Brandon McCluskey, Josh Marcantel and Lore Davis
Set Design: Damon Pelletier
Lighting Design: Paul Howle
Sound Design: Christopher Rummel
Costume Design: Lore Davis
Running Time: One hour and forty minutes with no intermission
Black Door Theatre Company in association with Horse Trade Theater Group; 85 East 4th Street, 212-868-4444
Tickets $18
January 5-25, 2009

A Razor, A Shiny Knife

If Anthony Bourdain is my hero, then Michael Cirino is...also my hero. He's the mastermind behind A Razor, A Shiny Knife, an underground dining phenomenon in New York. There was an article in the Times several months ago about these underground restaurants (essentially, you're paying to go to a dinner party; it's "underground" because of the stringent health codes regarding food and kitchens). I got on the mailing lists for a few of them, and Saturday's was the first that I could actually afford/didn't have a scheduling conflict.

The dinner took place in a converted industrial loft in Williamsburg. In a normal New York-sized apartment kitchen, Michael and his compadres made the following for 24 people:
1. Lemon verbena gel topped with cauliflower puree and paddlefish caviar
2. Salmon tartare with red onion creme fraiche and a butter cookie
3. Hot potato/cold potato: a wax bowl filled with cold potato soup, then topped with a hot potato ball, a cube of butter, chive, a slice of black truffle soaked in cream, and salt
4. Celery root puree topped with black truffle sous vide in cream and a veal demi glace ragout
5. A "black truffle explosion": handmade ravioli filled with a sphere of black truffle juice and butter, topped with a piece of lettuce cooked down in butter, a slice of black truffle in cream, and parmesan
6. A foie gras cake: foie gras spread over a pistachio cake and then topped with a grape gelee, served with a basil leaf and a thin slice of dried pear
7. Beef tenderloin sous vide in beef fat, over a sour cherry and demi glace sauce, with horseradish cream and a brisket and cabbage dumpling
8. "Smores": A toasted marshmallow, granache brownie and chocolate mousse served with a graham cracker crumble, marshmallow fluff, and a chocolate emulsion
(Personally, I would have added more caviar to the first course, cut out the next two, served more of the truffle ravioli and foie gras cake, and added a cheese course at the end, with wine tastings for each course.)

Michael was recreating a number of Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz recipes; the invitation listed a possible 21 courses, of which we got eight. The full range of possibilities were:

CORNET OF SALMON – black sesame tuile, red onion crème fraîche
PRAWN – yuba, miso, orange
WHITE STURGEON CAVIAR – Lemon verbena gelée, cauliflower
BLIS CHAR ROE – coconut, coriander, vanilla fragrance

HOT POTATO-COLD POTATO – black truffle, chive, butter
BLACK TRUFFLE EXPLOSION – romaine, parmesan
HEN EGG CUSTARD – ragoût of black winter truffles
JACOBSEN’S FARM MUSQUÉE DE PROVENCE SOUP – sea urchin sabayon, black truffle purée

IBÉRICO HAM – acorn, compressed apple, celery, endive, honey

JAPANESE GREENUP ABALONE – yuzu, tapioca, seaweed, matsutake mushroom broth

ELYSIAN FIELDS FARM LAMB – fennel, pernod, coffee aroma

SNAKE RIVE FARMS ‘CALOTTE DE BOEUF GRILLÉE” – brisket and cabbage dumplings, horseradish pudding, sour cherries

CHESTNUT – quince, chocolate, baked potato

CONCORD GRAPE – yogurt, mint, long pepper
TRANSPARENCY of raspberry, rose petals

SPICE CAKE – persimmon, rum, Ohio honeycomb

CHOCOLATE S’MORES – graham cracker ‘crunch,’ chocolate ‘crémeux,’ creamy “fluff” toasted marshmallow, chocolate emulsion

SWEET POTATO – bourbon, brown sugar, smoldering cinnamon

Wines:
Champagne
Chardonnay
Hermitage Blanc
Gamay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Madeira
Trockenbeerenauslese

Needless to say, this was the most interesting Saturday night I've had in a while. The space was amazing, the food was even more amazing, and it was a nice change of pace to be in a room full of people as nerdily excited as I was about all the foie gras and truffles. And for once, I wasn't the only person hanging around the kitchen, asking for recipes and debating the virtues of hand-cranked pasta rolling machines vs. Kitchenaid pasta rolling attachments and taking pictures of the food. There was even an artisanal bartender, with his own handmade cube ice, serving drinks made with bacon-infused bourbon (trust me, I got THAT recipe) and sour cherry juice and foie-infused cognac (those were not all in the same drink, that would be gross). I got something that was equal parts gin, Lillet, Cointreau, and lemon juice. Yum. With dinner, we got a Spanish cava for the first six courses and a Cotes du Rhone for the last two.

My one quibble with the evening was that there simply wasn't enough food. The first six courses were all one bite each; while the beef and the dessert were much more filling, I found myself having to scarf down an emergency granola bar in the subway on the way home. I would have also liked a bigger wine selection. That being said, I was chatting with Michael after the dinner and discovered that of the $100 a person we all paid to attend, $85 was spent on the food. Just the food--that doesn't include the wine and booze. So he was basically breaking even, and he's getting ready to fly to Chicago for a series of dinners there--again, barely breaking even, and that doesn't include the airfare. He's got himself one expensive and time-consuming hobby, but you know what? I would start my own underground restaurant in a heartbeat. If any of you are interested, let me know.

For pics, go here.

New Year's and stuff

I spent the last week of my holiday vacation in VA, and saw the extended fam at a ski resort there. I didn't ski (no surprise there) but I did get some tubing in. I was reminded of how much I hate airports. The cats were overjoyed at my return, and spent all day yesterday underfoot. I also got a Le Creuset teakettle, in flame orange, the greatest Le Creuset color ever.

Speaking of New Year's, I've formulated a five-year plan. It's a little more ambitious than a New Year's resolution, but I'm much happier with it. Year 1: Finally pay off my @#%*ing credit card debt. Year 2: Pay off those pesky private student loans. Year 3: Save all that money. Year 4, and possibly Year 5 as well: Use that money to go backpacking around South America, until it runs out. I figure that'll take between a year and eighteen months, possibly even two years, depending on how much money I save. Upon my return: move someplace warm.

Another thing I want to do this year: write plays. I finished a little one a couple of months ago, and I'm pretty happy with it. I've been working on another, but I hit a snag when some unintended autobiographical elements kept creeping in. It's disheartening, especially given those particular autobiographical elements, but I've come at it from another angle and I seem to have regained my momentum. Still. Other writers out there, is there a way to avoid this in future? Or is this one of those pitfalls of writing I will just have to deal with?