A Razor, A Shiny Knife Part II

The universe really is looking out for me lately. I think this means I'm about to be hit by a cab. Regardless, last night I got to participate in my new favorite food porn pastime--being kitchen help at the latest dinner by A Razor, A Shiny Knife.

If you read my blog, you've read about the previous dinner with them. This one was much smaller and more low-key, held at the personal home of Michael Cirino. My friends all think I'm a gourmet cook, and maybe I am--but when I see kitchens like Cirino's, then I know myself for the rank amateur I actually am. Next to the induction burners, the micro-scales, the Riedel glassware, the handmade knives, and the liquid nitrogen tank, my cast-iron dutch iron seems very puny in comparison. Yes, there was an actual liquid nitrogen tank, which he used to flash-freeze raspberries for the dessert. I can only imagine the fun my drunk friends would have with that. My personal favorite was the infrared thermometer, which uses a laser to immediately measure the temperature of anything; how I've managed to live so long without one is a great mystery to me.

Being unemployed until very recently, I offered my services as unpaid kitchen slave for this dinner so that I could do what I really wanted to do at the last one--peer over the shoulders of everyone in the kitchen and take mental notes on all the gadgetry. I saved myself $100 and got about as much food as I got last time, although I never once sat down and burned the ends of all my fingers on the hot plates. A small price to pay, however. I apologize for the lack of photos--I got notification of my kitchen slave status while at work (second day of my new job) and so was caught without my camera.

This dinner was a variation on vegetable themes, mostly using cauliflower. The dinner was completely vegetarian (no chicken broth), which we can all appreciate on a theoretical level, but really, a little chicken broth or bacon fat would have contributed so nicely to most of the dishes. The beurre noir nearly failed because there was no fat to bind the butter to.

The first course was a butternut and delicata squash soup with a coconut milk creme and spiced pumpkin seeds. The squash were roasted and pureed, then combined with leeks cooked down in olive oil and coconut milk and then pureed. The creme was a whipped concoction of more coconut milk with soy milk. The sweetness of the coconut milk was a really interesting and lively touch--I'm now inspired to do more things with it in my own cooking. The spiced pumpkin seeds added a much needed savory touch--some fennel pollen dusted over the top would also have been yummy.

Next up was a sweet pea puree with basil and some peppers, served with thick cauliflower steaks and cooked baby carrots in a caramelized blood-orange glaze. The pea puree had a very delicate touch of the peppers (I could have handled more). The cauliflower steaks had been cooked at 85 degrees Celsius for about an hour and twenty minutes, then seared in olive oil. They were very tender and very flavorful, but I wasn't sure I could tell the difference between the slow-cooked kind and the cooked-the-regular-way kind. The blood orange glaze on the carrots was the best part; it pulled together the sweetness of the puree with the savoriness of the cauliflower, and added a bright touch of fruity acidity to the whole thing.

Then there was a variation on black and white, with black tagliatelle served with a mushroom beurre noir, with sauteed black mushrooms on the side. A little sauteed cauliflower was sprinkled over the black pasta, and a small black truffle custard (which was also white) was nestled on top, along with a very gently poached egg yolk and a little shaved basil. The basil had been set in a block with agar, so that it was more of a basil Jell-O, which could then be sliced (or shaved, as it was here). Obviously this was very rich and very heavy, a feat for a completely vegetarian dish; but frankly the truffle custard and the shaved basil were unnecessary. The mushrooms and the black pasta went together so well, especially with the addition of the cauliflower and the egg yolk, that any other flavors were distracting.

The final main course featured a cauliflower veloute (the cauliflowers was boiled, then pureed with cream) served with an olive cracker, an olive powder, an onion powder, dehydrated cauliflower, sauteed cauliflower greens, and tiny onion soup gelatin dots. More fun with gels and powders. All these seemingly random elements went very well together, but it seemed like an awful lot of effort for essentially four bites of food.

Dessert featured chocolate truffles with a liquid center, made with a smoky lapsong tea. The smokiness was a surprisingly effective touch; further experiments had been done with a smoky tea Jell-O, but that didn't really work. The truffles were served with a blood orange puree, a gooey chocolate cake circle, the flash-frozen raspberries, and a black truffle custardy thing.

Cirino is one of those cooks who's more like a chemist. He uses binding agents, liquid nitrogen, sous vide, agar, heats things to a very precise temperature, weighs out 1.2 grams of a specific spice. I'm not that kind of cook, and I'm not sure I want to be, either. Which is not a bad thing. Cirino, like his mentors Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz, are on the vanguard of cooking, using foams and powders and gels to bring out new textures and flavors. I can appreciate an olive powder and a black truffle gel as much as the next person, but at the end of the day, I think I appreciate the old-fashioned way of cooking more. I'd rather have a pork shoulder or lamb ragout, cooked in my plain old cast iron dutch iron, than a beef tenderloin cooked sous vide served with a whole host of foams. For me, cooking is about the food, but it's also about the social aspect. I think that's why I appreciate the "peasant cuisines" (for lack of a better term)--French, Spanish and Italian country cooking, soul food, Indian and Thai. It's flavorful, it's simple, and it's best shared with others. Give me a plate of pate with friends any day over a smoked tea Jell-O in fancier environs.

Employed!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. No, scratch that--a whirlwind month. I met someone, then got laid off, then had a great party with several people I hadn't seen in years, then got a new job making more money. Yes, folks--I'm officially employed again, exactly two weeks to the day I got laid off. I'm doing the exact same thing I was doing, at a different company, making more money. The offices are nicer, the people are great, I get lots more free food and sodas, and I have a 30-story view of Central Park. Oh, and I'm making about 15% more. So suck it, former employer!

I've had several friends remark to me that I must be the most amazing person in the whole world, to spring back into the Land of Employment so quickly. I don't know about all that, but I'll freely admit that I can pull myself back up by my bootstraps when I have to. God knows I've done it often enough. So here is Jenny's Guide to Being Suddenly Unemployed, in the exact order I did things:

1. Don't cry. Don't say anything. Gather up everything at your desk and go home.
2. Circle the financial wagons. Transfer all your liquid savings into your checking account, file for unemployment, put all your student loans on forbearance, alert your credit card companies, and do the math. How much money do you have with your final paychecks/any severance? How long do you have before you starve or go homeless? You may also want to consider cancelling cable/Netflix/gym memberships/magazine subscriptions/switch to a prepaid cell phone, etc. Get as much financial wiggle room as you can.
3. Update your resume. Start sending it out. Send it out to placement agencies, too.
4. How long will your health insurance last? Make a bunch of doctor's appointments/refill all your prescriptions while you still can.
5. Make a grocery run for non-perishables. I already have a fully stocked pantry--if pushed, I could eat for two months without shopping once. But if you don't have a pantry full of canned goods/pasta/rice/beans etc., consider filling it while you still have a job.
6. Alert family and friends. If you need to borrow money to survive, they'll be your first line of defense.
7. Go through your closets and bookshelves and look for eBay gold. Designer clothing, handbags, DVD collections, books, rarely used kitchen or sports gear, all these things can bring quick cash.
8. Go get drunk, preferably by having your friends buy your drinks. The next morning, start pounding the pavement.

When you don't have any financial wiggle room, every second counts, especially in this economy.

And speaking of the party, it was awesome. My most favorite thing in the world is hanging out with my nearest and dearest, with good food (that I've fixed) and good wine/booze. I discovered a great barbecue sauce recipe completely by trial and error--sorry, folks, I don't think I could replicate it if my life depended on it--and the pork was a big hit. Best of all, I spent a grand total of maybe $20, and fed 20+ people. My sister and brother-in-law will be visiting in a couple of weeks; I'm considering the infamous Lamb Ragout with homemade papardelle.

Theatre review: That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play

I have no idea how to explain or define this play.

I loved it, that’s certain. It’s definitely one of the most fun, most seemingly random, and most high-energy shows I’ve ever seen. I laughed out loud more than I do at stand-up comedy routines, and I could not have predicted anything that happened in this play to save my life (which is a good thing). But it’s hard to say what actually happened, and what that meant.

That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play could be seen as a feminist polemic against men, male power, and the “boys will be boys” mentality, but any attempt at a unifying theme is really an afterthought. Two ex-strippers go on a cross-country rampage, killing men at pro-life conventions and then blogging about it; later a male screenwriter, together with his friend Rodney (“The Rod”) use their story as inspiration for a war movie. But the lines of reality are distinctly hazy in this play; Jane Fonda (in full aerobic mode) appears as muse and heroine several times, there’s a dream sequence involving a dinner party gone awry, and there’s even full-blown Jell-O wrestling. Props to the hair metal soundtrack; only Def Leppard, Bon Jovi and Whitesnake could do justice to the play’s blatant and unabashed sexuality. Playwright Sheila Callaghan called it “a wild ride through a certain male psyche,” and it’s definitely a romp through the dark corners of someone’s psyche, male or otherwise. She also said that, “It’s critiquing the images at the same time it’s trafficking in them,” and that may be the statement that best summarizes this play.

Don’t expect it to make sense—just sit back and enjoy the ride. In the very last scene, the pieces start to tie together, but only in a basic way. Nevertheless, it’s ribald, shameless, and exuberant. The cast is fantastic; I particularly enjoyed watching Lisa Joyce again (Red Light Winter, Blackbird) and Annie McNamara as the chirpy but slightly clueless Jane Fonda. Director Kip Fagan has done a fine job of shaping what could be an imagistic mess into a play with momentum and power. And the designers have done a great job of keeping a props, lights and transitions-heavy piece as fluid as possible; the scene changes have been built into the action in some very clever ways. Particularly clever was the transformation of a hotel room desk into a dining room table and then into a Jell-O wrestling pit.

13P, a collective of working downtown playwrights, are known for producing offbeat plays (Have You Seen Steve Steven?, The Penetration Play), but this may be the strangest yet. Which just makes me want to see more, both of Sheila Callaghan’s work and 13P’s in general—which may ultimately be the highest compliment anyone can give to a play.


Written by Sheila Callaghan
Directed by Kip Fagan
With Joseph Gomez, Lisa Joyce, Greg Keller, Annie McNamara and Danielle Slavick
Set Design: Narelle Sissons
Lighting Design: Matt Frey
Costume Design: Jessica Pabst
Sound Design: Eric Shim
Running Time: 95 minutes with no intermission
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place; 212-868-4444
Tickets $40
Wednesday through Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 pm
February 10 – March 15, 2009

Theatre review: Mabou Mines DollHouse

“Then why go on supporting a society like this? What does it live by? Lies and pretenses—“
--Henrik Ibsen, Pillars of Society


When I was in graduate school at Columbia, we were offered the choice between a collaborative seminar on Ibsen and one on Dürrenmatt. No one wanted Ibsen, so we had to draw straws; I lost, and so was consigned to a semester of Norwegian realism. I’ve never really liked Ibsen, and many of my classmates in the seminar didn’t, either. We sat down one day and figured out exactly what it was we didn’t like: his predictability.

The structure of all Ibsen plays goes something like this:
1. We are introduced to an illusion.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal.

Because this holds true across his entire oeuvre, Ibsen is infuriatingly predictable. Of course, against most modern theatre, he is.

A Doll’s House, written in 1879, marked a fundamental breakthrough for realistic drama. It subverted the traditional play structure of the time, by ending with ambiguity, not catharsis. A Doll’s House is probably Ibsen’s most famous and most performed play. It is the story of the slow dissolution of a bad marriage, famously ending with a door slam, as Nora walks out on her husband. The play rocked nineteenth-century morals; productions were banned in many cities because it was considered unthinkable for a woman to leave her husband and children.

Despite the play’s firmly-rooted realism, the modern performance trend is to completely subvert this realism. Witness Mabou Mines DollHouse, now on its second run at St. Ann’s Warehouse, in which all the women are over six feet tall and all the men are cast with dwarfs. A Doll’s House has been adapted and altered almost more than any other modern drama (although Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is right up there, as well); there’s been a short-lived Broadway musical version; a version in which Nora and Torvald fight it out in the last scene, literally swinging from the chandelier; a version in which Nora climbed back into the house through a window; a version in which Nora loses it and begins killing; and a version in which Nora didn’t leave home at all, but climbed onto her roof to chain-smoke. There were several early alterations, all of which kept Nora at home, safely ensconced within the male power structure.

Naturally the temptation is to read A Doll’s House as an early cry for feminism. Henrik Ibsen was a famed introvert; he once remarked, “the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” His statement could equally apply to Nora, the heroine of A Doll’s House and long considered one of the world’s first feminists (though Ibsen never meant to write a “feminist” play). In fact, she declares, “I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me.” Ibsen felt it was a play about self-liberation, rather than specifically female liberation. His canon is replete with instances of the individual vs. a provincial, narrow-minded society, of the right of the individual to fulfill his (or her) true self, often by escaping a difficult past and the restrictive rules of society. In Ghosts, motherhood is associated with powerlessness, and illustrates the tragic effect of the dumb acceptance of convention; in The Lady from the Sea, domesticity was equated with banality and boredom, and women’s self-realization was entirely dependent on the attitudes of the men around them; and famously, in Hedda Gabler, Hedda’s efforts to find freedom are tragically and violently quashed by both the men around her and by the rules of her society.

Ibsen’s characters often lived in a general atmosphere of oppressive boredom and societal repression (Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, John Gabriel Borkman), reflecting the heartbreak of frustrated lives. There were passionate lovers dominated by their own bourgeois mentality (Hedda Gabler, Little Eyolf, When We Dead Awaken), as well as women trapped in unfulfilling marriages (Pillars of Society, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, The Lady from the Sea, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman). He used the same basic character types and personalities from play to play; the women were usually intelligent and passionate, but inhibited by convention; the men were arrogant, who destroyed (or nearly destroyed) the happiness of all around him, whether inadvertently or not; many of his characters came from wounded childhoods, in which they were hurt, molested, or otherwise exploited; and guilt, unhappiness and alienation were prevalent, propelled by a spiritual emptiness and a false morality.

All this unhappiness, confinement and “anguish of the soul” (Peer Gynt), coupled with a predictable plot structure—well, it’s no wonder Ibsen doesn’t make for an evening of uplifting theatre. It’s like watching Chekhov, or reading Dostoyevsky: well done, and probably worth the effort, but vastly depressing. I never did like being able to foretell the ending.

That said, the “illusion” of Ibsen’s structure is rendered quite literally in Mabou Mines DollHouse. All the women are over six feet tall, Nora included, and all the men are cast with dwarfs (and Death is taller than them all). Nora (in a fantastic performance by Maude Mitchell) lives in a literal doll house—ostensibly for her children, but her husband Torvald (Mark Povinelli) fits the child-size furniture perfectly. Torvald sees women as childish, helpless creatures, but also grants them outsized power in the home, responsible for children’s morals and purity. To be a woman in his world was to be confined, both literally (corsets, voluminous dresses) and figuratively. Nora does her best to fit his image of her—she speaks in a childish, breathy falsetto, she giggles and prevaricates, and she never stands upright in his presence—instead, she crawls, or writhes on the floor, granting him at least some modicum of physical power. Torvald calls her all manner of diminutive pet names, including “my dearest possession;” he’s a condescending, patronizing ass, and frankly it’s a wonder it takes her that long to leave.

But this family lives firmly rooted in illusion; Torvald’s repeated suppression of reality, and his obsession with his home’s appearance and reputation, lead directly to Nora’s realization that she’s been married to a stranger. In fact, his last words to her before she exits are “What will people think?” When she leaves, the doll house disappears, revealing a multi-level puppet show, in which Torvald and Nora are repeated ad infinitum. Their final discussion is sung, rather than spoken, and Nora never actually slams a door. Instead, she strips (literally and figuratively), tossing aside all the trappings of a life as a doll.

It’s a breathtaking production, revealing the full genius of director Lee Breuer (one of the founders of the American avant-garde theatre) and his company Mabou Mines. While it is three hours long, every moment is filled—with sight gags, with sounds, with fresh perspectives. Sometimes a production can turn a classic play completely inside out and somehow reveal the play’s true nature, which is exactly what happens here. Nora is rendered vital and modern, while we feel the true extent of her repression. It’s simultaneously a deconstruction, parody and homage to Ibsen’s classic, and plumbs depths of emotion I’ve never seen in any other production of A Doll’s House.

Normally, the structure of A Doll’s House would go something like this:

1. We are introduced to an illusion: Nora has borrowed money from Krogstad and forged the promissory note. The money helped save Torvald’s life, but Nora feels he can never know that she committed an illegal act to do it.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this: Krogstad threatens to reveal Nora’s forgery to Torvald, unless Nora convinces him not to fire Krogstad from his position at the bank.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent: Nora attempts to bargain with him, but he refuses, and sends Torvald a letter explaining Nora’s treachery.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work: Nora confesses everything to Torvald.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal: Nora leaves.

But in this production, which does indeed follow Ibsen’s script almost exactly, it’s rendered more like this:

1. We are introduced to an illusion: the doll house.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this: Nora herself will eventually destroy the illusion, and on some level, she realizes this.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent: She tries valiantly to resist the knowledge that her marriage is a sham and that she cannot consider herself to be a real person.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work: But eventually she is forced to confront the bitter truth, that she can no longer live a lie.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal: Nora leaves.

Somehow, this progression feels truer, more accurate, though it is in fact happening side by side with the former.

I still don’t like Ibsen. But I liked this production very, very much. It may be the only Ibsen production I’ve ever fully enjoyed.


Adapted from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Lee Breuer
With Maude Mitchell (Nora), Mark Povinelli (Torvald), Kristopher Medina (Krogstad), Janet Girardeau (Kristine), Ricardo Luis Gil (Dr. Rank), Margaret Lancaster (Helene), and Hannah Kritzeck, Isabel Yourman, Sophie Birkedladen, Eilert Sundt, Jessica Weinstein, Eamonn Farrell, Ilia Dodd Loomis and Nic Novicki
Set Design: Narelle Sissons
Lighting Design: Mary Louise Geiger
Costume Design: Meganne George
Sound Design: Edward Cosla
Puppetry Design: Jane Catherine Shaw
Choreography: Eamonn Farrell
Running Time: Three hours with one 15-minute intermission
St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn; 718-254-8779
Tickets $35
Tuesday through Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 4 pm
February 12 through March 8, 2009

Unemployment

Once again, I have been the victim of corporate downsizing. I got laid off on Wednesday, and while I'm none too happy to be unemployed, I do like not working. I understand my former workplace is chaos right now, so I'm sure it's best I don't work there any more. I circled the financial wagons and immediately got some interviews with placement agencies, so I'm back out there and looking. Though I wonder if this isn't a sign from God to go ahead and tell the corporate world to suck it as I've always wanted to do, and take this opportunity to become a professional bartender/writer/underground restauranteur.

Next Saturday's shindig is shaping up to be quite the reunion. I was already looking forward to seeing two of my oldest and dearest, and now it looks like more may make the trek. Well, the more the merrier, I always say, but in the interest of being unemployed I had to rejigger the menu a bit. After foraging in the pantry to see what I already had (obviously I want to buy as little as possible), this is what I came up with:

Same pork shoulder, but with BBQ sauce
Bourbon baked beans
Cajun smothered corn
Garlic bread
Homemade ice cream for dessert
Homemade pate and bread to start

It's lovely to have this to look forward to. And now I have extra time to clean. ;-) I have also, somehow, managed to meet someone. It's the craziest thing--I met him on Monday, and in five days we've have four dates and connected on a staggering variety of levels. When I got laid off on Wednesday, he took me out and helped me drown my sorrows--then we made out in front of my door for forty-five minutes like teenagers. I haven't done that in years. *Giggle, blush*

Pigs, both literally and figuratively

This weekend I had a trial run of the pork shoulder for the dinner party on the 21st. I just put it in a big cast iron Dutch oven and let it slow cook at 250 for about 9 hours. It came out drippingly tender, and I got a couple of gallons of pork broth out of the leftovers. It was a little bland on its own, though. This weekend I'm going to experiment with some sauces; I'm considering a pork demiglace (in which I would reduce those gallons of pork broth by about 2/3 on a slow simmer, to a deep concentrated essence-of-pork brown sauce) or a bacon chimichurri.

I'm also going to give the planned salad a pass--I'm sure I'll want to spend the time hanging out with my old friends, rather than plating salad. I think I'll just do a batch of my chicken liver pate, the old standby, with a big round homemade loaf of peasant bread.

Speaking of pigs, I rejoined match.com last week. And who should crop up immediately but all my exes from match. It's a sign from God, I know it. That was almost enough for me to cancel the whole thing. Fortunately I've managed to ignore the little voice in my head that's screaming "Run for the hills!" and have parlayed my anxieties into two very nice and perfectly acceptable dates. Which really, under the circumstances, is the best-case scenario. Now I'm battling what I call the girl part of my brain, in which I torment myself with questions like, "He hasn't emailed back. What does that mean? Should I email him? Wait, aren't I supposed to wait 24 hours? No, I'm supposed to wait for him to make the first move...he still hasn't called. What does that mean?"

Dating rules piss me off.

In which I consider new uses for a jar of blackberry syrup

While rummaging in the pantry last night, I discovered an unopened jar of my mom's blackberry syrup. She distills it every summer, and my sister likes to have it on pancakes instead of maple syrup. But I'm wondering if it wouldn't make a fine marinade for a big piece of meat. I might also be able to concoct some way to get it into a cocktail--cut with something and added to vodka, maybe? More research is necessary...

The five-year plan, revisited

Because it's winter and it's cold and I don't go outside voluntarily when it's snowing/the temperature is under 20 degrees, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life. I'm probably too introspective as it is, but such thoughts cannot be avoided in February. Here's the five-year plan I came up with recently:
This year: pay off credit cards.
Next year: pay off private student loans.
Year 3: save all that money.
Year 4: quit my life and go backpacking around South America until all that money runs out.
Year 5: come back, move somewhere warm, become a bartender and write crazy things on the side.

I'm pretty happy with this plan. But I noticed what WASN'T on the five-year plan.
1. Marriage. I'm not opposed to the idea of marriage. If I met the right person and he was really gung-ho about getting married, I could be convinced. But left to my own devices, I wouldn't seek it out. It would seriously cut into my ability to drop everything and go traveling.
2. Kids. Ditto above. If I met the right person, right now, and he was gung-ho about it, I could be convinced. But I'm definitely not seeking it out, and if five years go by and I have no kids, I'm fine with that. The older I get, the more small children seem like alien life forms to me. Scratch that--small children have always seemed like alien life forms to me. As do most men, for that matter.
3. A career. That's "a career" as opposed to "a paycheck." In my halcyon youth, I wanted to work for a theatre. I still do, but there's no way I could and still pay my bills. So I think I can now effectively cross that one off the list, as I can write play and theatre reviews in my spare time and get my theatre groove on that way. Having worked day jobs lo these many years to pay the bills, I can safely say I never want to work under a flourescent light, in a suit, ever again. Hence the appeal of bartending. My dear friend K quit the corporate world many years ago to become a day trader/dog walker, and she's very happy with that. She's my hero.
4. New York. I love New York. I will always love New York. No matter where I am in the world, I will always have to come back here on a regular basis. But it's cold in the winter, the summers are too short, it's way too friggin' expensive, it's hard to meet people, and I can't get good barbecue. I will admit to leaving New York once before, and it was a disastrous mistake--however, it was not of my own volition, and it was to a place I would never have picked on my own. If I moved for my own purposes, to a city I wanted to move to, I think I'd be much happier than the first time around. The Southerner in me is crying out for a slightly slower and much warmer way of life. Also for good barbecue.

Those that know me well won't be surprised by any of this, except possibly #4. But I still feel a little guilty for not wanting #1-4, like there's something wrong with me for rejecting the life path of most everyone else. While the rational part of my brain says, "Everyone takes a different path in life, you know perfectly well you don't need a husband/kids/house/career to be happy, quit throwing happiness away with both hands and crying for the moon," the non-rational part of my brain still says, "Why can't I be like everyone else? What's wrong with me?" Especially when I see how many of my friends are married/paired up/have kids these days.

So those of you reading this, who have struggled with the same issues, drop me a note to let me know I'm not alone in the world. I know the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but right now, I'd be happy to see ANY grass. Damn snow.

Menu planning

When I'm bored, I fantasize about either travel or food (go figure). Sometimes this takes the form of elaborate itinerary planning ("What's on sale this week? Hmmm...roundtrip flights to South Africa are on sale...Where would I go/eat/sleep if I flew to South Africa right now?") and sometimes I just plan elaborate dinner party menus in my head.

Fortunately, this week, I can plan a dinner party menu that is not in fact imaginary. Two very old and very dear friends will be visiting in a couple of weeks, and I'm pretty sure it'll be the first time they've laid eyes on each other in...12 years? 13? Far too long. So in their honor, I'm throwing a dinner. Here's what I've got so far:

Cocktail: bacon-infused bourbon (This is a good reason to try out that recipe!)

App: Proscuitto with peaches, sweet onion salad, and zinfandel dressing
Wine: Riesling

Dinner: some sort of slow-roasted pork shoulder, possibly sweet-tea cured
Gorgonzola/polenta cylinders
Braised rainbow chard
Wine: undetermined

Dessert: Fresh butter pecan ice cream, with a shot of bourbon or calvados poured over it. Or possibly a dried apricot/pistachio ice cream.

Feel free to invite yourselves over. The more, the merrier!

Theatre review: White People

“Guilt is not transferred through blood. I am clawing through life, just like everybody else!”
--Mara Lynn


White People is, as the name might suggest, about racism. Not the overt kind, but the small, subtle, hidden kind, the kind the playwright implies we all have hidden inside of us. Three different white people—a New York professor, a North Carolina housewife, and a Brooklyn-raised St. Louis white-shoe law firm partner—offer a series of interlaced soliloquies about, well, being white. They have nothing in common other than being white, but eventually their stories begin to intertwine when they have to confront an uncertain world.

Mara Lynn is a poor Southern housewife with a very sick little boy. He has to have a very radical and dangerous surgery, and she’s convinced the Indian neurosurgeon looks down on her. Her husband is trapped in a dead-end job, answering to a Latino foreman, and as her concern for her son mounts, she lashes out at immigrants and her lack of opportunity. Alan Harris is a prototypical professor; he lives in Stuyvesant Town, adores New York, and lectures passionately about Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch years of early New York. He has one particular gifted student, Felicia, who hails from Bed-Stuy. He’s morbidly fascinated by her world, the world of gold teeth, gang signs, and hood slang. He’s not so fascinated when two black men accost him and his pregnant wife, and while he tries to bury his anger, his relationship with Felicia will never be the same. Martin Bahmueller is a partner at a prestigious St. Louis law firm. He’s a perfectionist, a stickler for correct punctuation and grammar, and rules his firm with an iron fist. No button-down collars, no loafers, no rap music on the radio. His brand of racism is perhaps the most insidious—he freely owns up to it, wondering why he must treat his black secretary with kid gloves. His is the most tragic story, however; his hard-nosed perfectionism, combined with his (perhaps too literal) black-and-white view of the world, drive his teenage son to commit a truly horrific crime.

While the stories and characters are interesting, I was ultimately disappointed by the play. Playwright J.T. Rogers doesn’t go far enough—while we’re treated to a panorama of racism and liberal guilt, there’s a lack of commitment on everyone’s part. The characters aren’t truly ashamed, but they don’t fully embrace their feelings, either. They waffle back and forth, first angry, then embarrassed, then defiant. Don’t get me wrong, that’s exactly how it works in real life—but if a play is going to address racism in such an upfront manner, I expect danger, discomfort, and full devotion to the issue.

Gus Reyes’s direction keeps the actors in separate spheres, both literally and figuratively. Michael Shulman (Alan Harris), Rebecca Brooksher (Mara Lynn Doddson), and John Dossett (Martin Bahmueller) are all fine actors, and they do what they can with the material. But neither Martin nor Mara Lynn change or grow during the course of the play, and it’s hard to maintain momentum in a play with no real action, in which two of the three characters are static. And, frankly, it’s a little odd watching a play called White People in a room full of white people. No one seemed uncomfortable or embarrassed, despite the subject matter. Is liberal guilt dead? I wonder how this would play in Bed-Stuy.


Written by J.T. Rogers
Directed by Gus Reyes
With Michael Shulman (Alan Harris), Rebecca Brooksher (Mara Lynn Doddson), and John Dossett (Martin Bahmueller)
Set Design: John McDermott
Lighting Design: Less Dickert
Costume Design: Michael Sharpe
Sound Design: Elizabeth Rhodes
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission
Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West 16th Street; 212-279-4200
Tickets $45
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm, Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm
January 28—February 22, 2009

Theatre review: Flyovers

“He gave me a reunion beating. My homecoming is complete.”
--Oliver

If you’re having any doubts about going to your high school reunion, don’t go to Flyovers. It’s the story of Oliver, a famous film critic with his own syndicated TV show a la “Siskel and Ebert,” who returns to his small Ohio hometown for his 25th high school reunion. He hasn’t returned in years, and the town hasn’t exactly prospered; the one factory has been closed down, and the people he went to high school with are all struggling, economically and emotionally.

Oliver (Richard Kind) finds himself at the home of Ted (Kevin Geer) and his wife Lianne (Donna Bullock). Ted was a bully and the bane of Oliver’s high school existence, but 25 years later, they seem to be trying to find some sort of common ground. Ted obviously resents Oliver’s success, and is jealous of the fact that he managed to escape, but Oliver bears him no lasting ill will. After a few drinks, Iris (Michele Pawk) joins them. She’s a friend of Ted’s, and Oliver lets slip he had a crush on her in high school. But Ted and Iris have conspired to turn Oliver’s trusting naiveté against him, and soon Oliver learns that bullies never change.

The ending moments are meant to be optimistic, I think, but I found the play’s central message to be a depressing one—that people don’t change. That bully in high school will always be a mean-spirited bully, and if you leave home, you’ll never fit in there again. Kevin Geer as Ted and Michele Pawk as Iris seem to feel this way too—their portrayals are steeped in bitterness and thinly-disguised regret. Richard Kind as Oliver seems a little willfully blind to Ted and Iris’s shortcomings, but by the end, we see this more as acceptance. He knows his place in the world, and he knows deep down that Ted hasn’t changed. He puts his trust and his hope in Iris—let’s all hope she doesn’t let him down.

Sandy Shinner’s direction is simple and evocative, as are Robin Paterson’s sets. Jeffrey Sweet’s script is overly fond of pointing out in various subtle ways that Oliver doesn’t belong in Ohio and never will; Richard Kind’s Oliver knows this, and doesn’t seem upset by it. It’s a strange dichotomy; oddly, it works, at least half the time. While it doesn’t address any of the larger issues that crop up (anti-intellectualism and anti-Semitism are the two most obvious), this is a quietly meaty play—it’s food for thought.


Written by Jeffrey Sweet
Directed by Sandy Shinner
With Donna Bullock (Lianne), Kevin Geer (Ted), Richard Kind (Oliver), and Michele Pawk (Iris)
Set and Lighting Design: Robin A. Paterson
Costume Design: Caroline Berti
Sound Design: Craig Lenti
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission
78th Street Theatre Lab, 236 West 78th Street; 212-868-4444
Tickets $18
Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday and Monday at 7 pm; Sunday, February 15 at 2 pm and 7 pm
January 29—February 15, 2009

Crushes and Chekhov

I know, I really gotta start posting more often. But it's January, and it's cold, and it's so much effort to do anything... anyway. Because it's cold and I can't be bothered to go out when it's less than twenty degrees outside, I don't have much to report. I saw "The Cherry Orchard" at BAM on Tuesday with Ethan Hawke et al on Tuesday, directed by Sam Mendes. The tickets were courtesy of an ex, a completely random altruistic gesture. It may be the first time he's ever been actually kind to me. It was a great production, but I'm reminded of why I don't like Chekhov. Predictable, staid, dated, and soul-crushingly depressing in that bleak Russian way. I don't like anything that's predictable, especially my theatre.

I posted this on my Facebook page earlier, and it was fun to write. Reposting it here for entertainment value.

My Inexplicable Crush List
1. Sean Connery. I don't think this one is inexplicable at all--true, he's a wife-beating jerk in real life, but that voice...that accent...excuse me while I go have a private moment.
2. Hank Azaria. One of the very few truly talented working actors, who is also good-looking. Usually the two don't go together. And we gotta give him props for doing all those voices on "The Simpsons."
3. John Malkovich, circa "Dangerous Liasions." Not the most attractive man in the world, but that's not the point.
4. Tommy Lee Jones. He has actual, real-life gravitas. And his voice comforts me. I don't know why.
5. In seventh grade, I had the most awful crush on an eighth-grader named Troy. I'm sure he didn't know I existed; all my fantasies were based upon one completely random glance he gave me at AJ Skateworld.
6. In sixth grade, I had a crush on a guy named...Matt something. I don't remember now. I do remember I got up the nerve to tell him I had a crush on him. The next day, he ran over to my table at lunch, gave me a note, and ran away again. I was deliriously happy until I opened it, to discover it was just his used napkins from lunch, folded up. Everyone laughed.
7. In high school, I had a mad crush on Brian Peeler. Having learned my lesson from #6, I was content to worship from afar. He did know I existed, at least--we did a couple of plays together. I remember I gave him a candy cane for Christmas one year and he said I was his hero, because that would be his lunch for the day.
8. Adam Rapp. He's a playwright, I love love love his plays, and I want to marry him and have lots of little playwright babies. Well, not really, but he's a working playwright who's straight. What are the odds?
9. Jeremy Piven. I know, I know, a complete ass in real life and shorter than I am. Still, I've adored him (and his acting ability) ever since his cameo in "Say Anything." ("I love you, man!" "Chill! You must chill!")
10. Michael J. Fox. Pockets and I had the most all-consuming crush on him when we were 11 and 12. We watched every episode of "Family Ties," watched "Back to the Future" incessantly, bought teen magazines he was in, and concocted elaborate fantasies as to what we would do if his car ever broke down in Appomattox County and he had to come use one of our phones. We were weird kids.
11. I have a little work crush on someone at work. Not sayin' who.
12. Judd Apatow, and anyone who's ever been in a Judd Apatow movie or series (especially "Freaks and Geeks").