Humana Fest 2013 - part one

Last week, a couple of colleagues and I went to Kentucky for the Humana Festival of New American Plays.  I always enjoy heading to Louisville - the food is good, the people are generally nice and the theater is buzzing.  If I don't always love the plays themselves, oh well.  I think this year, I'll divide the posts into days.  We left on Thursday...

Wow, the Delta terminal at LaGuardia is fancy schmancy!  Every booth has its own iPad!  You can order food and someone will bring it to you!  Though I got my own snack, which was a lemon blueberry danish from Balthazar.  Pricey, but oh so good.  It was amusing to see so many NY theater types on the same plane heading down to Louisville.  I thought it was a pretty safe bet that the plane wouldn't crash, or else a lot of organizations would be in trouble.  Though I did get nervous when a guy in front of me tried to change seats and the flight attendant made him move back.  Because she had already done the weight allowance, and since the plan was 'nose heavy,' he needed to stay put.  Uh, ok.  So, my fear of crashing was minimal, but my fear of flying in a 45 degree angle, nose down, increased.   

The flight to Louisville was quiet, thankfully, and we did not land on our nose.  Our first event, however, was at the University of Kentucky, so we hopped into a rental car and drove about an hour to Lexington.  By the time we got to our hotel (lobby photo at left), we were STARVING, so, since our rooms weren't ready for check-in, we went across the street to deSha's, a nice pub-type place.  I had my first of many glasses of sweet tea, and the first of several plates of fried green tomatoes (yum), alongside a bbq chicken sandwich.  I was a bad vegetarian on the trip.  Please don't report me.  The restaurant was casual and fun, with a gorgeous bar that the server told us was from the 1800s.  Nice. 

 

Because I'm me, I did a ton of research about Lexington, knowing we would be there a few hours before our work event.  We didn't get to go on vacations much when I was growing up, so now, whenever I go to a new city, I like to go exploring.  What I really wanted to see was the Mary Todd Lincoln House, one of the late first lady's girlhood homes.  I got to see the outside of the house, but unfortunately, I got there too late to take a tour.  The gal wouldn't let me wander around the house myself (darn her), but she did let me take a peekaloo at the sitting room by the front door.  No photos, though.  Darn her again.  It was lovely, though, and I really wish I had gotten there in time for the tour.  Oh well.  Next time.  To console myself, I stopped and got some ice cream.  Brown sugar ice cream with chocolate-covered pretzels inside.  Jeepers, it was tasty.  :)

 

There were actually quite a few homes I could've toured, had I gotten started earlier.  The architecture around the area was really nice - some of the houses were from the 1800s, which was cool.  There was also a very nice park.  I'll include more photos at the bottom.  I'll also include some photos I got at U of K, which was a picturesque campus.  The event we had there went quite well, and we had a tasty post-event dinner at Table Three-Ten.  I got an appetizer portion of lobster mac & cheese, which was amazing, though really rich.  Thank heavens I didn't get the dinner portion!  Oh, and sometime, if you're interested, I'll do the readers theater version of the very odd woman who was very oddly hitting on me throughout dinner...

 

FRIDAY:  After a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we got back into our trusty rental car and headed to Louisville.  We had planned to make a stop at a mall on our way there, because all of us forgot to pack at least one thing we'd probably need over the weekend.  Our GPS got all wonky though, and didn't lead us to a mall.  Then it turned off.  So I guess the GPS was mad at us.  Good thing Louisville is easy to find. 

 

We got to Louisville in time to have some lunch at Doc Crow's, the barbecue restaurant we all loved last year.  Of course, we had some fried green tomatoes, to start our meal.  I decided not to get anything else, since we were headed right to the theater after lunch and I generally don't eat before performances.  Besides, we'd be having dinner at another of our favorite restaurants later on, so I figured I needed to save some room.  But our boss loved Doc Crow's so much, he made another reservation for us to have dinner there on Saturday.  Worked for me!  More fried green tomatoes!!

 

Our first official Humana event was a panel discussion on directing new plays.  The panel included most of the directors represented at Humana this year and it was pretty lively and interesting.  The moderator did a good job of keeping things moving, the general atmosphere was light, yet serious, and on the whole, it was pretty respectful about the writer.  There were a couple of comments that could've caused a quibble, but oh well.  And there was one panelist with very annoying vocal mannerisms, but oh well again.  All in all, it was an interesting hour and a good way to start our afternoon.  After the panel, our first production was The Delling Shore by Sam Marks.  The play dealt with two father/daughter combos, one coming to visit the other.  What happens over the very brief visit comprises the 90-minute play.  I have to admit I wasn't really on board with this one.  I thought the playwright buried his intent (or what I think was his intent) a little too deep, and it came too little too late.  My radar is always turned up when a play is about writers, and this time was no exception.  It seems to be really difficult to write about writers without making them so pretentious.  And when the characters started playing a literary game that caused them to stop the action and write down their 'ideas,' it was hard for me to get back onboard again each time.  I wasn't really convinced by the acting, either, so I have to say this first piece wasn't my cup of tea.

 

After the play, we went to another of our favorite restaurants, Proof on Main, for dinner.  It's just such a fun space, inside a hotel, which is inside a museum.  There's always something to look at, and the staff is high-spirited.  I generally have a smile when I'm there.  I had read in Food & Wine magazine that Proof on Main's charred octopus appetizer was one of their favorite dishes in the country last year, so I decided to order that.  Oh, wow, was it DELICIOUS!  The octopus was so tender, and it was served in a garlicky bagna cauda, with lime and toast.  That was some serious garlicky deliciousness.  I also got a side order of crispy fingerling potatoes, which were SO not vegetarian, since they were cooked in bone marrow.  Oops.  But, my goodness, they were yummy!  There were served with frisee and a really tasty vinaigrette that paired nicely with the rich marrow-cooked potatoes.  I give a huge thumbs up to that meal.  We were too full for dessert, but our adorable server brought over a complimentary dish of cotton candy.  Perfect.  Light and sweet and just a couple of bites.  Once again, a terrific dinner at Proof on Main.

 

Our last show of the evening was Appropriate, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.  I've been hearing a lot about Jacobs-Jenkins recently - he's won quite a few emerging playwright awards, so I was looking forward to seeing the play.  Appropriate deals with a family come together to dispose of their dead father's estate.  There's a put-upon sister, a brother and his wife, and the prodigal brother who's been missing for the past ten years.  While they're all arguing and cleaning up for an estate sale, they find a disturbing set of photos - an album of lynchings.  How everyone responds to these photos, and what they may mean about their father, and themselves, is what drives the piece.  I found much of this play engaging, though I thought the first act was more successful than the second.  The second act, at least at the beginning, just was more of the same with the squabbling siblings.  It seemed to me as if the idea of these adults growing up with a racist could've been mined a little more deeply.  The characters are sharply drawn, but more detail into the 'why' instead of the 'what' could push this play into headier territory.  In my opinion, of course.  There was some good dialogue and some juicy ideas - I could've just seen them sharpened.  The acting was quite good in this one, though I did find one of the actors got lost in their physical life and sort of lost control a bit, which I found off-putting.  But maybe that was the intent.  The ending surprised me, which was cool.  Well, the ending of the spoken text.  There was actually a three or four minute coda that completely stumped me.  I had no idea what was going on and really no idea about what it meant or what the playwright wanted me to feel because of it.   I believe Appropriate is going to have a future life at other theaters in the near future, so I'll be interested in hearing about its progress.  I do think there's something there.

 

So ended our first two days of a Kentucky adventure.  Two more days, plus an unfun finish, to be described in the next post.  Enjoy the photos!