Mysteries of popularity

Good golly, I've been blogging for two years!  I tell you, time just goes too quickly.  OK, if you're wondering why I always seem preoccupied with time, I think it's because of my mother.  She's a real 'glass is half empty' kind of person.  Instead of saying, 'oh, I'm so glad Christmas is here', she says, 'Christmas is almost over for another year!'  Or, 'I can't wait until spring/summer/you get here/whatever' is always paired with 'I can't believe it's gone already!'  I'm constantly reminding her to enjoy the present, but it's a losing battle.  I try, really hard, to live in the now, I guess as a reaction to my mom, but sometimes, the ticking clock rears its ugly head.

Anyway, blah blah blah, therapy session over.  I thought it would be fun to look at my stats and see which posts have been viewed the most over the past two years.  Who would guess over 7,000 people have chanced onto my blog!  Mind-blowing!  Below are the top 10 posts; I probably wouldn't have guessed any of them.  I was SURE that Barry Manilow would've snuck in here! :)

• ABT - Sleeping Beauty, 7/7/11, 182 views
• Post-Italy-trip-report-thoughts, 5/12/12, 107 views
• ABT - Le Corsaire, 7/3/12, 88 views
• Review - Heartless, 8/15/12, 88 views
• ABT at City Center, 10/19/12, 72 views
• Weekend with John Kander, 6/4/12, 70 views
• ABT - Onegin, 6/5/12, 69 views
• ABT - Firebird, Apollo, 6/12/12, 66 views
• ABT - Romeo and Juliet, 6/18/12, 58 views
• Happy Tennis Week - the best of the rest, 8/29/12, 57 views

Let's see, what's the takeaway?  Clearly, I need to see more ballet and I need to take more trips.   Perhaps I should start following ABT around the world and just blog about that...

I have been toying with the idea of retracing the steps of the Two Fat Ladies.  Remember their show?  I loved it!  They always went to such quaint towns and villages and met lovely people.  On wikipedia, there's a list of all their episodes and where they went.  I think it would be fun to blog about hitting all those towns - thoughts?  It could be my big 5-0 trip goal.

Here's to more blogging!  And perhaps a winning lottery ticket.  Money to see things would make blogging much easier.  ;)

watching time fly by :)

Humana Fest 2013 - part three

Sunday morning started off great - an old college chum picked me up and we went to brunch at Toast on Market.  I had read about the place before, so I was happy to try it.  And I'm always happy to spend time with an old friend!  Our server was a charmer, with a big smile on his face.  I decided I wanted to order three things off the a la carte menu, since everything sounded so good, I wanted to try as much as possible.  He thought that was funny.  And then he brought me my food on two plates.  Which was goofy, but it made me laugh.  When I clapped at how good my plates looked, he laughed again.  He said he likes making people clap.  I should've said honey, stick with me.  But I didn't. 

OK, seriously, that food was DELICIOUS!  I got the lemon souffle pancake, which was light and rich and lemony and sweet, all at the same time.  IN A PANCAKE.  Yum.  I also got one egg (always a favorite) and their potato casserole, which was also yum yummy.  Thumbs way up for Toast on Market!  I definitely have to take the work guys there with me next time!  Oh, and our adorable server also came and told me happy birthday when he saw me opening the wonderful gift my wonderful friend gave me.  I love a cute server with good manners. 

 

After brunch, one of my work pals and I went to the Louisville Slugger museum and then just wandered around town, enjoying the beautiful weather.  Then it was time for our last production, Gnit, by Will Eno.  I've heard about Will Eno for years but I've never seen one of his plays.  I have, however, been in a production of Peer Gynt, which Gnit is loosely based on.  So I'll admit to having some pre-conceived notions before the show began.

 

I enjoyed a lot of Gnit - it had some terrific dialogue and the physical production was amazing.  The actors were all terrific (well, I thought one was perhaps misdirected).  I enjoyed how it stayed true to Ibsen's plot, but yet made its own statement.  I also greatly enjoyed Eno's conceit of having a very few actors play a great many characters (including one actor who played the WHOLE TOWN - genius).  But I think, as a whole, the methodology of putting this production together made the whole become less than the sum of its parts.  Or something.

 

Eno has some very offbeat language and has written rather esoteric and arch passages.  The play is directed in a very arch, presentational way.  And Peter Gnit is acted as a smug and arch jerk.  That's a lot of offputtingness (thank you, I just made that word up).  If one of the pieces of the puzzle, such as the actor, had played against the irony, I think the production would've been more successful for me.  And an actor who inspired compassion and affection would make the pathos and sadness of the emptiness of Gnit's life even more tragic.  At least, that's how I saw it.  Most of the audience members were happy with the production just as it was.  So...there you have it.

 

Again, I wasn't blown away by any of the productions at Humana, but I was happy with the breadth and scope of the writers chosen and the topics they chose to write about, so I have hope that the new regime is headed in the right direction.  But I always enjoy my time at Actors Theatre of Louisville - the whole festival runs like a beautiful Swiss clock.  The staff, the volunteers, the locals all make the experience so joyous.  Thumbs WAY up.

 

After our last show, we had the dinner I was most looking forward to.  I again didn't get a reservation at 610 Magnolia, with Chef Edward Lee, but we did get a reservation to his new casual/small plates restaurant, MilkWood, that just happens to be in the basement of Actors Theatre!  What a coincidence!  We had heard great things all weekend from people who ate there, so my work pals and I were really looking forward to it.  The renovation of the space is really terrific - there used to be a cafe downstairs that was dark and not very attractive.  Now, it's all wood and exposed brick and light.  Very conducive to a good meal!

I opted to go for the pre-theatre menu, even though we weren't seeing another show that night.  I ordered the charred romaine salad appetizer - it had grapefruit, warm ricotta and some pepitas (I think).  It was delicious!  Lots of textures and flavors that went really well together.  My main course was the fish of the day, striped bass, with a celery root puree, apples and radicchio.  This dish was also delicious, though I have to say the proportion of radicchio to fish seemed off.  Too much bitterness.  And there was very little celery root puree, which was disappointing, because it was so good!  Next time I go, though, I think I'll get what one of my work pals ordered, the smothered miso chicken.  I had a taste - it was amazing!  For dessert, I got the vanilla pot de creme, covered with a rich chocolate ganache and berries, with a small tuile that had sea salt on it.  Wow!!!!  So rich, so delicious.  And the perfect small size.  I generally can't eat a three course meal, but this one was just right.  My work pals also enjoyed their meal, thankfully, so hooray!  AND we got to say hello to Chef Lee on our way out, which was a nice bonus.  After dinner, a work pal and I went to have one last mint julep before heading home.  My mint julep was so large and so strong, I couldn't finish it.  But it was a nice way to end the trip.

 

Or...so I thought.  We got back to the hotel around 9:30.  By midnight, I was pretty sick.  I don't know if I got food poisoning, or if it was a virus, but let's just say I was a semi-permanent resident in my bathroom for many hours.  We were supposed to check out of the hotel at 6am Monday morning.  At 5am, I texted my work mates and said there was no way I could get onto a plane in my condition.  They scurried and helped me out by booking my hotel room for me for another night.  I called Delta and paid extra to get on a flight for the next day.  And I spent the rest of Monday in and out of the Marriott Downtown Louisville hotel bathroom.  I'm sure housekeeping got a fright when I had to call them and get them to send up more toilet paper.  After awhile, things calmed down and I laid on the bed and watched movies on HBO.  I guess it was good to see some movies I hadn't seen before (Crazy, Stupid, Love = really good; We Bought A Zoo = would've been a Lifetime or Hallmark Channel movie starring Ricky Schroeder had Matt Damon not signed on; When Harry Met Sally and It's Complicated were movie-comfort-goodness), and I dozed most of the day, but I definitely would've preferred to end my trip on a happy note, with happy food memories.  I hate to pin food poisoning on such a nice restaurant, so I'm trying to stretch my imagination and think I got a sudden stomach flu, or maybe it was just because I ate so much all weekend, or maybe it was karmic repayment for being so mean about avoiding that former co-worker, but...it's difficult.

 

My college chum kindly drove me to the airport on Tuesday morning.  When I was getting ready, I couldn't figure out why my face was so red.  When looking more closely, I noticed that I had dozens of broken capillaries and broken blood vessels around my eyes and nose!  That's gross!  Yet another reason to not be a bulemic.  But I put on a lot of makeup and got out of there.  The trip home was uneventful, no one mentioned anything about being nose heavy, and I spent another day laying around and dozing while watching tv.  There are worse things, I guess.  Things are better now, but I think I won't be ordering any striped bass again any time soon...

 

 

Humana Fest 2013 - part two

Saturday morning, we had a 10am show offsite, so we just grabbed a coffee at the hotel Starbucks before heading over to Lincoln Elementary School (where the show was playing).  We got there a little early, so we wandered around the neighborhood for a bit.  What a cute little area!  There were funky shops and interesting restaurants, and then we discovered this chalkboard sign:  Before I die...  and people answered the question.  It was really interesting to read people's answers!  Of course, we had to write something down, too.  You can probably find mine, if you try.  But I just thought it was an interesting thing to randomly discover in the middle of town.

 

So the first show was Sleep Rock Thy Brain, the play commissioned for Humana's acting apprentice company.  Historically, the acting apprentice shows are hit-or-miss, as far as I'm concerned; they're generally written around a specific topic.  According to the press materials that Actors Theatre of Louisville gave out, this one started out by thinking about "the boundaries of dramatic storytelling through aerial choreography."  This is probably why the show was presented at Lincoln Elementary School, which has a large space where aerial rigging could be constructed. 

 

Sleep Rock Thy Brain is comprised of three short plays - Comfort Inn by Rinne Groff, Dreamerwake by Anne Washburn, and nightnight by Lucas Hnath.  Of the three pieces, my favorite was the third, by Lucas Hnath.  His play dealt with astronauts on the International Space Station, so it was very clever to see the three astronauts suspended throughout, while Mission Control peeps sat beneath them.  I thought the idea of sleep deprivation in space was a very interesting one, and I thought the dialogue was crisp and clear.  I just thought all the pieces fell together very well in this play.  The first two, while interesting and intermittently engaging, were less successful.  And I'm not sure they showed the acting apprentice company to their best advantage, though all of the kids seemed good sports with all the athletic workouts they got through the flying choreography.

 

After the three playlets, we stopped at Sol Aztecas for a little lunch.  We were there a little before opening, but we stood outside with another group waiting for them to open.  There was a little guy, maybe three years old, who put himself in charge of opening the restaurant door.  He was adorable.  I got the enchilada lunch special and it was perfectly tasty.  Not too spicy, which I appreciated, but I didn't finish all those refried beans.  I did have more shows to watch, you know...

 

After lunch, I wandered over to the local CVS to pick up a few things, then went to the hotel room for a little liedown.  Humana can be exhausting, so it's best to rest whenever possible.  Though I did feel guilty about not partaking more of the sunshiny weather.  Oh well.  Our next play was Cry Old Kingdom, by Jeff Augustin.  This piece is set in Haiti in 1964, amidst the rumblings of revolution.  We meet Edwin, a painter who has pretended to be dead for many years to avoid political issues; Henri, a young man who wishes to leave Haiti; and Judith, Edwin's wife, who is itching for revolution and who finds it hard to be married to a 'dead' man.  The interactions of the three characters are interesting and I was very intrigued by this world I haven't seen dramatized before, but I do think the play seems like an early draft.  Many themes and ideas are thrown out, but not all are followed through.  The scenes seem to repeat themselves until we get to a conclusion that completely took me by surprise, and not in a good way - I would think this choice should've been hinted at somewhere earlier in the play, but I don't think it was explored deeply enough.  I would be very interested in seeing how this play develops, however, I thought the language was very beautiful and there was lovely imagery and character development, it's just the plotting seemed too casual for my tastes.  The physical production was gorgeous and the final image was stunning.  So I'm definitely going to try to keep Jeff Augustin on my theatrical radar.

Oh, guess what?  It was time for more food.  Geez, it seems like we ate the entire time we were in Louisville.  We went back to Doc Crow's, and I had more sweet tea and fried green tomatoes.  This time, we also added a little key lime pie to the mix.  Yum.

After dinner, we went back to the theater to see Guru, Guru, Guru, or why I don't want to go to yoga class with you, by Mallery Avidon.  This was a very interesting, and confusing, piece.  It was around 90 minutes, and had three sections.  The first section was a lecture, rather Spalding Gray-like (she even invoked Spalding's name at one point), given by a gal talking about why she can't go to yoga anymore - she grew up in an ashram, but grew disillusioned by the lack of spiritual guidance and the growth of corporate greed.  The 'lecture' is rather rambly, without much of a point (though there is some interesting dialogue in there), and then the lecturer walks off stage.  The audience is sitting there, wondering if the play is over.  Finally, a lovely lady in a sari comes onstage, and a 'satsang' is begun.  The audience now is in a yoga class, and members of the audience are invited onstage to be part of the class.  It takes quite a while for all of the people who wish to participate to take off their shoes, put the shoes in the cubby, get a name tag, find a pillow to sit on, and sit in the prescribed lines.  The lull didn't really help the forward motion of the piece.  After everyone is settled in, we were led through a chant and some meditation, then we saw a shadow puppet reenactment of the Hindu god Ganesh.  Um, ok, the costumes were pretty and the shadow puppet thing was cute for the first few minutes, but it went on way too long and then...we hear a whistle.  A film crew person then asks all the audience members to return to their seats (they'll get their shoes back later) while they set up the next shot.  And the next thing we know, Julia Roberts (played by Khrystyne Haje) comes on stage, because the preceding scene was actually a scene from Eat, Pray, Love.  So the final third of the piece is Julia Roberts dispensing advice to the gal we saw in the first section, because she's now an extra in the film.  This was completely unexpected, and since Julia Roberts isn't my favorite actress, I found myself resisting this final third. I guess it was interesting that a movie star would be able to spiritually help the gal much more than the yoga can.  Or something.  But ultimately, it seemed to say what so many current plays say, oh, I have everything, yet, I'm so dissatisfied.  Although at least Julia Roberts calls her on it.  This play was perplexing and definitely went on too long, but I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it.  There's something to be said for that.

 

Saturday was a long day, right?  Well, it wasn't over yet.  At the end of the night, we saw the winners of the American Theatre Critics Association's new play awards, which was exciting, then we saw three ten-minute plays.  I thought all three of the ten-minute plays had excellent ideas, and good starting off points, and then went off the rails and were unsuccessful.  Which is depressing.  After the plays, there was a reception in the lobby of the theater and I suddenly became a crazy person, trying to avoid seeing a former co-worker with whom I had a rather acrimonious parting.  It was nuts.  But I did eventually get to meet Top Chef: Texas contestant Chef Edward Lee.  His restaurant was catering the reception.  And I was so excited because I was going to eat in that restaurant tomorrow night!

 

You know what, this post is way too long already.  I'll post some fun photos below and finish in a third post.  Because Sunday/Monday need their own post... ;)

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review - Good With People

After spending a long weekend in Kentucky for work (that blog post is forthcoming), I had originally intended to try a new restaurant with a handsome chum last night.  However, he had read a rave review for a new play over at 59E59 in their Brits Off-Broadway festival, so we decided to check that out instead.  Once again, theater trumps food (which probably was for the best, which you'll read about in the previously mentioned upcoming post).

 

Good With People, by David Harrower, has had several productions in England and Scotland, but is now enjoying its US premiere.  Only 55 minutes long, this play still packs quite a punch.  At least it did for me.  A two-character piece, Good With People looks at how people are defined, yet run from, their past.  We meet Helen, a hotel clerk, who gives us a brief description of how her town has changed in the years since the nuclear base set up.  You can hear the wistfulness as she describes what used to be.  When the single hotel guest checks in, we see how people can suddenly strike sparks with each other, either positively or negatively. 

We discover that the hotel guest, Evan, once bullied Helen's young son.  It happened over ten years ago, yet that event defined Helen's life.  She never saw her son in the same way and their relationship disintegrated.  She never saw her town or herself in the same way again, either, and she has let herself become estranged from her son and husband.  Once Evan walks in, she's confronted with the reality of what she's done, and she's both attracted and repulsed by this young man, who forces her to look at herself and her behavior.  Though Evan has a past to run from as well.  His childhood in the town was a sad one, with people looking down on him because his family worked for the nuclear base.  He has always felt like an outsider, and tried to get away, but couldn't resist the pull to come back.  He became a nurse and has been volunteering in Pakistan, where he ran into some bullies of his own.

 

I just really identified with both of these characters - I identified with Helen's hanging on to the idea of her life instead of living it, and her hunger for a connection that she just can't grasp.  I also identified with Evan's feelings of being an outsider.  He had one line that just made me sit up a little straighter (I'm paraphrasing and got a little assist from the handsome chum): "I always felt stupid saying something intelligent here."  I can really relate to that, as someone who grew up in a small town where education and intelligence weren't really valued.  But many of the ideas were interesting to me - bullying, small town class warfare, personal responsibility, guilt and forgiveness.  Really, there was a lot to experience in this brief piece.

 

Anyway, I found their dance around their pasts and their futures really intriguing, and I was also very intrigued by the staging.  Props would appear and disappear and I have no idea how they got there.  It was sort of magical.  The fact that theater magic was happening in this tiny space, with nothing more than one rug and a chair (and two terrific actors), was a special treat.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, my handsome chum did not have the same experience.  I'm sorry he didn't enjoy the production as much as I did, but, hey, we did have a nice chat afterwards.  There is nothing wrong with a show that starts at 7:15, is over by 8:10, and you can have a good chat, head your separate ways, then still get home by 10.  Thumbs up from me.  :)      

Review - King Executioner

I am a big fan of puppets and marionettes.  To me, they just personify theatrical magic.  I've been fortunate to see many wonderful productions featuring marionettes in my theatrical lifetime - some of my favorites were companies from China and Italy - I've even seen a Kabuki production using puppets!  I just love them.  So, when I saw that Theater for the New City would be presenting a show featuring marionettes from Czechoslovakia, I was in!  Truth be told, after working with the National Theatre of Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, I was doubly in!  I should've known that my level of excitement could only lead to disappointment...

 

Because I'm me, I got so excited about the Czech part of the marionette company (and the mention of klezmer music!), I didn't notice the '-American' part in their troupe name.  So, I'm thinking my handsome chum and I got a little bit of a watered down version of this puppet theater.  The company has been around for quite a long time, but I hadn't heard of them before.  I had read some of their background material and I probably should've also paid more attention to the line "...conceives each character as a double - live performer and puppet - with inner dialogues being revealed amid several levels of subtext."  Um, ok.  I'm guessing that particular part of their company aesthetic didn't penetrate my brain, because when the doubling happened, I was unprepared.  But I didn't see several layers of subtext.  What I saw was a troupe of not-great actors, speaking not-great text as if they were doing a college level improv piece, and not nearly enough puppet magic.  But I guess I had too many pre-show stars in my eyes to prepare myself for the problems. 

 

There were six or seven rows in the theater, but there was no onstage platform for the action featuring the puppets.  Therefore, much of the action was completely hidden from people in the back few rows (which, of course, included us).  Even if I wasn't completely enthralled with what they were doing, I still would've liked to have seen it.  I had read the scenario beforehand, but, the text itself was so meandering and non-specific, there was really no way to connect to anything.  And I found myself really unhappy with the actor/ marionette doubling technique.  I just didn't think wrapping a marionette around your neck while you made out with another actor illuminated the text in any way.  Perhaps that was just me. 

There were a few magical moments, when the marionettes took center stage, but they were few and far between.  It was a looooooooooooooooooong 90 minutes, and if there hadn't been live klezmer music, the evening would've seemed much longer and much more boring.  As it was, I wasn't nearly as enchanted as I wanted to be, and occasionally, I was a bit ticked off.  Again, I guess that's partly my fault for not having done as much research as I could've.  But, hello, whatever happened to just going to a show and experiencing it IN THAT MOMENT?!  I guess for $10, it could've been much worse.  After all, I did get to have drinks, and then post-show ice cream, with a handsome chum, which is worth much more than $10.  I will just put this experience out of my mind and go back to remembering the Quanzhou Marionette Theater and that monkey puppet riding the bike...