NYC OCTOBER 20-NOVEMBER 3, 2019
SUNDAY OCTOBER 20.
You know in theatre if a dress rehearsal is lousy the wisdom goes that opening night will be proportionally wonderful. By that calculation we’re gonna have a great trip.
First, we’ve got an early 6:25 first class flight on Alaska. We’re out in front with our carefully curated luggage dialing Uber. Minutes later Sam is selected from 8 drivers. But he’s 8 minutes away—ok. However the little Uber pictograph shows him unmoving across from the airport. Despite my texted questions and then entreaties as the minutes tick away, he auto replies, he’s looking for us, he’s here, etc. finally a half hour and dangerously later I call a cab which arrived forthwith. Our hearts are pounding and when we reach the ticketing counter 35 minutes in advance we are told we missed the flight, there’s a hard rule that you can’t board after 40 minutes, later to learn that luggage has been delayed on this flight and that is why we really can’t get on. So . . . After much telephonizing our direct flight which would have arrived at 3 pm in Newark will now start at 11:40, necessitating waiting with our luggage a couple of hours before we are able to go through screening and attempt to find the Airspace Lounge. And when will we after our wait in the stopover Seattle arrive at EWR? After midnight! Call car service. Call the Manhattan Club. Oy.
The Airspace Lounge—a familiar friend—offers some respite—I can get a chicken salad soft food removed from its wrap—yes restrictions—but that long wait. The flight to Seattle—1st Class hardly deserves its name on Alaska—offers an opportunity to mash a chicken burger and imbibe enough booze and narcotics to salve various inflammations.
MONDAY OCTOBER 21.
Need to catch up on sleep on our comfortable bedroom bed at the Manhattan Club considering the late arrival. Looking for the Brooklyn Diner around the corner. It’s gone. (We’ll discover a favorite we’ve been inhabiting for lunch for 20 years here in NCY Bit too is closed—is this an alien invasion??)
TOOTSIE.” It’s a really boring show.” This from Bob. I find it “diverting” and Santino Fontana’s performance as Dorothy Michaels, who Dustin Hoffman made famous in the long ago movie of the same name, is truly remarkable, deserving of his Tony. Singing confidently a capella in drag. But long ago is the operable term because there is a soupson of overcorrecting for its antediluvian incorrectness. (A straight actor getting ahead impersonating a woman.) But it’s a musical after all with music and lyrics—not entirely memorable—dance—unremarkable—and book—only intermittently witty. Though more feel-good in the second act so this will be a digestible antipasto for our fortnight of theatre in NYC.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 22.
AM. Advent of Dorothy, sisters-in-law from Delaware and Nancy youngest niece coming from NJ arriving almost simultaneously—both in the lobby by the time my elevator hits the floor. Much to catch up on both fronts with glasses of Prosecco. Nancy celebrating 6 months as bloodworker on the job, Dorothy on the eve of her 5th. Trip to Israel. Many complaints about people and places ameliorated by news of impending lunch at (soft on the chewing) Italian restaurant Becco on restaurant row.
Love this place, perennial favorite on restaurant row. $30 price fixe of antipasto-Nancy’s and mine, fishy and octopusy, hummus, OMG, Dot and Bob, Caesar salad. And then as much of three pasta dishes as we could accommodate accompanied by quite nice bottles of Duo Cabernet blend.
White Wine back at the suite.
Cab (necessary mode during D and N’s visit). Just give the doorman a fiver and it’s there. Nice front seat conversations with mostly Senagalese Africans—“there’s corruption “.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF In Yiddish at the 42nd street theatre complex. It’s a joy! I start
sobbing at the 1st sound of Mamaloschen, the mother tongue (it was my mother’s tongue after all) Yiddish. And for both my sister in law and me it was to continue throughout this wonderfully directed, by Joel Gray, fairly minimalist interpretation of the musical. Warhorse—adaptation of Sholem Alechem’s Tevye and his five wayward daughter’s story, their matrimonial defiance of tradition at the time of the pogroms. Brilliant acting, singing, dancing.
Rain and accompanying Nancy to the Port authority for her bus back. (Will eventuate that there’s an accident on the highway and she doesn’t get back home until 2 am. Oh my.)
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 23.
Yea. Pleasant Fall day sans rain. (Which with some exception looks like our happy lot on this trip.)
Love the so-called pop-up in the gorgeous Redeye restaurant around the corner, the so-called buffet upstairs at The Club being at 20 bucks inadequate to our needs. Vivacious Olivia (she’s got to be an actor—who isn’t) serves us potent bloody Mary’s. And then the lovely breakfast. Reuel tried his once-a-year coffee. Ok, go with it.
Saying goodbye to Dear Dorothy and looking forward to the much heralded, controversial Slave Play.
2: SLAVE PLAY at The Golden. Wow. Talk about intimidating a “fledgling “ playwright. Pushing boundaries—lots of simulated m/s sex onstage and therapy breakdowns. And it’s also funny. They acknowledge when the required playacting anti-bellum slave master (mistress)/slave seems unduly anachronistic. (There’s also—thank gods of live theatre—when a giant wheel barrow rolls off stage into the first row. Haul it up. “Are you all right?”) The Acting is unvarnishedly fantastic. 3 couples (ok add the therapy lesbian couple—academic psychologists being screwerd for their jargon approach to their theory that the black members of a couple are not understood.) The race conversation continues. it’s terrific theatre. The woman seated next to me covered her eyes during certain terribly watchable ribald scenes. Yup, terrific theatre.
Returning (and shaken) back for Eutopia’s Take out-/a treat and home-brewed martinis. Then it’s back to 47th Street and the lovely old Barrymore Theatre for the much heralded (Olivier award) and much-anticipated THE INHERITANCE PART 1.
Act one. Arresting. Particularly the contrast between the hilarity and satirical jubilance of the young contemporary bucks presided over by E. M. Forster himself in the opening half which melds into a half hour soliloquy by the older guy—recited by a riveting John Benjamin Hickey—directed to a young man about love and loss in the 80’s and AIDS.
Third act better be a punch in the gut. 2nd seems to be trying a bit hard to be all things to gay people. Bob finds it all engrossing. I diverting. We are within spitting distance
Not sure where it’s going—so gotta see Part 2. Will the inheritance, that which the struggles of the past (we old) can offer the young, The now be elucidated more coherently? We both agree the play is big and sprawling. But confusing, diffuse. Finally dissonant. The ending—so far—where
The AIDS dead greet the hero in a home where they died (a device famously employed in the film Long Time Companion years ago) is a cue for sentiment—finally manipulative. Not a masterpiece. We’ll see.
White Wine back at the suite.
Cab (necessary mode during D and N’s visit). Just give the doorman a fiver and it’s there. Nice front seat conversations with mostly Senagalese Africans—“there’s corruption “.
Will the inheritance, that which the struggles of the past (we old) can offer the young, The now be elucidated more coherently? We both agree the play is big and sprawling. But confusing, diffuse. Finally dissonant. The ending—so far—where
The AIDS dead greet the hero in a home where they died (a device famously employed in the film Long Time Companion years ago) is a cue for sentiment—finally manipulative. Not a masterpiece. We’ll see.
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at the Jacobs—so stylistically a departure from the work we’ve just seen, Slave Play and Inheritance, of the new wave of serious American playwrights. Stately, betrayed relationships in reverse chronology, beautifully acted (ooh Tom Hiddleston), and that (here understated) frightening Pinter ambiguity.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 20.
You know in theatre if a dress rehearsal is lousy the wisdom goes that opening night will be proportionally wonderful. By that calculation we’re gonna have a great trip.
First, we’ve got an early 6:25 first class flight on Alaska. We’re out in front with our carefully curated luggage dialing Uber. Minutes later Sam is selected from 8 drivers. But he’s 8 minutes away—ok. However the little Uber pictograph shows him unmoving across from the airport. Despite my texted questions and then entreaties as the minutes tick away, he auto replies, he’s looking for us, he’s here, etc. finally a half hour and dangerously later I call a cab which arrived forthwith. Our hearts are pounding and when we reach the ticketing counter 35 minutes in advance we are told we missed the flight, there’s a hard rule that you can’t board after 40 minutes, later to learn that luggage has been delayed on this flight and that is why we really can’t get on. So . . . After much telephonizing our direct flight which would have arrived at 3 pm in Newark will now start at 11:40, necessitating waiting with our luggage a couple of hours before we are able to go through screening and attempt to find the Airspace Lounge. And when will we after our wait in the stopover Seattle arrive at EWR? After midnight! Call car service. Call the Manhattan Club. Oy.
The Airspace Lounge—a familiar friend—offers some respite—I can get a chicken salad soft food removed from its wrap—yes restrictions—but that long wait. The flight to Seattle—1st Class hardly deserves its name on Alaska—offers an opportunity to mash a chicken burger and imbibe enough booze and narcotics to salve various inflammations.
MONDAY OCTOBER 21.
Need to catch up on sleep on our comfortable bedroom bed at the Manhattan Club considering the late arrival. Looking for the Brooklyn Diner around the corner. It’s gone. (We’ll discover a favorite we’ve been inhabiting for lunch for 20 years here in NCY Bit too is closed—is this an alien invasion??)
TOOTSIE.” It’s a really boring show.” This from Bob. I find it “diverting” and Santino Fontana’s performance as Dorothy Michaels, who Dustin Hoffman made famous in the long ago movie of the same name, is truly remarkable, deserving of his Tony. Singing confidently a capella in drag. But long ago is the operable term because there is a soupson of overcorrecting for its antediluvian incorrectness. (A straight actor getting ahead impersonating a woman.) But it’s a musical after all with music and lyrics—not entirely memorable—dance—unremarkable—and book—only intermittently witty. Though more feel-good in the second act so this will be a digestible antipasto for our fortnight of theatre in NYC.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 22.
AM. Advent of Dorothy, sisters-in-law from Delaware and Nancy youngest niece coming from NJ arriving almost simultaneously—both in the lobby by the time my elevator hits the floor. Much to catch up on both fronts with glasses of Prosecco. Nancy celebrating 6 months as bloodworker on the job, Dorothy on the eve of her 5th. Trip to Israel. Many complaints about people and places ameliorated by news of impending lunch at (soft on the chewing) Italian restaurant Becco on restaurant row.
Love this place, perennial favorite on restaurant row. $30 price fixe of antipasto-Nancy’s and mine, fishy and octopusy, hummus, OMG, Dot and Bob, Caesar salad. And then as much of three pasta dishes as we could accommodate accompanied by quite nice bottles of Duo Cabernet blend.
White Wine back at the suite.
Cab (necessary mode during D and N’s visit). Just give the doorman a fiver and it’s there. Nice front seat conversations with mostly Senagalese Africans—“there’s corruption “.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF In Yiddish at the 42nd street theatre complex. It’s a joy! I start
sobbing at the 1st sound of Mamaloschen, the mother tongue (it was my mother’s tongue after all) Yiddish. And for both my sister in law and me it was to continue throughout this wonderfully directed, by Joel Gray, fairly minimalist interpretation of the musical. Warhorse—adaptation of Sholem Alechem’s Tevye and his five wayward daughter’s story, their matrimonial defiance of tradition at the time of the pogroms. Brilliant acting, singing, dancing.
Rain and accompanying Nancy to the Port authority for her bus back. (Will eventuate that there’s an accident on the highway and she doesn’t get back home until 2 am. Oh my.)
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 23.
Yea. Pleasant Fall day sans rain. (Which with some exception looks like our happy lot on this trip.)
Love the so-called pop-up in the gorgeous Redeye restaurant around the corner, the so-called buffet upstairs at The Club being at 20 bucks inadequate to our needs. Vivacious Olivia (she’s got to be an actor—who isn’t) serves us potent bloody Mary’s. And then the lovely breakfast. Reuel tried his once-a-year coffee. Ok, go with it.
Saying goodbye to Dear Dorothy and looking forward to the much heralded, controversial Slave Play.
2: SLAVE PLAY at The Golden. Wow. Talk about intimidating a “fledgling “ playwright. Pushing boundaries—lots of simulated m/s sex onstage and therapy breakdowns. And it’s also funny. They acknowledge when the required playacting anti-bellum slave master (mistress)/slave seems unduly anachronistic. (There’s also—thank gods of live theatre—when a giant wheel barrow rolls off stage into the first row. Haul it up. “Are you all right?”) The Acting is unvarnishedly fantastic. 3 couples (ok add the therapy lesbian couple—academic psychologists being screwerd for their jargon approach to their theory that the black members of a couple are not understood.) The race conversation continues. it’s terrific theatre. The woman seated next to me covered her eyes during certain terribly watchable ribald scenes. Yup, terrific theatre.
Returning (and shaken) back for Eutopia’s Take out-/a treat and home-brewed martinis. Then it’s back to 47th Street and the lovely old Barrymore Theatre for the much heralded (Olivier award) and much-anticipated THE INHERITANCE PART 1.
Act one. Arresting. Particularly the contrast between the hilarity and satirical jubilance of the young contemporary bucks presided over by E. M. Forster himself in the opening half which melds into a half hour soliloquy by the older guy—recited by a riveting John Benjamin Hickey—directed to a young man about love and loss in the 80’s and AIDS.
Third act better be a punch in the gut. 2nd seems to be trying a bit hard to be all things to gay people. Bob finds it all engrossing. I diverting. We are within spitting distance
Not sure where it’s going—so gotta see Part 2. Will the inheritance, that which the struggles of the past (we old) can offer the young, The now be elucidated more coherently? We both agree the play is big and sprawling. But confusing, diffuse. Finally dissonant. The ending—so far—where
The AIDS dead greet the hero in a home where they died (a device famously employed in the film Long Time Companion years ago) is a cue for sentiment—finally manipulative. Not a masterpiece. We’ll see.
White Wine back at the suite.
Cab (necessary mode during D and N’s visit). Just give the doorman a fiver and it’s there. Nice front seat conversations with mostly Senagalese Africans—“there’s corruption “.
Will the inheritance, that which the struggles of the past (we old) can offer the young, The now be elucidated more coherently? We both agree the play is big and sprawling. But confusing, diffuse. Finally dissonant. The ending—so far—where
The AIDS dead greet the hero in a home where they died (a device famously employed in the film Long Time Companion years ago) is a cue for sentiment—finally manipulative. Not a masterpiece. We’ll see.
THURSDAY in New York: Steaks at Porterhouse Restaurant at the Time Warner; a stroll through Central Park; drinks with Diversionary’s Matt Morrow at the Algonquin; Inheritance Part 2 at The Barrymore; and supping at our NY home away from home at at the Manhattan Club
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at the Jacobs—so stylistically a departure from the work we’ve just seen, Slave Play and Inheritance, of the new wave of serious American playwrights. Stately, betrayed relationships in reverse chronology, beautifully acted (ooh Tom Hiddleston), and that (here understated) frightening Pinter ambiguity.
nd the corner where a mediocre obsessively desired cheeseburger is nirvana.
As to THE STORM INSIDE, it’s a lovely piece of theatre and M. L. Parker is a master class in naturalistic acting. She a middle aged professor facing a life threatening disease and her preternaturally smart and talented freshman creative writing student. Dark subject matter—death wish, suicide, loss of young hope—Ay Yai yai but Adam Rapp is a consummate poetic playwright of those themes here beautifully represented.
Imagine passing Harvey Fierstein on the street—no doubt from his matinee performance as Bella Abzug—and then to catch some sushi with martinis before the evening event.
THE GREAT SOCIETY, at Lincoln Center’s terrific 3/4 round Beaumont Theatre. Sorry, we saw part one by the same playwright, All The Way with Brian Cranston, engrossing, but this was diffuse, got Lyndon Johnson’s frustration with Martin Luther King on one hand, the escalating Vietnam War and political pressures on the other, but it was simply not dramatically pertinent in its presentation and Cox star of TV’s Succession, tended to scream through his role. We remember LBJ. He was no LBJ.
As to THE STORM INSIDE, it’s a lovely piece of theatre and M. L. Parker is a master class in naturalistic acting. She a middle aged professor facing a life threatening disease and her preternaturally smart and talented freshman creative writing student. Dark subject matter—death wish, suicide, loss of young hope—Ay Yai yai but Adam Rapp is a consummate poetic playwright of those themes here beautifully represented.
Imagine passing Harvey Fierstein on the street—no doubt from his matinee performance as Bella Abzug—and then to catch some sushi with martinis before the evening event.
THE GREAT SOCIETY, at Lincoln Center’s terrific 3/4 round Beaumont Theatre. Sorry, we saw part one by the same playwright, All The Way with Brian Cranston, engrossing, but this was diffuse, got Lyndon Johnson’s frustration with Martin Luther King on one hand, the escalating Vietnam War and political pressures on the other, but it was simply not dramatically pertinent in its presentation and Cox star of TV’s Succession, tended to scream through his role. We remember LBJ. He was no LBJ.
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