Hawleyblog

Wishful Drinking and Othello

On Tuesday night, Missy, Nate, and I saw Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher's highly entertaining one-woman show at Studio 54. Fisher was very funny and utterly charming on stage. She blew off most of her fans at the stage door, though, so major points off to girlfriend for that. She signed only a handful of autographs and posed for one photo before being whisked away in a waiting car. *sigh*

Once it got rolling, and it didn't take long, I enjoyed every minute of the show, especially the inside-Hollywood stuff about Fisher's family, including her parents' new spouses/lovers and their offspring; the outside-Hollywood folksy wisdom of her Texan maternal grandmother; and the stories about George Lucas and the blockbusters that made her masturbation material for millions of teenage boys. (A quick bit of Star Wars trivia: Christopher Walken was seriously considered for the role of Han Solo. Yikes.) Even though she's had a very difficult life, particularly being hospitalized for treatment of manic-depression, there's not a moment where she plays her past for sympathy; she's looking only for laughs.

If you plan to see this show, don't read anything about it until after you've gone, because too many writers like to give away the best lines in their articles. For example, Amy Larocca in New York magazine. And Doug Sturdivant in Playbill. I wish I could have heard the punch lines that they gave away during the show instead of reading them in the publications they work for.

***

When I saw Othello at NYU's Skirball Center with Eugene last month, two days before its official opening, I wasn't thinking, "This is a train wreck." It was certainly unusual, what with Othello and Desdemona's bed being constructed out of small television screens; the casting of African-Americans in several roles, none of which was the title character, about whom much, of course, is made in the text of the play of* his blackness; and the roles of Bianca, the whore, and Montano, the governor of Cypress, being performed as the same person by the same actress in the same costume. And then there were the attempted-rape scene; the not-just-in-Iago's-head affair between Othello and Iago's wife, Emilia; the stretches in which the military characters drink bottled beer on folding chairs in a bar; the flurry of communication between characters on mobile phones at the beginning of the show; and the too transparent evilness of Iago—played in a green polo shirt by a doughy Philip Seymour Hoffman—that had me scratching my head and wondering why everyone wasn't on to him by now. If it had been a movie I was watching on DVD, I'd have wanted to yell at the screen: "Emilia, can't you see that your husband is scheming to have your lord kill your lady? Stop him all fucking ready, you dumb ass!"

Maybe it's because I don't feel terribly qualified to criticize Shakespeare productions. Or maybe it was my desire to like what the generally good cast was performing—and a show that my friend was treating me to. But I gave the director, Peter Sellars, the benefit of the doubt that he knew what he was doing. Given all the reservations I had, I shouldn't have done that.

Other reviewers certainly haven't had a problem trashing the show. The New York Times's Ben Brantley called the production "exasperatingly misconceived." And under the clever headline "It's Lost Its Moorings," New York magazine's Scott Brown says that none of Sellars's "potentially incendiary concepts made it out of his brain alive." Ouch. And my new buddy Lou, whom I'll write more about in my next food-and-drink post, showed his displeasure with his feet when he saw the play a couple of weeks ago. He left at intermission because he figured there were better ways to spend the rest of his evening than watching the second act of this Othello.

*That's a lot of "of"s in one sentence. But it all seems grammatical to me. And I should know. :-)

Seeing 9 to 5

Last Sunday, Paula and I went to see 9 to 5 on Broadway. We both love Dolly Parton. We appreciate her for her singing and songwriting abilities, of course. But Paula also loves how she looks: beautiful in a fake way, with the makeup, the wigs, and the work she's had done.* And we love that she managed to become such a huge success after growing up dirt poor in Appalachia. And that, by pretty much all accounts, she's an incredibly, genuinely nice person.

Before the show, which started at 3, we had lunch at Junior's. I enjoyed my burger and fries, but the best part was the selection of pickles, beets, and cole slaw that came out before our lunches. The cole slaw was especially good.

Our sweet waitress offered to take our picture after she saw me attempting to take one of the two of us using the extended-arm-with-backward-facing-iPhone trick.

 

The theater behind us is the one where I saw Next to Normal. The Washington Post's Peter Marks is the critic who called NTN "the future of American musicals." Actually, he didn't say precisely that. In mid-April, before 9 to 5 had opened on Broadway, he raved about NTN and said that Tony voters should declare it the best musical of the year to encourage more productions like it: "Yet it's not premature to suggest that for originality, ingenuity and sock-it-to-'em emotionality—not to mention the future of sophisticated American musicals—'Next to Normal' would be the box to check off on voters' ballots."

As for 9 to 5, Paula and I both enjoyed it a good deal. Allison Janney, Megan Hilty, and Stephanie J. Block were all terrific as Violet, Doralee, and Judy, respectively. Janney clearly isn't totally comfortable as a singer, and she seemed to speak the words more than sing them in some numbers. In others, she sounded more natural. Her acting was never less than amazing, though. And Hilty and Block were wonderful in the roles played by Parton and Jane Fonda in the movie.

I was disappointed to find the insert in the program announcing that Marc Kudisch, who was nominated for a Tony for his performance as the ladies' asshole boss, Mr. Hart, was off for the day. But Michael X. Martin did a fine job in that role.

My favorite parts of the show were the fantasy vignettes in which VD&J acted out their revenge on Mr. Hart and in which Violet imagined she was CEO. They were loads of fun.

On the negative side, the ending was mighty hokey, and a romantic subplot involving Violet and a younger accountant seemed out of place. None of Parton's new songs for the show really stayed with me, though they might on further listening if I buy the OCR.

Still, the show was definitely worth the cost of a half-price ticket, and I don't understand why it hasn't been able to attract a bigger audience. I'd have thought Dolly Parton's involvement and the popularity of the movie would have ensured a longer run than it's going to end up with. It's closing on Sept. 6 after what will have been 148 performances. A national tour starts later that month with a first stop in Nashville.

*I like how she looks too, but I'm not anywhere near as entranced by her as Paula, who has only two women on her A-list of people she'd most like to sleep with: Dolly and Loretta Young.

Alice Ripley. She's Fierce. In Next to Normal

A week ago Thursday, Missy, Joyce, and I went to see Next to Normal. Nate didn't want to see it because of its rather heavy subject matter: The main female character, Diana, who's played by Alice Ripley, struggles with bipolar disorder and other mental and emotional problems. Before the show, I told Missy that in order to get Nate to go, she should tell him that everyone's calling NTN "the feel-good musical of the year!" She said he wouldn't buy that.

(SPOILER ALERT: Plot developments are revealed starting two paragraphs down.)

I'd been wanting to see the show partly because Jeff and Hunter of Title of Show are fans of Ripley. In the number "An Original Musical," when Hunter, playing a trash-talking blank piece of paper,* says Jeff can forget about going to Broadway with an original musical "unless you got some stars in mind," Jeff replies: "Well, we'd love to have Alice Ripley. She's fierce. Hey, that's the first time I ever said the word fierce. That's the second." The day of the show, I kept saying those lines to Missy and Joyce, and when Nate met us outside the theater after the show, he said them too. Nate and I should have put our fists together and said, "Broadway nerd powers, activate!"

I enjoyed the show, as did Joyce and Missy. Like Hair, it was chock full of songs, and while I found many of them to be good or quite good, I'd have preferred more book. When every plot development has its own song, the really dramatic moments don't stand out as much to me as I'd like them to.

I bought the cast recording of the show on iTunes,** and I'm appreciating the songs—and the emotional payoffs they provide—more and more after repeated listening. There's a nice mix of rock songs with those that are more orchestral in nature. Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (lyrics) won the Tony for best original score. And kudos to musical director Charlie Alterman for his piano playing.

One of my favorite songs is "A Light in the Dark," in which Diana's husband Dan, played by J. Robert Spencer, convinces her to give electroconvulsive therapy a chance. And I like "I Miss the Mountains" so much I'm willing to overlook the terribly trite lyric "cuts you like a knife," which should never appear in another song ever again. Other standouts are "Just Another Day," the up-tempo opening number that's used in the show's TV commercials; "My Psychopharmacologist and I"; "Song of Forgetting"; "The Break"; and "Maybe (Next to Normal)."

Joyce was disappointed in the ending; she was hoping for something more uplifting. I would have liked it better if Diana's parents had been mentioned at some point in the show so that it didn't feel like a leap of faith was required to find her decision to move in with them credible. (If they were mentioned, it was so fast it didn't register with me.)

Joyce said she thought it might turn out that Diana was responsible for Gabriel's death. I thought, in a bigger twist, it might turn out that Dan was responsible. That wouldn't have made as much sense, but it sure would have been a big surprise. Except for me, who would have seen it coming! I'm glad neither of those scenarios played out.

I thought the entire cast was terrific. We got all of the actors to sign our Playbills except for Jennifer Damiano (Natalie), who didn't stick around. Aaron Tveit, who originated the role of Gabriel, has been temporarily replaced by the very able Kyle Dean Massey. Tveit was in a Seattle run of Catch Me If You Can, a show that may make its way to Broadway, and will return to NTN on Sept. 7, according to his Wikipedia page.

The three-level set by Mark Wendland was really impressive. He was nominated for a Tony but lost to the dude who did the scenic design for Billy Elliot. So did Kevin Adams, who was the lighting designer.

Before the show, Joyce, Missy, and I had dinner at Becco. I got the Maiale Rista: pulled pork slow roasted in Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and served with mashed potatoes, matchsticks of Granny Smith apple, and an herb salsa verde. The pork tasted great and was extremely tender. There was so much of it that I just couldn't eat it all, even with a little help from M&J.

 

*What a range that cutie pie has. He plays, basically, himself and a sheet of paper. :-)

**It was $30 at the theater. I balked at that—even though it turns out it's got 37 songs on it. But I feel ripped off paying $20 for a CD after the show, let alone $30. On iTunes, it was $16.99.

UPDATE on Aug. 27: I've been trying to figure out how to describe Ripley's voice. It definitely has a rock-star quality to it at times in the show. Which makes sense given that she sings and plays guitar in and writes songs for a band called Ripley. I googled "Alice Ripley's voice" to see what other people have said about it. I came across Web sites where some bitchy theater queens were arguing her voice is nowhere near as good as it was when she was in Side Show. Some commenters argued that her voice shouldn't be perfect in NTN given the ordeals her character goes through. Some of the theater queens said they loved her voice, of course, and I'm in the latter camp. Today, it occurred to me that her singing voice reminds me of Anita Gillette's speaking voice. For what that's worth. And I read somewhere on the Web, though I haven't been able to find it again, the opinion that no one conveys emotions in a song like Alice Ripley. She certainly was fantastic at doing that in this show.

Puppetry of the *Bleep*

NY1 has been bleeping out the word penis when airing commercials for Puppetry of the Penis, which is in town for a limited run this month. Penis appears on the screen in the full name of the show, but the announcer mustn't be allowed to say it. And when there's a spot noting that part of the news is being paid for by the POTP advertisement, it's the same deal: "Weather on the 1s is sponsored by 'Puppetry of the *bleep*.'" How amazingly silly is that? It's a biological term, people! I want to call up the station and say, "Penis! Penis! Penis! Penis! Penis!" Instead, I e-mailed the advertising department through NY1.com: 

I'm curious to know why NY1 bleeps out the word "penis" when airing commercials for "Puppetry of the Penis." It's a biological term, so I can't understand why it would be considered offensive.

I'll update this post with any response I receive.

Sodomy Rules

On Saturday night, Jack and Bill G. from the Gamesters group and I saw a one-man show called Sodomy Rules: The Bowers v. Hardwick Trial that was part of Fresh Fruit Festival, a GLBT arts and culture festival that's running from July 9–26. It was written and performed by Bill Crouch, a friend of artsy Gamesters host Mark who'd stopped by on game day a few weeks ago to plug his show. Bill C. said SR was about the abominable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1986 that found Georgia's sodomy law to be constitutional. A person convicted of sodomy in that state could be jailed for 20 years for having sex in the privacy of his or her own home!

I found the show to be both entertaining and enlightening. The script, which you'd never suspect was Bill C.'s first work as a playwright, provides lots of information without ever seeming pedantic. And he did loads of research, interviewing everyone involved in the case who's still alive; sadly, Michael Hardwick died in 1991 due to complications from AIDS.

Bill C. takes on the roles of all of the major players, including Hardwick himself, a courageous bartender who fought the law after he was arrested in his own bedroom for engaging in oral sex with his boyfriend. Under the statute in question, sodomy was defined as any sexual act other than penis-into-vagina penetration. Of course, no heterosexual had been prosecuted for the crime in many decades at the time of Hardwick's arrest. And he wasn't actually prosecuted either. The district attorney declined both to drop the charge and to bring the case before a grand jury. Hardwick's lawyers filed suit in an attempt to get the law ruled unconstitutional, and the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals found in his favor. Michael Bowers, Georgia's attorney general, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Bill C. does a great job of bringing the case to life. I especially enjoyed his switching back and forth between Assistant Attorney General Michael Hobbs, who presented the state's case because Bowers was, no joke, busy making time with his mistress*; various Supreme Court justices; and Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe, who presented a terrific minimialist-government argument to counter Hobbs's family-values bullshit.

I learned some interesting tidbits about the case that I'd never heard before. In addition to the fact that Bowers was committing adultery while trying to prosecute a gay man on a morals charge, I learned that Hardwick had been beaten by three men just days before his arrest. He thought they were connected to Keith Torick, the police officer who'd given him a ticket for drinking in public earlier that month and who seemed to be out to get him. Torick wrote the wrong court-appearance date on the ticket and tried to arrest Hardwick at his home before the day of the beating for failing to show up in court. Torick claimed he had nothing against gays, but he told Bill C. that Hardwick needed to learn who was in charge. And he admitted that he let several seconds pass while he watched Hardwick and his lover have sex before he made his presence in Hardwick's bedroom known.

I also learned that the swing vote on the court, Justice Lewis Powell, changed his mind at the last minute based on an appeal from one of his clerks, a devout Mormon named Michael Mosman. Those goddamned Mormons always fuck up everything for the queers, don't they?

Though the Georgia sodomy law was declared unconstitutional six years later in relation to a heterosexual statutory rape case, Bowers v. Hardwick effectively made consensual homosexual sex a legally unprotected act until it was overturned by Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003. And in the extensive timeline Bill C. provided to all showgoers, he noted that the case was frequently used to deny custody to gay or lesbian parents in states that had sodomy laws on the books.

After the show, Jack, Bill G., and I went to The Dish, a big gay diner in Chelsea. Bill G. said Bill C. should put on the show in Atlanta, and I said I thought that was a terrific idea and he should suggest that to Bill C. The show is really something special and deserves to have a life beyond its two-day run at FFF.

At the Gamesters gathering Bill C. came to, photo-crazy host Mark asked us guys if some of us would mind taking our shirts off so we could do an homage to the Petticoat Junction opening credits. Hell, I've taken my pants off for less of a reason than that. Here's one of the resulting photographs, taken by Jack. That's Mark to my right. Mike is on the other side of Mark, and Kevin is to my left.

We also posed with Bill C., who kept his shirt on, and the postcards he brought advertising his show. My eyes look awfully glinty in this shot, but it was my favorite of the ones Mark sent me, probably because, at Mark's direction, we're all groping Bill C. And I love everyone else's expressions.

*Anti-gay scolds were every bit as hypocritical in the 1980s as they are today.

12th Night and The Temperamentals

I can't imagine I'll ever in my life have another week of fantastic consecutive theatrical performances like I did this past Tuesday and Thursday.  

On Tuesday, Missy and I went to see the Public Theater's production of 12th Night in Central Park. I'd never enjoyed a night at the theater as much as I did that one. And I can't imagine a more perfect cast of actors ever being assembled for a play. I also loved the music—written by the three songwriters for Hem: Steve Curtis, Gary Maurer, and Dan Messé—that was skillfully incorporated into the story.

I'd really been looking forward to seeing Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, and Raúl Esparza on stage, and they were every bit as good as I'd hoped. Hathaway (Viola/Cesario) and McDonald (Olivia) were quite simply amazing, and Esparza was great too in a part (Orsino) that, I was reminded, doesn't involve a whole lot of stage time.

I'm still lamenting not having caught McDonald in her highly acclaimed performance in 110 in the Shade two years ago or Esparza's masterful turn in Company while it was on Broadway (though I did catch it on DVD). And I'm a huge fan of Hathaway, who seems like she'd be such a doll if you got to know her. And she's very gay friendly, thanks at least in part to her having a gay older brother.

I was incredibly impressed with David Pittu as Olivia's wise-fool servant, Feste. Nobody could possibly have stolen this show from such a great ensemble, but Pittu was a revelation. He deservedly got huge laughs, and he had several opportunities to show off his terrific singing voice. All of the comedic players were top-notch: Hamish Linklater as dipshit knight Andrew Aguecheek; Jay O. Sanders as Olivia's drunken uncle, Sir Toby Belch; Michael Cumpsty as Olivia's pompous chief manservant, Malvolio; and Julie White—whose Tony Award–winning performance in The Little Dog Laughed I also unfortunately missed—as Olivia's attendant, Maria.

The hilly set by John Lee Beatty enabled the clowns to fall and slide down and roll all around. And the show had the best sword fight ever. *remembers that night with Mr. Jane* Well, the best on a stage.

And most of all, bravo to the director, Daniel Sullivan, for pulling together such a flawless production.

Missy and I weren't sure we were going to be able to use our tickets—which were provided by the company we work for; thanks, Bloomy B!—on account of the weather. It poured starting a little after 5, and it rained almost the whole time that Missy; her friend, Laura, who was going to be given a ticket by Gary, another friend of Missy's who'd gotten on the ticket line that morning at 6:30; and I were eating dinner at a Mexican place not far from the Central Park entrance near the Delacorte Theatre. (Note to self: Remember not to get grilled cactus leaves again unless they're jazzed up in some way that sounds irresistible. They were too grassy tasting for me to really like, but they were at least edible with judicious squirts of lime juice.) We kept looking at people out the windows to see whether they were still holding up umbrellas. Not long before we left, we saw that no one was using an umbrella. And while I was on line at the theater to get a brownie and coffee, sunlight streamed through the clouds. Woo and a hoo! There was no threat of rain for the rest of the night, so we could just settle in and enjoy the show.

***

I still can't get over how good The Temperamentals was. Bloggers Joe, Little David, and Eric "enjoyed it tremendously," per Joe, and the New York Times gave it a positive review,* so I figured I'd probably enjoy it too. But I didn't expect the play to be so stupendously good. (I liked it so much I bought the T-shirt. And also a collection of Harry Hay's writings.)

The play was superbly and intelligently written by Jon Marans. In telling the story of Harry Hay and the other founding members of the Mattachine Society, The Temperamentals offers up loads of dramatic tension, great moments of comedic relief, and even a fun or touching musical number here and there. It also provides valuable information on some of the founding fathers of the U.S. gay rights movement for those of us, like me, who aren't as up on our pre-Stonewall history as we might be. I'd never heard of Dale Jennings, but his courage in fighting a trumped-up solicitation charge in 1952 gave strength to a lot of gays and lesbians back when homosexuality was still a crime and a mental illness.

I can't say enough about the cast. Thomas Jay Ryan embodies Hay in his evolution from a married Communist Party activist to a shawl-wearing Radical Faerie who never wants to be seen as heterosexual again. Michael Urie—who's best known for playing Marc St. James, Wilhelmina Slater's assistant, on Ugly Betty—is fantastic as Hay's lover Rudi Gernreich, who went on to become a celebrated clothing designer. The other three cast members—Tom Beckett, Matthew Schneck, and Sam Breslin Wright—all play multiple roles seemingly effortlessly. Beckett's turn as closeted Hollywood director Vincente Minelli is particularly noteworthy.

After the show, my buddy Eugene and I went to the Houndstooth Pub for a late dinner. I'd walked around the Garment District a little while before meeting Eugene at the theater, and I'd spotted the pub, which touts its "comfort food" menu, while wandering around. As soon as Gernreich's large houndstooth pattern was mentioned in the play, I knew that's where I wanted to go to eat. How could we not?

I liked my burger and fries, Eugene relished his shepherd's pie, and we both enjoyed a Magic Hat Circus Boy hefeweizen beer, which was garnished with a slice of orange.

Eugene said he was thinking about taking a friend who's going to be visiting from Los Angeles to see the play. And I'd certainly like to catch it again.

If you're a gay man in the New York area, you owe it to yourself—and to our collective history—to see The Temperamentals. It runs through Aug. 23. 

*I didn't think the men-as-women start of the second act smacked of misogyny. I found it gave insight into the women in Harry Hay's life, including his wife.

A Superfun [title of show] Fundraiser

On Monday night, Joyce, Missy, Nate, and I went to Feinstein's at Loews Regency for a fundraising performance by the cast of [title of show] that benefited The Actors Fund. We had a blast.

Jeff, Susan, Heidi, and sweet sweet Hunter sang a bunch of songs that were either cut from the show, were earlier versions of ones that were in the show, or had been written for the cast to perform at a previous benefit performance. We in the audience were the first to hear the entire "The Tony Award Song" (other than those involved in the production). Squee! In the show, Hunter sings only a few lines of it before he's cut off by Jeff, who reminds him that they'd agreed not to use that song because making fun of the Tonys is too easy. Another highlight was a fantastic song called "The Quartet" that I would eagerly buy from iTunes this second if it were available. JSH&SSH also did a previous incarnation of "Finale," and Jeff and Heidi performed a song called "The Wall"—with Jeff on guitar—that had the same tune as "A Way Back to Then." The whole gang also did a couple of hilarious scenes that had been cut from the show: one in which they're all cheerleaders and a game-show sketch that at one point had led in to the Jeff-and-Hunter number "Part of It All."

I got to see Susan's good-looking husband in the audience, and I confirmed what I was pretty sure I'd read somewhere once: that Jeff and the show's director, Michael Berresse, are a couple. Michael came up on stage to introduce the foursome's last song, and he tearfully mentioned how they're all his best friends, though he's more than friends with one of them, and Jeff pretended like he didn't know whom he meant. And Heidi went over to Michael and planted a kiss on him, like he'd meant her. I'm tellin' you, Michael and Jeff would make some beautiful babies. And so would Hunter and me. I mean, with our cheekbones, how could they not be gorgous? :-)

The food at Feinstein's was ... fine. I splurged and got the $48 Beef Tenderloin with Pomegranate Port Reduction and Artichoke-Filled Twice-Baked Potato, which also came with asparagus and a small broiled tomato. I also ate the cole slaw that came with Missy's turkey burger because I couldn't stand to see the sad little bowl of slaw hanging out uneaten. And because I love me some cole slaw, especially if the dressing is vinegar based, not mayonnaise based. And I got two glasses of 14 Hands Cabernet Sauvignon. Everything was good. Not out-of-this-world. But decidedly good.

After the performance was over—but not really over because the gang hadn't done an encore—Susan acted as auctioneer for the sale of autographed photos of the two guys with one of the gals. In an earlier incarnation of [title of show], Susan would take a picture of the guys with Heidi and the envelope with the New York Musical Theatre Festival entry inside and then Heidi would take a picture of Susan, the guys, and the envelope. One of each of those photos was made into a poster-size print. Both of them went for $500-plus. I thought about bidding on the photo of Susan, Hunter, and Jeff,* but I just couldn't justify the expense even if it was for such a good cause.

After the auction was over, the cast sang the stage version of "Nine People's Favorite Thing" and then went out into the lobby to sign those photos, meet the fans, and pose for fan photos.

That's a photo Joyce took of Missy, Hunter, and Nate using Missy's camera.

Here's a lesser-quality photo that I took using my iPhone. I wouldn't have posted it otherwise, but Nate actually has one eye completely open in this shot! :-)

Susan and me. Good god, I'm toothier than nine out of 10 Osmonds.

And Hunter and me. In this one, I'm toothier than all 10 out of 10 Osmonds. But how could I not be grinning uncontrollably? I'm next to Hunter Bell! :-)

*I love Heidi, but Susan is my girl. Word.

UPDATE on May 15: Joyce sent me a picture of Hunter and me, and I like how I look better in this one than in Missy's pic. Hunter doesn't have the best expression, but I look good, so whatevers. :-)

A Jam-Packed Long Weekend in the City

Wow, what a busy and fun weekend I had. You might say it was "jam-packed." If you were writing a headline for a blog post.

On Friday evening, I had dinner and went to a show with Eugene. We'd been meaning to catch a play together for a little while now, and we both agreed we'd like to see Ruined, for which Lynn Nottage recently won the Pulitzer Prize. We had only a little time to eat before the show, so we each got a bowl of butternut squash soup and a drink at Seppi's to tide us over so our bellies wouldn't be growling during the play. We both enjoyed the soup. I didn't think it was terribly butternutty; it was very rich and creamy, though, like the lobster bisque in Puerto Rico.

I enjoyed the play. The acting was sort of mixed; I thought some members of the company could have been a bit more polished, especially considering the show opened back in February. The play had some amazing moments, including a shocker not far into the first act. And the music that plays a big role in the play was highly enjoyable. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT I was surprised (I hadn't read this review) that the ending was, for the most part, a happy one and that the play turned out, when all was said and done, to be a romance. I (mostly) joked with Bob and Jen Saturday morning at the farmers market that I was disappointed the first very serious play I'd seen in a while had a happy ending. And in all honesty, I'd fully expected to cry at some point during the play, given its heavy subject matter: the plight of young women at a brothel in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. I never cried. I don't know whether that was my fault (despite my pre-show beverage of choice, coffee, I was a little sleepy during the show) or the play's.

After the show, we went back to Seppi's to have a more-filling meal. I got an herbed chicken breast, mainly because I was in the mood for the side of mashed potatoes. Eugene got a sausage sandwich dealie. For dessert, Eugene and I split a scrumptious banana tart.

The next day, I entertained my Michigan buddy Mitchell and his boyfriend, Jon. First, though, I went to the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza, where I actually heard—at the Bread Alone stand—a cute daddy tell his daughter, "Let's leave the bread alone." I didn't point out to him the irony of his comment.

Mitch and Jon arrived around midday. Jon had needed to come East to work on a project for a company down in Flemington, New Jersey, near where I used to live. Mitch took the opportunity to grab a quick vacation in the Hunterdon and Mercer Counties, New Jersey/Bucks County, Pennsylvania region, and they drove up to Brooklyn to hang out with me for the day.

I'd asked Mitch if he could bring some Winter White wine from Leelanau Cellars. A few years ago, before I started writing this here blog, I'd visited Mitch and his then partner Curtis* in Grand Rapids. As a departing gift, Mitch gave me some of that wine, which I then shared with my Dad and Jean at a restaurant in Stockton. I enjoyed it, though it was a little sweeter than I generally prefer my wine to be. Dad loooved it. And due to the ongoing vagaries of interstate wine commerce, neither he nor I can have it delivered by mail to New Jersey or New York, respectively. Jon very nicely stowed a couple of bottles in his checked luggage, so my Dad, who visited me on Sunday, drove home to Bridgeton a very happy man.

Not only did Jon bring me the Winter White; he also gave me two bottles of his own, homemade wine, which he makes from grapes he grows in his yard. He said he gets a really good crop of three types of grape (Concord, Catawba, and I can't remember the third) usually every other year. The paler bottling in the photo is the Catawba; the darker one is the Concord. He and Mitch told me that, of course, these wines tend to be on the sweet side and I shouldn't expect anything too refined, but I'm looking forward to trying them out, maybe after a dinner, with dessert, or as Jon suggested, as an aperitif.

The fellows also brought me a beautiful hanging basket of geraniums, which Mitch picked up at Rutgers Landscape & Nursery near Ringoes, also not far from where I used to live. It's brightening up my alleyway. Mitch said he took a picture of my former house in Stockton so I could see how it had changed since I sold it, but he forgot to show it to me and I forgot to ask him about it again. Maybe he can e-mail it to me.

After I gave Jon the apartment tour, M&J had a beer, and Rudy got his fill of sniffing the fellows, the three of us went for brunch at Miracle Grill. Then we took the subway to the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. I should say that we took a few subways to the Brooklyn Flea. The F and G trains were all screwed up last weekend, with the G replacing the F at 7th Avenue, the stop where we'd normally pick up the F here in Park Slope. If I'd been using my noggin and correctly reading the signs, I would have figured out that all we needed to do was stay on that G train because it was only replacing the F until Bergen Street, at which point it resumed making the usual G-line stops. And we needed to get off at the G-line stop at Clinton-Washington, which is beyond Bergen. So it really should have been the easiest trip to Fort Greene ever: No need to switch from the F to the G; just get on the G and ride it to our destination.

Like I said though, I wasn't using my noggin. I thought for some reason that we had to switch to the F, which would be making G-line stops, which would seriously have made no sense. Why would even a moronic agency like the MTA have the F switch to the G and the G switch to the F? And at one point, I even had us on an A train because that was my second guess for the line that was making the G's usual stops farther down the line. *sigh* If we hadn't gotten on that train, though, we wouldn't have seen this hunky hockey player whose face I've purposely left out of this picture so as not to totally objectify a perfect stranger. So Mitch and Jon really should be thanking me for taking them all over hill and dale for what should have been a less-than-10-minute subway ride. The hockey dude's face was just as nice as his burly torso and muscular, hairy forearms. The kind of forearms you—OK, me—want to rub certain parts of your own—OK, my own—body on. Once it became clear that Mitch was as chubbed up over this guy as I was, I tried to subtly take some snaps of him with my iPhone. But I was about as subtle as a landslide. Mitch said he could tell the guy could tell I was taking pictures of him. I could tell that he didn't care and that he sooo wanted me. Hah!

We eventually made it to the flea market, with about 20 minutes to spare before closing time. I'd particularly wanted to check out the food vendors and maybe score some cupcakes at Kumquat Cupcakery. I'm thinking of getting a little organic ice cream business up and running, and I figure the Flea would be a good place to start out. I'm still working things out in my head, and I'll probably enlist my brother-in-law, David, to help me on the management side. It's all very preliminary, but I'm definitely excited about this and want to get things rolling. Maybe next year, I'll be in an article like this in New York magazine.

Anyhow, KC must have sold out and closed up by the time we arrived. But we still had time to make the rounds of the schoolyard and for Mitch to pick out a beautiful print. He even bargained with the artist and got her to let him pay $35 for what would ordinarily have been a $40 piece of artwork.

On the ride home, Mitch saw a guy drop a piece of paper onto the floor of the subway car. Mitch picked it up and handed tried to hand it to the guy, who informed Mitch that he'd intentionally dropped it, meaning that he'd intended to litter. I thought it was cute that Mitch assumed the guy must have accidentally dropped it. I've never cried over it, but littering really does get me down.

The guys got ice cream at the Uncle Louie G outpost on 5th Avenue, and then I had to get ready for a dinner out with Bob and Jen, so M&J headed back to Jersey. It was so great seeing Mitch again and meeting his honey, Jon. I'll write about the rest of my jam-packed weekend in my next post.

*The story of how I'd met Curtis is probably better left for another day.

UPDATE on May 24: I actually alluded to how I met Curtis in this post, which also features the first appearance by my New Orleans buddy Will. That was back when I wasn't so good at using pictures and would always run them small and in between paragraphs of text.

A Movie on DVD, a Musical on DVD, and a Musical on Stage

I finally recently got around to watching There Will Be Blood, the multiple-Oscar-nominated movie for which Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor at the February 2008 ceremony. I'd had the disc from Netflix since September, I think. *sigh* I thought it was fantastic, an epic tale of the evil that men do for money. Day-Lewis was indeed phenomenal as diabolical oilman Daniel Plainview. And Paul Dano was terrific in the dual roles of Paul and Eli Sunday. Plainview and Eli Sunday were both fascinating characters. As was H.W. Plainview, Daniel's troubled son who was deafened in an oil explosion. It's hard to believe Dillon Freasier, who played him as a boy, was a local (near the shooting location in Texas) kid who'd never acted professionally before. As for Russell Harvard, who played H.W. as a young adult, he makes it so there will be blood flowing to a certain organ of mine. *raises and lowers eyebrows suggestively*

***

The next DVD to arrive from Netflix was a recording of the 2006–07 Broadway production of Company that aired on PBS. I can't say enough about Raúl Esparza. I haven't seen any other versions of Company, but I understand that the rap against the main character of Bobby is that he's usually too dull and passive to be a compelling center for the story. That's not a problem with Esparza. He's so charming in this role. And that voice! If you don't get goose bumps listening to Esparza belt out that final "Being alive!" in the song of the same name, well, you just suck. :-)

There are so many wonderful songs in this show. The title song, "Another Hundred People," "Getting Married Today," "Side by Side by Side." I'm particularly drawn to "Marry Me a Little" and the aforementioned "Being Alive." As "BA" progresses, you can hear Esparza's voice getting more and more vulnerable as Bobby becomes more and more open to the idea of falling in love with and being committed to one person. And I'd have to turn in my official, laminated Fraternal Association of the Gay membership card if I didn't love "Ladies Who Lunch."

***

A couple of Thursdays ago, Joyce, Nate, Missy, and I saw Hair on Broadway. I dug  it. I wasn't blown away, but I had a fun time. And the ending is superb and incredibly moving.

One problem I had with the show is that there are so damn many songs, there's little chance for them to lodge in your brain. At the end of the night, the only songs that had really stuck with me were the ones I already knew and loved: "Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In." I wanted more book and fewer and more-memorable songs.

Before the show, Nate said to forget about the movie, which I'd seen, because it's rather different from the show. He and Missy saw the Public Theater's production in Central Park over the summer, when it co-starred the droolworthy Jonathan Groff of Spring Awakening.

And speaking of sexy men, Will Swenson, who plays Berger, writes in his Playbill bio that he's a "Scorpio, of course." Those damn Scorpios think they were born under the sexiest sign in the Zodiac when everyone else knows that Virgos are the hottest. Sean Connery, Raquel Welch, Bill Hawley. Come on!

Here are some photos that Joyce and I took of the cast when they came out to meet the loyal fans:

There's Mr. Swenson, with his "long beautiful hair" under a hat. The two girls directly in front of him were so cute. The girl on the left was wearing a T-shirt signed by all of her friends from theater camp. And that's my girl Missy's head in the foreground.

Gavin Creel, the other leading actor, who played Claude

Allison Case, who plays Crissy. She was a real doll. Superfriendly. If I were a straight guy in the cast of this musical, I'd be sooo hitting on Allison. Hah! A straight guy in a Broadway musical. That's too funny. Where do I come up with this shit?

That was the photo Joyce took, with her camera. I took the others, with my iPhone. Hence their inferior quality.

Bryce Ryness, who plays Woof. Joyce was envious of his hair. Definitely lots of shine and bounce there.

And finally, John Moauro, who played a member of the Tribe. He and Will Swenson were the two guys in the cast who filled me with the most lust. He's so cute, and I love the curls.

The 39 Steps

I saw The 39 Steps Thursday night with my theater buddies Joyce, Missy, and Nate. I enjoyed the show quite a bit. There were many laugh-out-loud moments, and the four performers—Arnie Burton, Francesca Faridany, Jeffrey Kuhn, and Sean Mahon—are all very gifted physical comedians.

M&N had already seen T39S, but they were eager to see it again. And I knew it'd gotten great reviews. Missy went to the TKTS Discount Booth in Times Square to pick up our tickets while Joyce and I surfed the Net worked our butts off back at the office. Our backup shows included Billy Elliot (which was more of a pipe dream really; it hasn't gone half price yet because it's still drawing a gazillion people who are willing to pay full price) and The Third Story, which has gotten mixed reviews but I thought might be worth seeing because it co-stars Kathleen Turner, whom I'd love to see live on stage. And I like Charles Busch, too. I enjoyed Die, Mommie, Die! And not only because it starred delicious Jason Priestley, although that certainly didn't hurt.

Before the show, we had dinner at Pongsri. I liked my appetizer, Golden Triangle, which was like a Thai version of an Indian samosa, only instead of one big, triangular-shaped, potato-filled, curry-spiced fried pastry, there were several, smaller triangles. And they contained chicken instead of peas. I was disappointed with my entree, Bangkok Chicken. I'd asked for it to be "hot & spicy," but it was salty and otherwise bland instead. Joyce picked out a highly enjoyable wine, the 2006 Banyan Riesling. The listing in the menu spoke of flavors of peach and apricot, and I could totally taste them. It also spoke of "petrol"! Thankfully, I couldn't taste gasoline. Or benzene. Or any other petroleum product. I think Dad and Jean would enjoy the Banyan—and the show, too.

During dinner, I accused Nate of not being a true nerd because he's never seen The Fisher King. Joyce shot down my theory because TFK's fantasy elements are Arthurian rather than Dungeons & Dragons-esque. We also talked about two classic husband-and-wife entertainment teams from the '70s that I Googled on my trusty iPhone to see whether they were still married: Shields and Yarnell (divorced in 1986) and Captain & Tennille (love is keeping them together). Coincidentally, in both cases, the woman was/is the older half of the couple.

And now, here are some YouTube clippages for your entertainment pleasure: Captain & Tennille performing their biggest hit and Shields and Yarnell acting as puppeteers and their marionettes.