Category Archives: Theater

House of Joy

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Taj Mahal by Julian Yu on Unsplash

Last night, Anne and I began this year’s fall theater season, with dinner and a show. We went to see the Rep’s House of Joy. Before the show, we had dinner at Cyrano’s, which has had a long and checkered tenure throughout our residence in Saint Louis. In our first year living here, while we were away on our honeymoon, it moved into where our favorite pizzeria had been, after its building had burnt. Then in the nineties there was that infamous “extra whip cream” incident. We’ll say no more about that here. Ever since then, Cyrano’s has remained in the regular rotation of dining establishments prefacing the Rep. Our visitations there, like with a lot of other things, kind of fell of the map, because of the pandemic. So, last night I was surprised to learn that Cyrano’s is now owned by Sugarfire, my favorite go to spot for BBQ.

Not to worry though, because Cyrano’s still features their signature ice cream desserts (with extra whip cream), as demonstrated nicely when a nearby family of three ordered the flambee for two. Prepared tableside, as her parents watched on, the little girl was enraptured by the spectacle, although the flames did startle her, but her eyes remained steadfast in happy anticipation. By the time that the dessert was finally served, she had the full attention of the entire restaurant.

Joy has a ghost story, a love story, political intrigue, fantasy, bawdy jokes, fight sequences and an assassination. This play is set in some unnamed emperor’s harem, during the 300-year rule of the Mughal Empire of what is now India. The Mughal’s are famous for the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world and also a tomb for some dead emperor’s favorite wife. I had the good fortune to visit this place, when I was about the age of the little girl from Cyrano’s, in the fifties. It was an experience that was also enrapturing.

The play opens with a street urchin, who had recently beaten a man to death. She’s approached by the steward of the house, about becoming a harem guard, an all-female cloister where the empire’s royal women live. She agrees and discovers that this magical house will let women enter but not leave and won’t let men enter at all, except the emperor, who we never see. The only other person who is free to come and go as they wish is the steward, who is “both boy and girl”. Aside from the steward and the house, which is a character unto itself, the rest of the cast are all women.

To cover the gambit of outlined stories, the play regularly veers from one direction to another, leading to a convoluted plot. Also, our seating was quite different than normal, adding to the weirdness of the experience. We were in the second row, center. Where we normally sit, rows back, was closed off to seating. Still, the house last night was so small that not even half of the available seats were filled. Sitting where we were the action occurred all around us and often felt up close and personal. All-in-all the play was an unusual experience and we have been going to the Rep for over thirty years. So, that is saying something. What? I am still coming to grips with that.

Carmen

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Betalo Rubino, Dramatic Dancer, Robert Henri, 1916

Toreador!
Don’t spit on the floor
Use the cuspidor
That’s what it’s a-fore

We went to see Opera Theater’s production of Carmen, which is performed in English, with captioning. Using both the English translation and subtitles made understanding this show’s performance so much easier. This productions was set in Franco’s Spain, rather than Bizet’s 19th-century original setting. I don’t think that this change of period either added or subtracted much from the opera’s story, but it definitely made the dresser’s job easier.

Carmen is easily Anne’s favorite opera and I enjoy it too. Kathy loved the show and Frank found it better than he expected. High praise from him. As always, Bizet’s music is to die for and I think that Carmen’s story has taken on new significance with the advent of the #MeToo movement. Carmen uses her sexuality as a tool, to get what she wants, but I think that she actually cares for Don José, at least for awhile. She is neither predator nor victim, but rather living her life as she sees fit. She does not deserve her fate, but neither does she shy away from it either. In a sense then, she is a modern woman, both strong and self-reliant and determined to make her own way in this world. 

Ghosts, Spirits and a Full Moon

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Yesterday’s Full Moon
Blithe Spirit Poster

Yesterday, it rained most of the day, but we still got out. We went to the Maplewood-Richmond Heights high school and saw their production of Blithe Spirit. After the play, exiting the school’s auditorium, I saw the full moon shining through the remaining clouds. This Noël Coward play first debuted in London during 1941 and has since been made into several movies that are available for streaming. It is a comedy about death and ghosts that debuted during the horrors of the Blitz. The play is set at the English country home of a gentlemen author, Charles, who is researching his next book on the occult. He and his wife Ruth have invited over another couple and the French occultist Monsieur Arcati for a séance. The result of this ceremony is the accidental recalling from the spirit world of the ghost of Charles’s first wife, Elvira. Only Charles (and the audience) can see or hear Elvira, but she can make her presence known to the rest of the cast by “levitating” objects. Needless to say, Ruth is not amused by the presences of her predecessor and much comedy and conflict ensues. I was amazed at the production values in this high school play and we both highly enjoyed the show.

Ghosts Poster

Before Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit, while he was searching for a play’s idea involving ghosts, his first thoughts centered on an old house, haunted by specters from different centuries, with the comedy arising from their conflicting attitudes, but he could not get the plot to work. Because the evening’s play began at seven, we got home before ten. It was too early for bed; besides I was still to wound up from the theater. On YouTube, I began watching trailers from the different movie treatments of the play that have been shot over the years. Losing my soul once more to YouTube, I kept drilling down until I found a trailer for the BBC production of the comedy series Ghosts (HBO) that is based upon a young couple who inherits an old house, haunted by specters from different centuries.

Like with the hit comedy series The Office, this British original now has an American transplant that began on CBS but has since been picked up for streaming (Hulu). When the young couple first arrive at the mansion the ghosts are curious, until they learn that the couple’s plans include turning their home into a hotel. With their eternal peace endangered, the ghosts declare war on the couple and one of their number pushes the woman out of an upstairs window. She survives, but this near-death experience then allows her to both see and hear the ghosts. We’ve binged most of the first season and seen the relationship between the living and the dead evolve from “gorilla” warfare to an unsteady truce. This is exemplified in the episode where in order to raise some much-needed cash, the young couple rents out the mansion to a movie company that is filming a period drama. Let’s just say that the ghosts go full Hollywood.

A Christmas Carol

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A Christmas Carol

We went to the theater last night. The house was packed, no social distancing to be found, although everyone was masked and vaxxed. Omicron be damned. Before the show, I had been skeptical about the night’s performance, A Christmas Carol, an old saw that I have already seen way too many of times and in so many different ways, but I left pleasantly surprised by the night’s spectacle. Spiced up with a light show, music and dance and sky-high production values, it made for an enjoyable evening.

This 19th-century Dickensian tale is credited with codifying what we now take for the modern holiday of Christmas. Born in Victorian times where many of our current Christmas traditions were invented. Traditions such as the decorating of evergreens, mistletoe, the exchanging of gifts and the singing of holiday specific songs. Wednesday night, we attended the Garden Glow holiday lights show. As part of that show, we toured Henry Shaw’s country home. As an aside, I learned during this tour that after his death, Shaw’s city home had been moved to the garden’s ground and reassembled nearby his country home. It is now an office building. The country home was built in 1840 and for the show its interior was festooned with authentic Victorian era Christmas decorations. The play’s physical sets were pretty minimalistic, relying more upon the accompanying light show than much furniture. I think that is was my recent memory of Shaw’s house that helped to dress out the play’s sets.

Ghost of Jacob Marley

The Gradient

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The Gradient – Northern Lights Style

The new movie version of Dune dropped yesterday and I managed to watch about an hour of it before it was off to the theater with Anne. What I did see was as good as I had hoped for. Vax cards in hand and masks in place we ventured out to COCA’s Catherine B. Berges Theatre (a marvelous new venue in U-City) to see the Reps new production, The Gradient—a world premier satirical look at toxic masculinity, which also manages to poke fun at tech startups and bad bosses in general. The Gradient is a new facility that promises to take men accused of sexual misconduct and rehabilitate them into responsible citizens. Born of the #MeToo movement and fueled by the likes of Donald Trump, R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein, this play is set in the not-too-distant future and portrays an organization that employs an algorithm, which mathematically and scientifically evaluates candidate men and then delivers an individualized treatment regimen to rehabilitate them. We follow new-hire Tess, as she wrestles with her often less than truly forthcoming patients and a sarcastic boss who is also too often less than helpful. In physics, a gradient is an increase or decrease in the magnitude of a property observed in passing from one point or moment to another. Here the property is toxic masculinity and much to Tess’s surprise, The Gradient doesn’t always lead to its decrease.

In other news, Anne and I went to Target to look at lawn furniture and get our Covid booster shots. Yesterday, the CDC approved mix-and-match boosters. Our original vaccination was the one-and-done J&J shot, which while it was the first one available to us, it also now seems to be the least effective of the three brands that have been approved. At Anne’s behest, I shopped around for Moderna shots, which she has determined to now be the best of the three. I got us appointments for this afternoon with CVS, at their local in-store pharmacy. Here’s to sticking it to the man and the woman—besides my microchip’s battery had died.