Conjuring the World's End

I saw two movies in August, one for which I’d had a smidge of hope and one for which I had high hopes.  The one for which I’d had only a smidge of hope in the first place, The Conjuring, was quite disappointing.  Director James Wan gave us a few startling jumps, but nothing really frightening.

Lesson the First:  When the family dog refuses to enter the big isolated house they bought at auction, the human family shouldn’t enter either.  Alas, humans never learn.

In The Conjuring, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren discover the real thing in a secluded farmhouse that the Perron family bought with the last of their savings.  The clothes and hair are the first clue that we’re in the 1970s.  The music seems occasionally out of time.  The mentality is older — God and Demons are one thing, but the Warrens believe unhappy women were witches and could control the actions of the living centuries after their own deaths.

While there are plenty of frights and gasps and starts, this movie talks too much, shows too much, and tries to make believe it’s practically a documentary.  I’ll see Vera Farmiga and Lili Taylor in just about anything, but I hope they pick better going forward.  A good cast did what they could with the material, but when it devolved to absurd records of a woman called Bathsheba (Lesson the Second:  If you want your daughter to be a good girl, there are certain names you oughtn’t stick her with) accused of consorting with Satan and centuries later she was the evil presence in the house in which, for some reason, we could see as well as hear clapping hands.  For goodness’ sake. 

Just a note re witches: Everyone knows that women accused of being witches were not consorting with Satan; they merely had property or power that the local men wanted.  Real witches were entirely different:  Read Roald Dahl’s The Witches.  He explains it all.

Now for the good movie of August:  The World’s End, which is the name of a pub.  A good start.  Director Edgar Wright introduces us to 1990 Newton Haven, a cozy-looking small town somewhere in England, then passes by a little real life that’s not fun at all, and brings us back to Newton Haven 20 years later.  1990 is amusingly narrated and yet what we see rather conflicts with what the narrator recalls.  Five friends somehow graduated from school and went on a pub crawl called “The Golden Mile” in their home town — yes, Newton Haven — which includes 12 delightfully named pubs at which the boys had intended to have one pint each.  That’s twelve pints per boy.  As anyone might imagine, it didn’t work out.

(c) 2013 Focus Features

Twenty years later, a sadder but no wiser Gary King (the scathingly brilliant Simon Pegg) wants to get the band back together, as ’twere, and do the Golden Mile.  Life didn’t go so awfully well after high school (or whatever they call it in England), and Gary thinks re-living this epic night with his old pals will save him. His pals (whom he hasn't seen in many years) disagree, but go along because he lies to them.

Simon Pegg as Gary King and the Map

This is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost at their hilarious best, having a fine time with Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Martin Freeman as all five pals grown up.  The touristy map that could pass for a hotel placemat shows the route through town to the 12 pubs, and Gary marks off each one as they achieve it.  The present attempt is as doomed as the first, but not for the same reasons as the 1990 crawl.

Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Eddie Marsan in a pub.

The brisk script by Pegg and Edgar Wright (co-writers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) builds and grows under Wright’s whimsical direction.  The humans are all totally real, dreaming of a barely recognizable past that did not prepare them for adult life they don’t really know how to live, with Gary in particular compounding his unhappiness with foolhardy dreams of reliving past glories.  Bruce Springsteen sang about it, and Pegg & Wright have written a sweet, thoughtful, and incredibly funny film about it all.

And then there’s the darkness. 

The men gradually realize that not only have they changed, so has their home town.  Rediscovery of all this is a jolly journey for us, not so much for the guys.  In lesser, duller hands this would just be about 5 merely chronologically adult males behaving foolishly and getting gutter laughs.  Pegg & Wright go much further, touching on dreams of freedom, lost youth...and then they take a roundabout turn into crazy.

Frost, Rosamund Pike, Considine, Marsan, Freeman, and Pegg.  In a pub.

From the quickest shot of a passerby to the leads, the cast is formidable.  I’ll just list a few:

Simon Pegg as Gary King

Nick Frost as Andy Knightley

Martin Freeman as Oliver Chamberlain

Paddy Considine as Steven Prince

Eddie Marsan as Peter Page

Rosamund Pike as Sam Chamberlain (Oliver’s kid sister, love interest for both Gary & Steve since childhood)

Pierce Brosnan as Guy Shephard, the cool teacher

David Bradley as Crazy Basil

With a special non-appearance by Bill Nighy

The World’s End has two lessons:  1) you cannot go home again, and 2) if your high school memories are warm and fuzzy, you’re probably misremembering.  The World’s End has a terrific script well directed by Edgar Wright, and its cast is top notch and pitch perfect.  I will see this again and again and find more to laugh about.  Because humans are funny.

~ Molly Matera, signing off and purchasing another ticket!

Fourth of July Weekend is HOT HOT HOT

Over 90 degrees in the day, 80s at night.  Nice breeze if you’re in the right spot.  Where is that spot?

Millie and Wilbur celebrate Independence Day

Thursday – the 4^th

Recently I’ve taken an interest in plantings that may keep the flies and mosquitoes away from me when I dare to sit in my back garden.  Not unusually, I went a smidge overboard.  I used my 4-day Independence Day Weekend to shop and work in the garden.

I’d done some reading and came up with a list of possibilities, none of which would interfere with anything I’ve already planted.  Herbs have amenable companions and irritable companions, and it’s best to plant friendly herbs and vegetables in the same area.

My first shopping trip included a stop at Ace hardware, just because I like hardware stores.  There I picked up, inexpensively, two rectangular plastic containers for planting, and a small bag of potting soil that I figured I’d keep around for when I re-do my organic celery experiment (which went awry, probably because I used what I had when I planted it, which was topsoil).  Also two little caramel rolls, which I only just remembered were in my purse, so I’m eating one!

Next stop:  Garden World, where I picked up Catmint (Nepeta), a large Rosemary plant (Gorizia), and two Lemon Balms.  All of these allegedly repel mosquitoes, and the Rosemary should attract honeybees.  Lovely idea, since it’s going near the zucchini and squash.  Also a large bag of potting soil for whatever I chose to put in pots instead of the ground.

Note – the cats do not differentiate between catmint and catnip but roll in its leaves regardless of suffix.

In the evening I watched a DVD of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  Silliness played straight, with some nice performances.  Just as it started to get dull with an overlong fight, it picked up again, so by and large quite enjoyable.

Friday the 5^th

I’d ordered some things online at the Home Depot in Glendale, so used picking those up as an excuse to buy more things at their nursery: Italian Flathead Parsley (this year it'll go in a pot not the ground), Basil (even though I have some, it’s not as if one can have enough pleasant aromas in the garden), Chamomile, English Thyme, a container tomato plant, and a Japanese cucumber that was labeled as good for growing in a container.  Since the cucumber I planted in Spring didn’t work in my soil (for any number of reasons), I’ll try a pot.  Finally, I picked up a Citronella mosquito plant.  It’s not attractive, but I couldn’t find a geranium-citronella hybrid in Garden World or Home Depot.  And once I start, I want to do it all in one weekend, so it’s not as if I’d search elsewhere.

In the evening I watched The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  It’s sweet, unapologetically magical, a relaxing delight.

Citronella -- not pretty.

Saturday the 6^th

Didn’t get into the garden until 11 this morning, more fool me.  Over 90˚ again.  Mad dogs and Englishmen….  I used both the big and small bags of potting soil since I used several containers.  The available space in the garden is clogged with the ubiquitous ivy vines, and it’s too hot to dig.  Not to mention, the spots left really don’t get a lot of sun.  Of course, with pots I can move things around, which I’ve done several times already.  I took photos of morning sunlight in the garden, afternoon sunlight, and late afternoon.  The trees block it at various times of day, but I love the trees, so will make do. 

First, I cleaned out leaves and dead plants and detritus, so it just looks nicer.  Being more accustomed to beans than squash, I thought to tie up (stake) zucchini and crookneck squash plants, but online wisdom (checked during a water and air conditioning break) said they are ground spreaders, so I left them, just mulched well under them. 

The Rosemary plant is huge, and since the last one didn’t do well indoors over winter, I planted the new one in the ground between the zucchini crookneck squash with a lemon balm plant nearby.  Although the white impatiens are flourishing in their original containers on these hot sunny days, they generally prefer some shade, so I’ve moved them behind the crookneck and under the hydrangea. 

 

Rosemary and lemon balm and crookneck.  Container since moved has cuke, thyme, and more lemon balm

The hydrangea is very well but a bit off kilter as it reaches for the sun.  I re-arranged some supports under different parts of it, and cut back some of the evergreen that forced the hydrangea to reach out.  Hoping for a cooler weekend next week so I can do some serious tree pruning, as well as plant the remaining red impatiens around the blue spruce out front (where, on Friday, the management company’s people actually weed-wacked away where needed, hooray).

Presently one of the basil plants is in a hanging pot near the birdbath.  Before winter I must repair the wall over the kitchen window so I can hang the basil inside.  Chamomile likes part shade so it’s in a pot in the shadiest part of the garden, which gets afternoon sun. 

I scrubbed both bird baths, shifted the white plastic one a bit, away from the bird feeder, and put the one I know full well is cracked into the middle of the garden.  It looks nice there but will require frequent filling.  The water should be changed more frequently than in the past to keep the skeeters from delighting in it.  I don’t think the birds liked the new placement of the feeder, so I moved it back closer to where it had been.  When it’s a bit cooler — when??? — I’ll sit and stare for the best spot.  

Finally I knew I had to clean up before I could see the garden in its new configuration, so raked and hauled off garbage.  Too darned hot.

After a delightful cool shower and a little lie down with my feet up — don’t worry, Millie didn’t let me rest for long — I went back outside in the early evening, still full light.   

This had sat by the door as shoe scraper, but that didn't like frequent immersion it received. Now it leads into the garden

The neighbors have company (I knew they would, I heard the leaf blower before I went in to shower), children shrieking with pleasure then whatever else children shriek about.  There’s a bit of a breeze.  There are also mosquitoes and flies.  So far they don’t understand that they should be repelled by all my new plants.  Containers will need to do some shifting about, I think…..

Tomorrow I’ll spend the hottest part of the day at the movies instead of out in the midday sun. I hope your holiday weekend was relaxing, independent, even cool.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to sit out back and stare at my revived garden in the waning light.

"Much Ado About Nothing" in the Whedonverse

Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing had one of the wittiest title shots I can recall.  I burst out laughing in the theatre when I first saw it, and it still tickles me.  It’s over the top, as is much of the film.  I like Branagh.  I love Joss Whedon.  I like Kenneth Branagh’s work as an actor better than that of Alexis Denisoff.  And yet, watching Branagh’s delightful Much Ado, his Benedick seemed to be overdoing it a bit — downright broad for film.  This did not diminish my enjoyment of that Much Ado then or now.  Set in a vivid and hot Italian landscape in another century, Branagh’s film was more. exuberant than Whedon’s modern version, which setting required something resembling realism. 

Joss Whedon said in an interview that he felt some of the choices made by characters in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing had to have been made under the influence, which makes sense.  Perhaps therefore everyone in this film is drinking excessively.  While Kenneth Branagh’s production of Much Ado was lush, in Joss Whedon’s film everyone is a lush.

The innocence of a period film’s ingénue and juvenile (Hero and Claudio) cannot be captured in a film set in the 21^st century.  That presents a problem, yet not as great a one as the fact of Don Pedro and his followers.  They wear no uniforms, yet they carry guns.  They are not soldiers.  In what wars do civilians in well-cut suits carry guns?  Drug wars?  In the 21^st century, must give one pause to wonder if Don Pedro’s a drug lord.  And his brother Don John tried to strike out on his own.  What was “this ended action” (I.i) about?  The scene in which Benedick challenges Claudio is extremely well acted by Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), Claudio (Fran Kranz), and Benedick (Denisoff), but that he was carrying a gun made Benedick a troublesome personage.  It tends to make him look like a hood.  Don Pedro and Benedick and Leonato and Claudio don’t seem like they’d be involved in the illicit drug trade.  This problem and that of Claudio’s churlish behavior at an American 21st century wedding are slight distractions from the pleasures of the film.

Amy Acker as Beatrice and Jillian Morgese as Hero.  (c) 2012 Elsa Guillet-Chapuis & Roadside Attractions

Alexis Denisoff surprised me with his adept use of Shakespeare’s language in a modern setting.  The chemistry between Denisoff and Amy Acker has been well documented in their years together on Whedon’s television series, Angel.  I never had doubts about Acker — I had complete faith she was great casting as Beatrice, and the pairing did not disappoint.  Ms. Acker’s Beatrice is highly intelligent, her wit sharp, her heart aching.  The pair was funny and believable whether fighting or loving. 

Reed Diamond is excellent: straightforward and real as Don Pedro whether serious or comic.  I’ve always liked his work, but this side of him surprised me, quite pleasurably.  Fran Kranz is sweetly hilarious as the foolish Claudio.  The party scene in which Claudio rises from the pool in a snorkeling mask (see poster) only to be misguided by the heads above water belonging to Don John, Borachio and Conrade was incredibly funny and quite possibly the best I’ve seen that scene done.

Sean Maher, whom I would not have envisioned as Don John, was a fine, understated villain and I quite liked his performance.  Clark Gregg was a goodhearted Leonato, struggling with what seems to be (but regrettably probably is not) an outdated character and trying to bring him likeably into the present.

Lenk as Verges and Nathan Fillion as Dogberry.  (c) 2012 Elsa Guillet-Chapuis & Roadside Attractions

I’ve been a fan of Nathan Fillion since Firefly, and am delighted that he took on Dogberry for this film.  He plays the famously mangled lines absolutely straight, so the humor really works.  Dogberry’s ego shines through, and just little touches make the “low” humor parts of the story truly funny.  Clearly, physical comedy need not be violent.

Jillian Morgese was practically a real live girl as the ingénue Hero, filling the blanks of that thankless role with a level of self-confidence in addition to obedience.

Beatrice eavesdrops....

Ashley Johnson as Margaret was excellent, old-fashioned while modern, innocently knowing.  Emma Bates was very good as Ursula, and Riki Lindhome was quite interesting as Conrade, a different sort of companion for Don John.

Dull as dishwater, however, was Spencer Treat Clark as Borachio until the moment he heard Hero was dead, which brought to him a spark of life.  Tom Lenk as Verges was dull and obviously acting.  Romy Rosemont as the Sexton brought some gravitas to the legal proceedings but, more, made us believe she had a life waiting for her when those danged fools stopped talking.

Elsa Guillet-Chapuis as the Photographer was focused and intent on her work, a naturally unnatural part of the proceedings. 

The costume party scene is a sultry modern gas; the world of excess that is in this 21^st century Much Ado seems so much more vulgar than the aristocratic excesses of the past.

I keep comparing these two very different films of the same Shakespeare play, but they’re both wonderful and exciting in their very different ways.  Joss Whedon’s film is in a lower key than Kenneth Branagh’s, as it must be since it is set in the present and in a small, intimate, black-and-white film.  (I love black and white.  It seems some how more real to me than color.)  And Whedon’s addition of a silent prologue providing us a glimpse into the back-story of a modern Benedick and Beatrice’s relationship was priceless. 

While the 21^st century works just fine for Shakespearean tragedy, somehow this romantic comedy that is the beginning and model for all romantic comedies just didn’t quite work in our time.  Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing is a film I’ve been looking forward to for years, and while I enjoyed it, I did not walk out of the theatre whistling, or floating on air.  I never thought I’d say this about a Whedon Shakespeare film, but although I liked it, I did not love it.

~ Molly Matera, recommending the film, while accepting the disappointment of reality.

Bucks County Playhouse Premieres New McNally

Last week I was privileged to see the World Premiere of Terrence McNally’s new play, Mothers and Sons, in its limited run at the Bucks County Playhouse. In the 1990s, Mr. McNally wrote a play called Andre’s Mother for PBS’ American Playhouse series (based on a shorter play produced at Manhattan Theatre Club).  Now at the behest of Jed Bernstein, Producing Director of the revived and revitalized Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania, McNally has written a beautiful piece of theatre about some who survived the decimation of the 1980s and 1990s along with some who know it as history alone.

Mr. McNally’s play engendered passionate conversations and tears of remembrance as well as gratitude for the enormous social strides that have brought us so far from the “furtive lives” Andre’s mother says he and other homosexuals led back in the day.  In 1993, Andre died from the scourge that is AIDS. 

The lights come up on Tyne Daly at the foot of the stage (and yes, the audience applauded her just for being at work when the lights came up).  She is Andre’s mother, Katherine Gerard, and her son’s lover/caregiver Cal is pointing out the sights of Central Park that are visible from his Upper West Side apartment window.  That they are avoiding something between them is clear from the start, but this is at this moment unknown.  The tension is almost palpable.

Tyne Daly & Manoel Felciano in Mothers and Sons.  (c) 2013 Bucks County Playhouse.  Photo by Mandee Kuenzle

Andre’s mother could never deal with her son’s homosexuality let alone his death, but here she is in 2013 visiting her late son’s former lover and caregiver, Cal Porter, in New York.  Within two years of Andre’s death 20 years before, Cal tells Katherine, other friends had new drugs to allow them to survive — one skiing at that very moment at Park City.  Cal’s anguish is present despite the decades.  Nevertheless, he has moved on, and is now married to Will.  They have a young son named Bud. 

This new world is a shock and a nightmare to Katherine who is so blinded by her past expectations of life and the world that she cannot recognize reality, even in hindsight.  She says her son had not been gay when he left their Dallas home at 18.  No one in the audience knows what she said next, because the laughter that broke out sounded like a sustained bark drowning out the next line.  Katherine would be agitated and confused.  Ms. Daly was not.

Cal and his husband Will are raising a generous little boy who keeps it simple and offers this lonely woman a chance she’ll never otherwise have.  Andre and Cal did not have the opportunity, in their time, to even contemplate fatherhood. Cal’s new partner, 15 years younger, came into a new world that allowed him to always believe he could have a family, always believe that he could have what heterosexuals have.  Cal, on the other hand, is amazed that he’s living the life he now leads. 

Daily, Grayson Taylor, and Felciano.  (c) 2013, Bucks County Playhouse.  Photo by Mandee Kuenzle.

Will seems harsh and angry as he protects his husband against a woman who’d blamed Cal for her son’s death and her own misery.  Yet it takes that outsider, Will, to force the reason for Katherine’s visit out into the open and to actually read Andre’s diary, stinging both Katherine and Cal with Andre’s words after the mother and lover had refused to read them for twenty years.

Tyne Daly is spectacular as Andre’s bereft mother, a woman chewed up from the inside out.  Katherine is not a terribly likeable woman, but Daly makes us feel her pain and see the world through her eyes long enough to forgive.

Manoel Felciano is very fine as Cal Porter, sometimes shattered by his old loss, sometimes rejuvenated by his son and new life.  A lovely and tempered performance.

Bobby Steggert is fierce as Will Ogden, and Grayson Taylor is charmingly blunt as Cal and Will’s son Bud Ogden-Porter.

At the refurbished, wonderful and welcoming Bucks County Playhouse, Wilson Chin designed a warm home setting, and costume design by Jess Goldstein was on the mark as were lighting design (Travis McHale) and sound design (John Gromada).  Sheryl Kaller directed with rhythm and silences and discomfort and truth.

This was a very fine production of an important play, whose powerful emotions reflect on our society then and now for 80 minutes.  I would tell anyone and everyone to go see this play, but its brief initial run is over.  Now it’s time for some producers to pick up Mothers and Sons and give it legs to play NYC and Boston and Chicago and Minneapolis and LA and London and Paris and all the towns in between.  The writing is lean and limber and passionate and smart.  Mr. McNally’s contribution to the growth of the new Bucks County Playhouse can now run off to illuminate the world.

~ Molly Matera, wishing she could have transported the production home with her.

Come Saturday Morning

I'm back from a few perfect days with friends in Pennsylvania (more of that anon, when I sort through my photos of the Solebury/New Hope area and write my review of the wonderful new Terrence McNally play we saw at the Bucks County Playhouse), and now home with my cats.  I will not write about my fury as I drove back to New York.  There is not now nor will there ever be any excuse for it to take an hour to go from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to my part of Queens.  A full hour.  Even the approach to the Bridge wasn’t as bad this time was as the BQE.

Enough of that.  I had my usual grumpy musings about the uselessness of vacations away that were obliterated by returning here.  But this morning, as I sat out back with my coffee before it gets too hot, I saw this:

Those, my friends, are zucchini blossoms.  It's a short-lived flower, and one must be paying attention to the garden (and you all know I'm a benevolently negligent gardener) to see it, let alone eat it.

I pulled out my best cookbook, Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and looked up the simple recipe. 

It's a boy!

 Pastella for dipping...

oil for frying (very quick frying)....  

Et voilà! Naturally, I made a large mess in a very short time, but none of that mattered.

 

What a lovely breakfast, fresh from my garden!  It’s the only time I’ll have this for breakfast, but how sweet that it wasn’t a Monday when I wouldn’t have had time to sit out back with my coffee, let alone cook them up. 

All this and the hydrangea are blooming too.

~ Molly Matera, signing off of electronic communications devices to read a real book.

Weekend in the 'burbs

Friday night I saw Joss Whedon’s newly released film version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (black and white, modern dress, modern sensibilities…except....) at Lincoln Center.  Saturday I watched the DVD of Kenneth Branagh’s film version from 1993. Branagh also directed Thor (2011), which led me to my DVD of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers from last year.  While I contemplate what to tell you about Whedon’s new film, I thought I’d bring you up to date on the garden.  And the cats.  And the squirrels.

I don’t expect any “squirrel-proof” bird feeder to be proof against New York City squirrels.  Their ways with bird feeders are imaginative as well as intrusive.  The birdfeeder hangs from a tree branch and even has a lid.  Which is no obstacle to a New York squirrel, who just lifts the lid and digs in.

 

 

The “small or medium-sized rodent of the family Sciuridae” are tough, fearless, and smarter than I’d thought.  You know those big tins that are given at holidays, usually full of pop corn, sometimes divided into three types?  Well, I like tins and save them.  For cookies, for popcorn, for anything.  My winter scarves and shawls and gloves go in this one.

And for some reason, I decided to use this one outside to hold plastic bags of birdseed.  Guess who’s smart enough to open it.  Greedy little thieves.

Watchful Wilbur and Millie

 The cats have been intent on the visiting birds as well as the resident squirrels who’ve ventured onto the garden shed to stare through the window.  No, of course I don’t let them go out to run off the rodents.  So they wait and they watch, they twitch their hind quarters, and then they nap.

Wilbur is trapped

Chick is rapt

This weekend in the garden:  The hydrangea I planted last summer near my front window is taking well and blossoming.

The crookneck squash plant and the zucchini plant are both doing nicely out back,

Alas, the cucumber is not taking.

Finally, inside, my experiment with organic celery seems to be going well.  I bought the organic celery at Whole Foods a few weeks ago, and then followed the instructions here: http://www.17apart.com/2012/02/growing-celery-indoors-never-buy-celery.html.  Five days after “planting” the base in water and setting the bowl in the kitchen window, this is what I’ve got.  It seems to be working.  How cool is that!

~ Molly Matera, signing off to enjoy the Sunday papers in my little hideaway.

7th day:  I transferred the celery base into a pot with some nice potting soil.  Watered.  Will water every day and see what happens next.  Tee hee!

 

EST Marathon of 1-act plays -- Series B (2 out of 3)

Back to EST for Series B, the second set of One Acts in the Marathon.  The clever and creative production staff at EST has created a mix-and-match playing area, with pillars offering their services as posts or door jambs or windows, transforming the space into different places for different plays.  Kudos to the scenic design by Nick Francone. 

Series B played like this:

Daddy Took My Debt Away (by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Jamie Richards) is a comment on our times, but it’s really just a sketch.  Potentially interesting characters are painted in broad strokes, all well acted by Emma Galvin, David Gelles, and Jonathan Randell Silver.  This begins the feeling that some of these one-acts are meant to be parts of a larger whole.

In The Favor, Leslie Ayvazian’s heartfelt story of Ralph and Ellen at a crisis point, we’ll never know if anyone changes or if the main question is resolved.  It’s a sweet and warm slice of a story, the characters are expertly drawn by writer/director Ayvazian and passionately and thoughtfully acted by Grant Shaud and Janet Zarish.  It’s a charming teaser to a potentially larger whole.

The very funny Grant Shaud and Janet Zarish in The Favor.  Photo courtesy Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Something Like Loneliness is a clever play with an interesting conceit:  We’ve all thought, “if only I could bottle that feeling….” Ryan Dowler wrote a world in which emotional moments can be preserved in Tupperware (or Ziploc) containers. Well directed by Colette Robert, apartment dwellers Dan (Chris Wight) knocks on Mia’s (Jane Pfitsch) door.  He lives upstairs and there’s nothing between her ceiling and his floor.  He hears her, and she him: “I don’t have to turn on NPR in the morning,” she says, “I can just listen to yours.”  These two characters capture moments (the sound of a woman pulling on her jeans in the morning, or of an orgasm) and then use the simple conceit of bartering with their containers to engage and maybe take a chance.  It’s fun yet somehow it seemed a bit cerebral.

Waking Up, by Cori Thomas and directed by Tea Alagić, is an impressive counterpoint between two women separated by continents and oceans, yet not separate at all.  The American woman (Amy Staats) finds a lump in her breast, as does the African woman (Lynnette R. Freeman).  The disparities in their societies and experiences make the women seem different as night and day, and yet, and yet….  they are the same.  Each survives breast cancer, and each ends up with hope because she’s alive.  The performances of Ms. Staats and Ms. Freeman are lovely and powerful.  But….it’s more a vignette than a play.

The second half of the evening gave us a gift by Sharr White.  In A Sunrise in Times Square (a phrase that now brings me a horrifying image because of the power of this play), Madeline and Marky take enormous emotional steps forward.  Claudia Weill directs this intense script in which the set is covered with bric-a-brac that disguises the fear and loneliness of damaged Madeline, played tautly by Julie Fitzpatrick.  Her gentlemen caller is Marky, played with simplicity and truth and heart by Joseph Lyle Taylor.  He is a retired fire fighter who instructs office building workers in the proper safety measures in the event of a fire.  He’s just doing a little favor for nervous Madeline, checking her apartment for safety.  But there’s more.  The plays is funny and heartbreaking, the characters meticulous and raw.  For Madeline and Marky, heart and soul and body and mind take chances, leap forward, and live.  These two characters are fully realized by the writer and the marvelous actors, who take on Marky and Madeline’s risks full throttle.  This was the high point of the evening.

The program closes on an odd note:  Love Song of An Albanian Sous Chef is witty and sexy; the title in particular is clever in that the Chef is truly sous la table.  Finally, though, this is a rather long, if deep and dark, sketch on the subject of seduction by food.  Sex, foreplay, promises, betrayal, and violence in about 15 minutes. Written by Robert Askins and directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel, it has sparkling performances by Danielle Slavick, Brian Luna, and Andy Nogasky, supported by quirky puppetry by Mike Smith Rivera as the Food.  Funny as it was, it won’t stay the course.

Through this interesting evening, I wondered what made a play work for me.  On this evening, it seemed "change" played a big part in my assessment, and the lack of change lowered a piece's "rating."  In the first two plays, nobody changed. In the third, two people took steps toward potential change.  In the 4th play, the characters had already undergone change and told us about it.  In the last play, nobody actually changed.  In A Sunrise in Times Square, however, Madeline changed from a frightened reclusive victim of her past to a vibrant, courageous woman looking for a future.  That was truly exciting.

Criteria incorporated or aside, Sharr White's play was the most involving and invigorating to me, and leaves me looking forward to Series C in a couple weeks.

~ Molly Matera,  signing off to enjoy the beautiful day before the storms hit.