Day 359/365 - Friday Night, Restaurant Night

When I was a kid I looked forward to Friday nights, because that was the night my family always went out to dinner. I'm guessing we went out to eat on Fridays because that was the day Pops got paid. Generally we didn't go anywhere fancy. There were about 8-10 different local restaurants that we'd take turns making the rounds of on Friday nights. Still, there was something fun and exciting about going out to eat.

Tonight I met my friend Pia for dinner at The Source, Wolfgang Puck's restaurant and lounge in Washington, DC. Pia was running late, so I ordered myself a frou frou pear cocktail and just hung out in the lounge to wait. The photo above is of the corner booth in the lounge. I'd been wanting to try The Source for the past several months, so when Pia said she was going to be in town today and asked if I wanted to meet up with her for dinner it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check it out.

The Source is a very attractively designed space. It's modern, but not cold or sterile. The downstairs portion is occupied by the lounge, with the restaurant upstairs. The cocktails there were very good, as were the appetizers. The entrees are just okay, but the dessert is good. Final verdict -- I don't think I'd go back to The Source for dinner, but I would certainly go there for drinks and appetizers.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 358/365 - Ra Ra Riot at the 9:30 Club

Tonight I caught Ra Ra Riot's sold out gig at the 9:30 Club. Not to damn them with faint praise, but their concert was by far the best $15 show I've ever seen. I wasn't in the mood for eating dinner at the 9:30 Club, so before the concert I popped into Creme on U Street to grab a quick bite. I'd never eaten there before, but when I saw they had shrimp and grits on the menu that clinched the deal for me. It was creamy and spicy and meaty and the perfect dish for a cool October evening.

There was a bit of a surprise when I got to the club -- they were requiring everyone with cameras to check them at the door. That's the first time they've done that in all the times I'd been there. Don't know why they suddenly decided to do that. There was someone official with a video camera filming Ra Ra Riot's set, so I don't know if that had something to do with the new restriction or not.

Anyhow, that's why we have a shot of my stamped hand holding my concert ticket today instead of a photo taken inside the 9:30 Club. Party poopers. Although I didn't want to eat dinner at the club, I did want to pick up dessert there, so my first stop once I checked my camera was to buy one of their cream-filled chocolate cupcakes. Those things are like cupcake nom-ageddon and they go surprisingly well with bourbon and coke.

Although the camera check policy was a downer, I was stoked to snag a barstool at the counter across from the upstairs bar. That's the first time that's ever happened to me. It kicked ass to have both a seat and a perfect, unobstructed view of the stage for the duration of the concert. Normally I have to stand throughout and I only catch bits of glimpses of the stage and the bands.

The first opener tonight was a band called Princeton. They were mildly unremarkable. The second opener, Maps and Atlases, was considerably better. Their sound was a bit of a mix of Kings of Leon and Vampire Weekend. They did have an unfortunate propensity for self-indulgent collective noodling, though. That's fine if you're just jamming together in your garage, but it can make it difficult for an audience to connect with you in a concert venue. It tends to make the crowd feel more like an intruder than a participant.

Ra Ra Riot had no such problems, thankfully. They have to be one of the only rock/pop bands out there that features both a violinist and a cellist. Not surprisingly, this adds a lush, plaintive tone to a lot of their songs. In their gig tonight they were fast, frenetic, and full of life as they whipped through most of the songs on their debut CD. They bounced and swayed around the stage, high-fived the crowd, lit up like candles of joy and exhiliration, and seemed to be enjoying their show at least as much as the audience did. Their performance tonight was a bouncy, bubbly blast and a heckuva bargain at 15 bucks.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

p.s. -- Only one more week to go until I no longer have to worry about coming up with something to photograph each and every day!

Day 352/365 - A Midsummer Night's Dream

After not having seen any of Synetic Theater's productions in the ten prior years I've been living in the DC area, I seem to be making up for lost time. Tonight I went to see my third production of theirs this year, a silent version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The story was performed entirely through dance and pantomime with no speaking parts at all.

"Midsummer Night's Dream" has never been one of my favorite of Shakespeares's works and as heretical as this may be to say, I think I like it better without the dialogue. The plot, such as it is, involves a love triangle -- scratch that -- a love hexagon featuring criscrossed paramours, bumbling actors, and warring pixies and sprites.

It's a quick production, running only 90 minutes without an intermission. As is almost always the case with Synetic, the choreography is fantastic. Among the cast the standout performers are the delightfully expressive Helena and the half-Slinky, half-Plastic Man Puck, who moves in ways you wouldn't think a human could absent demonic possession. The play's score is reasonably good and the staging, though minimal, is effective. As is also almost always the case with Synetic, the costuming and make up are sensational.

This one makes up for the lackluster "Lysistrata" they performed earlier this year. Now I'm looking forward to the version of "Dracula" they have coming up next month.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 348/365 - Beer, Nachos, and Star Trek

I missed out on seeing the newest "Star Trek" movie in its first run in theaters. My buddy Chris and I were going to see it on one of our Monday guy night at the movies, but because of scheduling issues we never got around to it. I figured I'd have to wait and catch it on DVD, but then Chris' wife Des noticed that it was playing at the Arlington Cinema 'N Drafthouse and gave us a heads up. So tonight I drank beer, ate nachos and fried mac and cheese, and finally saw "Star Trek."

I think this was the first J.J. Abrams movie that I unreservedly enjoyed. Generally his films fall apart in the final act. Most of the time it's like he has ADD and loses interest in developing a project all the way through to the end, so the last third or so tends to suck and not make much sense. This one was good thoughout, however. It excellently balanced character development, action scenes, romance, and special effects and was perfectly pitched to appeal both to diehard Trek fans and newcomers who didn't know or didn't care about the "Star Trek" universe.

All the key touches were there: Kirk made out with a hot green chick, Bones groused "Dammit, I'm a doctor not a [fill in the blank]," Spock said "fascinating," Scotty said he was giving all the engines had to give, Uhura was hot, Chekov spoke in a bad Russian accent, and the alien baddies got blasted. Yep, that's "Star Trek" all right.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 346/365 - Thievery Corporation at the Pier Six Pavilion

My friend Adriana recently tipped me to Thievery Corporation, a DC-based pair of producer/musicians/DJs who make smart, funky, international lounge music. Turns out they also own the Eighteenth Street Lounge, one of my favorite bars in DC. I bought one of their CDs to give them a try, and then quickly went out and bought six more. When I found out that the only area stop on their current tour would be at the Pier Six Pavilion in Baltimore, I decided to take the train over and catch their gig.

It was one of the most enjoyable concerts I've ever attended. The crowd leaped from their seats at the first note and didn't sit back down the entire show. There was also some serious dancing going on in the aisles, although not by my stiff, arhythmic self. Thievery Corporation was supported during the show by a diverse array of performers, singers, and rappers. In addition to having a horn section, it was the only concert I've ever been to that featured an electric sitar.

If you get the chance, you have to go see them live. A Thievery Corporation concert is like a U.N. of funk and cool. Over the course of the evening you'll hear Brazil, India, France, Cuba, Jamaica, the Middle East, and the U.S. If only the real nations of the world blended together so well.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 345/365 - Ingrid Michaelson at the 9:30 Club

New York-based indie pop singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson was playing an early gig at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC tonight and I was among the sold out crowd in attendance. I don't watch much broadcast tv apart from sports, but apparently a bunch of her songs have been played on various episodes of "Grey's Anatomy." Which goes a long way toward explaining the heavily female demographic for her concert tonight.

I first heard her song "The Way I Am" on BBC Radio 1 and was hooked from that point. Her concert tonight was very good. She was funny, sweet, quick, clever, adorable, entertaining, and appreciative of her audience. And her voice was stronger than I expected. A good gig all around. Too bad she had to get offstage by 9 so they could start prepping for Moby's concert later tonight. I'd have been quite happy to keep listening to her a while longer.

Wonder if she's in the market for a civil servant husband?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 335/365 - 700 Sundays

Tonight I went to the National Theater to see Billy Crystal's one-man show "700 Sundays." I had never seen Billy Crystal on stage before and I was hoping he was still funny. He was, although the show was also sad. It's a biographical reminiscence of his time growing up on Long Island and the wonderful and eclectic cast of characters that passed through his life. It's funny, sweet, sad, and surprisingly informative. Most of the laughs are to be had in the first half, where I laughed so much my stomach hurt and I got a bit lightheaded. The show takes a more somber turn in the second half, but there are still several funny moments sprinkled throughout.

It's a show about life, love, laughs, and loss. If you're familiar with his work you'll have heard some of the material before, but that doesn't make it any less worth seeing. After it ends, you know so much about Billy Crystal that you feel almost as though he were an old friend of yours. I didn't realize that tonight was the first time he'd performed the show in front of an audience for two years. Despite the long layoff, he was great.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 321/365 - Inglourious Basterds

Went to the movies to see the new Quentin Tarantino flick "Inglourious Basterds" with my buddy Chris tonight. We were originally going to go yesterday, but he had a domestic scheduling conflict so we had to push it back a day. We like going to the movies on Mondays because it tends to be less crowded.

I had done all I could to avoid seeing/hearing/reading anything about the movie. Whenever the commercial came on tv I'd change the channel or close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears. I really hate most movie trailers/commercials they release now because they tend to blow the entire plot point by point and spoil any sort of surprise. Most times after you see the preview you don't need to see the movie, because you already know what happens. I don't know who is in charge of assembling most movie trailers, but they suck.

Okay, rant over. So I avoided knowing much about this movie. Chris didn't and he already knew how it ended. Despite coming at the film from two different perspectives, we both liked it. It wasn't what I was expecting. It's not a new Dirty Dozen. It's a love letter to the movies twined about a revenge fantasy. I guess I could best describe it as a mix of the "Dirty Dozen," "Cinema Paradiso," and "I Spit on Your Grave." Also unexpected, Brad Pitt wasn't really the star. Both the guy playing the SS colonel and the woman playing the refugee theater owner had larger parts and took up a bigger share of the storyline.

It's a long movie, 2.5 hours, but it moves well. I think the fact that it is broken up into several acts and subplots makes it seem like several smaller movies than one long one. That's pretty much standard Tarantino, though. I think this is probably his best work since "Pulp Fiction." His signature touches are there -- it's brutal, bloody, bizarre and funny with dueling dialogue and quirky and absorbing characters. He seems to have gotten quite a bit better at cinematography. A lot of the shots are sumptious and lush.

It's certainly a movie worth seeing and I'm anxious to find out what the DVD version will be like. The extras should be good. My friend Chris pointed out that there were likely a lot more character-establishing scenes that were cut to pare the movie down to its current running length. But don't wait until the DVD comes out. Go and see it now and then you can compare it later.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 306/365 - G.I. Joe (Doesn't Blow)

Suprisingly the GI Joe movie doesn't suck. My friend Chris and I went to see it as part of our occasional "Monday guy night at the movies." I was expecting it to be rather craptastic, but with some cool action sequences and effects. However, apart from the Paris sequence -- which was overlong, largely unnecessary, and absolutely ridiculous, it was a fairly good movie. Definitely enjoyable.

The characters, while two-dimensional (it was based on a cartoon after all), were entertaining and the story almost made sense. The action sequences, which are really the star of a movie like this, were pretty damn cool. It wasn't a particularly original piece of cinema. There was pretty heavy borrowing from Star Wars and also the Bond movies, but I didn't feel cheated after it was over.

It ain't art, and it ain't particularly smart, but it is fun. Yo Joe!

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 303/365 - French Twofer (Deux Pour?)

There is a French restaurant in Georgetown called La Chaumiere that I've been wanting to try for a few years and tonight I finally went. I was going to see the movie "Julie & Julia" that is, in part, about Julia Child's formative years in France and I thought it would be cool to have dinner in a French resaurant beforehand. La Chaumiere is a small, intimate restaurant with a rustic and cozy feel to it. The food is very good. I had an emmenthaler cheese souffle to start and followed that with the venison medallions. Plus a couple glasses of champagne. Why not?

I took the unforgivable step of skipping dessert so that I would have time to stop by an ATM and get to the movie theater on time. When I got to the electronic kiosk at the theater to buy my ticket, I discovered that my debit card was not in my wallet. Cue moment of minor panic. I decided I must have neglected to take it out of the folder thing the bill was in at the restaurant. I started heading back to La Chaumiere when it hit me that I'd still had the card when I stopped by the ATM, at which point I realized that I'd gone off and left my card in the machine after taking the cash. Ugh.

I wasn't too, too worried given that there was no one else around the ATM when I went, it was inside the bank foyer rather than on the street in the open, and I believe ATMs are designed to suck your card back inside if you forget to take it. My card wasn't there when I got back to the ATM, and this is where buying an iPhone came in handy. I used it to get on my bank's website and find the number for reporting a lost or stolen card. There hadn't been any activity on my card since I'd withdrawn money, and they went ahead and cancelled it and sent me a new one. Phew.

By that time I'd missed the 7:15 show, but there was another one at 8:15 so I pulled up the map on my iPhone, found the nearest Starbucks, went and got myself a mocha frappucino, and did the Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle on my phone to pass the time. If it's possible to love a little hunk of metal and plastic, I'm coming to love my iPhone.

Back at the movie theater, the lady at the ticket counter recommended heading straight to the auditorium to get a good seat because it was looking like the show was going to sell out. Great recommendation, and something I wouldn't have gotten had I used the electronic kiosk rather than dealing with a person. The show did turn out to be packed and a lot of people who came in after me had trouble finding a decent place to sit.

The movie was very good. It has two storylines, both of which are based on real events. One is about Julia Child discovering French food in post-WWII Paris, learning to cook, and putting together her groundbreaking cookbook. The other is about a woman who decides to prepare all 500+ recipes in Julia's book in one year and blog about it daily. The plotlines echo each other in several regards, much in the way that the subplot informs on the main plot in Shakespeare. The first hint of this is in the introductory scene for each character when we see Julia drive by the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Julie drive by a rusty water tower in Queens.

Although their lives are very different on the surface, the two women's stories share many of the same elements. Each is trying to find something to do with her life, something more than just what she's done in the past and something more personally meaningful than just another way to pass the time. Each finds the answer in French cooking. BTW, don't go see this movie when you are hungry. I can only imagine it would be torment.

The Washington Post movie critic made a big noise over noting that the Julia Child scenes are more compelling than the Julie the blogger scenes. How insightful. Let's see, Julia Child and her husband are portrayed by Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. Who'd have guessed that their performances would outshine those of Amy Adams and the anonymous guy who plays her husband? There's some rocket science for you. I enjoyed both storylines. So go, see this movie and have a fun night out. Just make sure you eat beforehand.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 294/365 - The Color Purple

I never thought I would like this musical. I haven't ever seen the movie (it looked too girly), so when the Kennedy Center announced they were bringing a touring company production of the show to town I was less than impressed. But then earlier this week they sent me an email advertising the fact that tickets to many of remaining performances of "The Color Purple" were being discounted to $49, so I figured 'what the heck, I'll give it a try.' Glad I did.

I went to see it tonight with my friend Pia and her musical-mad niece and we all enjoyed it. It's certainly not the happiest and most lighthearted of musicals. There's a lot of sorrow and suffering, hardship and hate in it, but despite that it manages to be very uplifting with numerous laugh-out-loud moments. The story focuses on the struggles of a woman who loses everyone she loves and is victimized by everyone she doesn't. The play follows her from the age of 14 to her grey-haired old womanhood and recounts the many memorable characters that pass through her life and the trials she endures.

The set design and staging is very stylized and evocative and the music and songs are memorable and rousing. The performances are simply outstanding. American Idol winner Fantasia burns brightly in the lead role of Ceelie. I was surprised at how good an actress she is. She doesn't play the part so much as she inhabits it. And man, can she sing! Her voice is an unstoppable force unto itself. As good as Fantasia's performance is however, the play is absolutely stolen by the actress portraying the feisty and unyielding Sophia. Her "Hell, no" song was the highlight of the evening for me.

Now after enjoying the play I'm going to have to rent the movie and give it a chance. Sometimes being proven wrong can be a good thing.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 284/365 - (500) Days of Summer

Today was another day that was too beautiful to let pass by without getting out and enjoying it, so I decided to head to Bethesda. My friend Pia had raved about Ali Baba's Falafel in Bethesda and the arthouse movie theater there was one of the three in the area showing (500) Days of Summer, which I'd been anxiously awaiting. Who am I to resist kismet?

The falafel was the second-best I've ever had (first best is still L'as du Fallafel in the Marais section of Paris) and while I was sitting there on the curb scarfing it down who should walk by but Pia? She and another friend of hers were there perusing the goods that the outdoor bazaar at the Farm Women's Market had on display. We chatted for a bit and then I did my own turn of perusing the wares before heading down the hill to the movie theater.

After buying my ticket I still had some time to kill before the show started, so I popped into the Gifford's next door and got myself a peanut butter cookies and cream ice cream cone. Yummmmmmm. The movie turned out to be as good as I'd hoped. It was sadder and more realistic than most romantic movies. It's a non-linear, out of sequence narrative that charts various events over the course of a guy's life in the five hundred days that pass after he meets a woman named Summer.

There are sweet, romantic, happy, funny scenes and bitter, cynical, sad, funny scenes -- with the latter predominating toward the end. The casting is perfect. Even though Zooey Deschanel doesn't fit the cookie cutter Hollywood sex object mold, she's completely believable as the irresistible attractive and destructive force in the guy's life. The lead characters are both annoying and likeable in their own rights. They're much like real people in that regard.

The movie's bittersweet love story of a quirky couple and scrambled narrative style are probably most similar to another movie I loved, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Even the soundtrack for (500) Days is awesome, with the exception of two snippets of Patrick Swayze warbling "She's Like the Wind." Gack. The excellent group dance scene set to Hall and Oates "You Make My Dreams Come True" in the middle of the movie atones for even that horror, however.

I'll be curious to get a woman's perspective on the film to see if the apportionment of blame for the couple's problems is different from the female point of view. I put most of the fault on Summer, while recognizing that the guy had his own share of issues. I could maybe see the pendulum of blame swinging the other way, though.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 280/365 - Playing Hooky with Harry Potter

Thanks to my subversive instigation, nearly my entire office (including both our interns) snuck off to catch a noon showing of the new Harry Potter movie today. Don't worry, we used our vacation time to go so there's no issue of tax dollars being squandered while federal employees go AWOL.

Given that it's summertime I was expecting the theater to be packed with kids, but it was almost exclusively a crowd of nerdy adults. Comme nous. The movie was good, but as usual there was a lot they left out. They kept most of the comedy and romance bits intact, but surprisingly they cut a major action scene from the book. Still, it was a satisfying film and skipping off in the middle of the day to go to the movies was great. Coming back to work afterward, not so much.

Surely there has to be a magic spell to chase away work. Some variation of expelliarmus perhaps, or maybe this calls for a patronus.


(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 279/365 - Spring Awakening

Saw the musical "Spring Awakening" at the Kennedy Center tonight. It was good and well-deserving of its haul of Tony Awards. As have a thousand stories before it, it works the inexhaustible mine of teen angst. Despite the fact that it's among the oldest of story lines (as supported by the fact that the non-musical version of the play was first performed -- and promptly banned -- over 100 years ago), it still manages to seem as fresh, frenetic, raw, and real as youth itself.

This may not be the first choice of play to go and see with your mom or minister given that it deals quite bluntly with sex, sexuality, incest, child abuse, teen pregnancy, masturbation, suicide, and abortion, but it is certainly worth seeing. The set design is excellent, the costuming is quite good, the performances are all solid, and the songs (for the most part) are both good and hummable.

My only quibble really is with the final number, which comes across as a desperate ploy for a "Seasons of Love" type moment. It seems jarring and out of place given the scene that precedes it and the overall tenor of the play to that point. A key character faced with a very trying ordeal decides to resist rather than surrender in a powerful set piece, and then the cast effectively joins hands and sings 'Kumbaya" and chipperly asserts that everything will be alright? WTF? The play should end with a defiant, 'set the world on fire' anthem instead of a limp, treacly, ballad.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 254/365 - Stranded in New York

So to resume from yesterday's entry, I missed the last train back to DC due to a rain delay at the Nationals-Yankees game and the next one wasn't until 3 a.m. That left me plenty of time to kill in New York City in the wee hours of this morning. I wandered around Time Square for a bit and spotted a couple of movie theaters. One was closed, but the other still had one show playing at midnight -- "Year One" with Jack Black and Michael Cera. I had been hoping to catch a screening of "The Hangover," but figured 'what the hell, it's a way to pass a couple hours.' Ugh.

DO NOT go and see this movie. Not to be unduly flippant, but it's the cinematic equivalent of waterboarding. If someone you know mentions the possibility of going and seeing this movie, beat them about the head with a rolled up magazine until they come to their senses. Based on the previews, I figured "Year One" would be about 25 percent funny. However, even my lowered expectations overshot the mark by at least 15 percent. It's dreadful.

It did successfully throttle a couple of hours to death, though, so I guess I got what I wanted from it. After that, I ambled back over to Penn Station to wait for my train. I was expecting the station to be full of freaks and derelicts at that time of day, but it wasn't. It was largely empty except for a cluster of weary travelers waiting for their trains to come.

Mine finally came and after fidgeting and squirming in my seat for about an hour, I was able to doze off for the rest of the trip. We pulled into Union Station at 7 a.m. this morning, 23 1/2 hours after I'd caught the train up to NYC the previous day. I metroed back to my apartment, brushed my teeth, and collapsed into my bed.

Home at last.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 231/365 - Legacy of Light

Tonight I went to see the new play "Legacy of Light" at Arena Stage's substitute venue in Crystal City. This piece was specially commissioned by Arena from local playwright Karen Zacarias and is having its debut a half-block from my apartment. It's always exciting to see a brand new work, although about half the time the play turns out to be disappointing. Most new plays are more along the lines of rough drafts when they premiere and still need a fair amount of shaping and polishing.

That's not the case with "Legacy of Light." It's an absolutely brilliant, fully-realized play. The story takes place between and betwixt two sets of characters in two different centuries, Enlightenment Era France and modern New Jersey. In each setting there are four primary characters, two men and two women. The Enlightenment cast consists of historical figures such as Voltaire and pioneering female physicist Emilie du Chatelet, her daughter, and her young and impetuous lover, while the modern cast is composed of a female astrophysicist, her schoolteacher husband, and a struggling young woman and her brother.

The characters move around each other in various orbits and while initially they are confined to their own eras, as the play progresses the Enlightenment characters also appear in the modern setting. Whether these time travelers are ghosts, hallucinations, or something else is never fully addressed and surprisingly it doesn't really seem to matter. Their simultaneous existence in both the 18th and 21st centuries further reinforces two principles of physics discussed in the play: first, that energy is not destroyed but persists (an idea first put forth by Emilie herself) and second, that time is not constant but varies as energy increases (an idea which Einstein derived from Emilie's work).

The plot of the play focuses chiefly on women scientists who are simultaneously on the verge of important discoveries and the verge of motherhood, but it is not about just that any more than the dictionary is just about words beginning with the letter A. The writing is razor sharp and the play is dazzlingly smart, consciousness expanding, and utterly original. If you have a brain and a heart you'll enjoy it a great deal. If you're deficient on either count you probably won't care for it much, and more's the pity for you.

The set design is facilitative and unobtrusive and the costumes are, in the words of one of the characters, amazingly amazing. Many of the actors play two roles, one in each of the play's eras, and the peformances range from excellent to merely adequate. Interestingly, some of the dual performers are excellent in one part and merely adequate in the other. Standouts among the cast include the actresses playing Emilie and Olivia, the astrophysicist. The performers portraying the modern sister-brother pair are also quite good.

As if you couldn't tell by now, I enjoyed this play immensely and it's something I can't recommend highly enough. Beg, borrow, buy, or steal a ticket but by all means go. GO!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 226/365 - Tartuffe

I hadn't been to see a play in a while, so tonight I decided to catch Journeyman Theater's production of Moliere's "Tartuffe" at the Church Street Theater. I'd never seen or read any of Moliere's work before so I wasn't sure what to expect, although I was aware that "Tartuffe" was generally considered his masterpiece. The play was originally staged in 1664 and caused an almost instant uproar, with the Archbishop of Paris threatening to excommunicate anyone who saw, acted in, or read it. To engender a reaction like that, you know it has to be good.

The titular Tartuffe is a scheming huckster posing as a pious nobleman who claims to have bankrupted himself through acts of charity. He insinuates himself into the good graces and household of Orgon, a wealthy landowner who is awed and obsessed by Tartuffe's apparent righteous fervor and selflessness. When Orgon's family tries to tell him that Tartuffe is a lying hypocrite who censoriously denounces everything enjoyable or pleasant as sinful and wicked while secretly indulging in his own appetites, he rebuffs their criticism as being driven by envy and takes their "persecution" of Tartuffe as further evidence of his righteousness.

In short order, Tartuffe convinces Orgon to disinherit and exile his son, break his daughter's engagement, and provide Tartuffe with the deed to his entire estate, his daughter's hand in marriage, and possession of a box of incriminating letters. It is only when Orgon catches Tartuffe attempting to despoil his wife in Act II that he finally sees the sanctimonious mountebank for what he is. When he throws the rascal out, Tartuffe goes to court to obtain an eviction order against Orgon and turns the box of letters over to the king, who sends an officer to arrest and imprison the duped landowner.

Will wickedness triumph? Will Tartuffe's treachery be rewarded with wife and wealth? I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, in case you want to brave the threat of excommunication and see or read it for yourself. The play is very good, although the fact that it is written entirely in rhyming couplets does take some getting used to. The character of Tartuffe is the theater's most thoroughgoing scoundrel this side of Iago and the play's skewering of self-righteous hypocrites who denounce in public that in which they delight in private remains as timely today as it was 445 years ago.

Journeyman Theater's production does justice to Moliere's writing. The set, although minimal, is effective. The costumes are good and although the actors stumble over some of their lines, the performances are all quite good as well. In particular, the actress portraying the sharp-tongued servant girl Dorine who attempts to bully some sense into a family of senseless fools stands out among the cast.

Really, the only off note associated with this production is the fact that the Church Street Theater lacks air conditioning or other meaningful ventilation and, as such, the atmosphere can be pretty stifling. Apart from that, this production gets solid marks all across its report card.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 216/365 - Wolverine

Chris, Adriana, and I went to the movies in Georgetown tonight to see "Wolverine." It was about what we expected from a comic book movie. It's a bit long and meandering without much in the way of a tightly-constructed plot, but there are some good action sequences and some suprisingly good performances, particularly by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. It deviates a fair amount from the comic books, which I found a little distressing given that Wolverine was one of my favorite characters from back in my comic collecting days. Adriana particularly enjoyed all the half-nekkid male eye candy. Unfortunately for Chris and me, there was no female equivalent to balance things out. Life is so unfair.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 206/365 - Double Feature on 14th Street

Caught two musical revue shows by the In Series company at the Source Theatre on 14th Street today, one a matinee and the other an evening show. The first, "From U Street to the Cotton Club," was a Jazz Age revue recounting the life and career of a fictional songstress who started out in the clubs along U Street, the famous Black Broadway of Washington, DC, before moving on to the Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom in New York. The revue featured two male and two female singers, a piano man, a drummer, a saxophonist, and an actress/dancer playing the parts of both the songstress, Sassy, and her granddaughter as she recited monologues and reminiscences from her grandmother's journal.

The revue incorporated 20 songs of the period, with DC native and jazz legend Duke Ellington getting the lion's share of the billing, along with a few Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, gospel, and blues tunes thrown in for good measure. The musicians were top notch. One of the female singers was excellent. The remainder were good in some songs, not as good in others. The actress/dancer was very good in both capacities and did an outstanding job in making the fictional Sassy seem a real, flesh and blood woman. The writing of the show was also very good, with some of the reminiscences and observations verging on the poetic. The staging was very minimal, but effective and the costumes were adequate.

The second show, "Berliner Kabarett," recreated the dissolute and jaded cabaret scene of Weimar Republic era Berlin during the period between the two world wars. Set in a seedy, rundown cabaret/bordello in the wee hours of the morning, the revue featured a pair of drunken soldiers, a hostess, and two waitresses/performers/prostitutes, all of whom sang during the show. They were accompanied by a pianist/accordionist as they performed 20 songs by Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht.

Each of the singers was excellent, as was the musical accompanist. The set design and costuming were very good at recreating the "resigned to circumstances," "enjoy yourself now because things will only get worse," feel of that time and place. It was like being inside a Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich movie. While there was not much in the way of dialogue in this revue, there were recitations of bits of poetry and essays from the period that blended well with the music and broadened the sweep and scope of the show.

The In Series company appears to specialize in revues of this sort and given how much I enjoyed these two pieces, I'm now looking forward to catching their next show.

P.S. - the photo is of the sign on the side of the Ellington apartment building on U Street a few blocks from the theater. Given the first revue's emphasis on the Duke's repertoire, it seemed a good choice of subject.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 202/365 - Ragtime

I headed over to the Kennedy Center tonight to see their revival of the musical "Ragtime." It was the first time I'd seen a show in the recently renovated Eisenhower Theater. The Eisenhower is the smallest of the Kennedy Center's three main theaters. It's roughly the size of a small Broadway theater. Before the renovation it was drab, dark, and rundown. The makeover is quite startling. It's now warm and bright and cozy, all gold and blue and blonde wood. Unfortunately the acoustics are still problematic. Before the renovation, it was very difficult to hear the actors lines from the upper balcony. I don't know if that is still the case, but I can report that the prime orchestra seating isn't so prime from a sound standpoint. Many of the song lyrics, especially in the group numbers, were impossible to distinguish. It was largely just a fuzzy, foggy, blur of sound. Hopefully that's something they can tweak going forward.

The play itself, despite the sound issues, is excellent. It's based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow and concerns three strata of American society at the beginning of the 20th century -- the privileged white upper class, the disenfranchised black middle class, and the struggling immigrant lower class. The story mixes fictional characters with an eclectic array of historical figures such as Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, and JP Morgan. With a large cast of characters and a lot of plot points to cover, the play proceeds at breakneck speed but still manages to avoid seeming rushed or hastily sketched. It's a great story and it inspired me to purchase a copy of the book from the Kennedy Center gift shop immediately upon exiting the theater.

The primary theme of the play is the individual search for identity as reflected by one member of each social strata -- the white homemaker, the black musician, and the immigrant artist. The three struggle to define themselves and discover who they will be in this new American age and their journeys toward self discovery are contrasted with the white husband's mania for exploring the world's boundaries while studiously ignoring his own personal frontiers.

The cast is strong and is composed of performers who are both good singers and good actors. In particular, each of the three leads does excellently in his or her part. The staging is stark but effective and the costumes are very good. The music is lively and well done, but the songs tend to sound largely the same. There are a few standout numbers, but for the most part it isn't the sort of score you'll go around humming the next day. The compelling story, rich characters, and skilled performances though are enough in themselves to make the show well worth seeing. But I'm still irked about the acoustics/sound design.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)