far from a travesty

So last night we kicked off round two (the spring semester) of the Chicago theater season.  Because of our winters away we end up with a sandwich of Sarasota theater in the middle of two ends of Chicago theater.  And yet, because the theater season in Chicago is drawing to a close we have a very full week of catching up to do...

Our first play this week was Travesties by Tom Stoppard. Stoppard won an Academy award for Shakespeare in Love and its brilliance shows up in early form here.  I will go on with more information from the theater and then give you our reviews after that - so you have the background for our two views...

and they were hawking subscriptions to next years productions - which we already have signed up for-  with the exception of the Noel Coward :-( which is while we are away- in NYC/Cuba/FL

so here are our thumbnail reviews- I liked it very much - found it witty and fast paced and I loved the fun the actors were having with the material- especially the two male leads - Greg Matthew Anderson (the amazing Jeff winner for Chesapeake from a couple of years back - a tour-de-force of a one man show) and Jeff Cummings - with a shout out to James Houton.  They were respectively the Dadaist, the civil servant and Joyce.  The ladies in their Wilde-esque roles also added verve to the evening's entertainment.  Phil found it mildly amusing but had no time for the inherent "discussion" of what is art - especially in relation to the "modern- shock of the new"...  So I would give it a solid thumbs up and Phil a tepid one.

Up next, in order - for theater evenings-

Sunday-

the Tuesday play- with John Mahoney-

the Wednesday outing- my favorite film from the Sarasota Film Festival- playing one night in Chicago.

the Thursday dinner-

and Friday dinner with friends-

so more as the week progresses.... and then we are off to see family and friends in NYC before heading to Europe for two weeks.... lots to report back on... stay tuned

an evening at Steppenwolf

so Friday night we went to our second play of the week- at the Steppenwolf Theater - Russian Transport- playing in the upstairs theater- 

here is the synopsis from the brochure about the season- 

"A rowdy Russian family in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn is on a daily hustle to achieve the American Dream. When Uncle Boris arrives from the old country, his mysterious business ventures force the family to decide just how far they are willing to go to come out on top. A funny, passionate family drama that slyly transforms into a heart-pounding thriller, Russian Transport is a fascinating look at the contemporary American immigrant experience."


and here are some photos and information sheets- 

and the review-

as with many things we see - the actors were all fabulous- excellent performances by every ONE of them- skilled nuanced work in a play that needs a lot of nuances.  Not unlike last night's Our Class this play is distinguished by difficult moral and ethical decisions but while Our Class was about life and death and core questions of good and evil, this play was more about ethical dilemmas about money.  if we had seen them in reverse order this may have had much more impact on me, but since we did not, this seemed like much ado about a fairly simple issue.  How willing were each of the characters to participate in the exploitation of others for financial gain.  And in the end - some chose better than others.

in the simplest terms (which of course is never possible in real life) this was a question of - are you going to be a good person but a loser in this particular game of success or an evil person and a winner?

tonight the Joni Mitchell Tribute and concert - and next week - two more plays along with more catching up with friends... before we leave again - for our  60th birthday celebrations in France!

OK quick...

because I have been gone so long-

I got back from NYC and the Racine'sNY opening and closed up the condo for the summer- all kinds of last minute stuff to do - packed up the cats and the car and headed north on a two day drive.... I arrived late afternoon on Easter Sunday.  I spent the bulk of the first week home trying to get things cleaned up (how does and empty house get so dirty and messy) and working in the yard (which had been really hard hit by the awful winter of more than 80 inches of snow!) had an appointment to get a new awning for the deck and in the first week - caught up with two sets of friends for dinner as well as having over for dinner a new neighbor. I also worked diligently on travel plans for both France in May and Nova Scotia, et al in August... still am (France is done but I have run into a few snags on the Canadian Maritimes trip) - oh and I spent an afternoon at the DMV working on some changes in title for our cars and helping Phil get his license plates transferred to IL on his new car (aaaccckkk)

so now in my second week home - and the weather has been crap! cold and rainy. I have been wondering what possessed me to leave sunny Florida but the schedule that follows will soon show why- so here we are at the 12th day of my being home and here are some photos from the last week and a half-

the very end of April and this is what I am seeing in the yard- (the soundtrack would be gnashing of teeth)

but we had dinner last Thursday with Brian and Tina and finally got the name right on the place that Brian's bar Billy Sunday buys their bread... so when we had lunch this week with Dick we stopped by the bakery on the way back home for a couple of loaves of this fabulous REAL BREAD!

THIS is what bread should look like!

on the same night (10 days after my return) we went to see Chris and Nina and have our first goosefoot meal of 2014.... as usual it was spectacular!

the amuse-

the scallop course-

our wines for the evening- the white showed fabulously and the red was also very good!

the egg is now called turtle in a shell- LOL- and not quite as custardy as the prior iteration...

Chris always has excellent soups and this sunchoke soup was no exception!

the salmon was the only course pretty much unchanged since we were last here in October...

this new dish of rabbit was a real winner! Amazing!

the beef

a new "cheese" course with a beignet and "coffee" with blue cheese as the predominant flavor

the yuzu and beet intermezzo- palate cleanser-

the citrus dessert course followed by the chocolate dessert course - followed by the end sweet of a house made truffle! every one of them was beyond reproach!

the trade from the "stumps" of birch wood was a nice change and the truffle was fabulous and will soon be ready for sale in the store "next door" down that is really really close to opening - and which will sell the magnificent soups and the truffles (Chris studied as a pastry chef along the way) which are "to-die-for" good!

we headed home after midnight and got up the next day for the next events...two night of theater followed by a tribute concert to Joni Mitchell's Blue album at WFMT....stay tuned because the theater has at least one truly knock out experience...

SERIOUSLY intense

so tonight we headed to the theater to see the Asolo production of Grapes of Wrath...

we stopped for dinner at Captain Brian's Fish Market (yes it is) and Restaurant where we have been twice before and really enjoyed the very fresh fish- the place is not at all fancy just good food! Here were the specials tonight- (sorry about the flash)

we got to the theater a bit early which turned out to be really nice because we had time to look at a display I might otherwise have missed about risk taking- see more below- 

so as you entered the lobby - a bit on the side was this sign and then a board where people had posted their notes-

now some of these (in my judgment) are not BIG risks but some are stupendously big risks and here are some I noticed-

"finally gave my heart" (I was so touched by that one- how joyful to see that post)  and the one next to it was a knock your socks off  "gave my husband a kidney he had given his to his brother" - and the row continued with "married the poorest guy in town 61 years ago, no regrets!"  these were fabulous sharings!!

the staging was fabulous- amazingly depicting the long and arduous journey the family took from OK to CA-

starring a cast of dozens of people!

a bit of history on the dust bowl from the program-

some blurbs about the works of Steinbeck- which have been adapted for stage and screen-

so here is my thumbnail review-

this play was excellent and it was intense - there was not one upbeat moment in the entire two hours plus-these people had only crappy bad things happen to them - a whole bunch of people die along the way and really bad people do really bad things to these poor down and out folks who are just trying to get some work- that's all they want is a chance to work and feed their families- seriously intense and depressing... although excellently acted and incredibly staged (rivers run, it really rains, people get buried, camp fires are lit) but WOW - what a downer...

and here's the thing- it was even more of a downer because decades later we still have the same issues- people just wanting to work to feed their families and getting nowhere---

and so I will leave you with this-

And remember to get out there and vote! The only way we can change things is to raise our voices through our votes!