Irish Coffee Please, Hold the Accent

Okay, I have to admit to a fatal flaw in my genetic make-up: I’m not good with accents. That is, I have a lot of trouble doing a good one and, even more significant, I have difficulty in hearing them and understanding the English spoken behind them. Thus, my main problem with seeing Irish plays is that it takes me at least ten minutes before my ear adjusts to the rhythms of an Irish accent, especially if they are deeply regional like the one spoken in The Seafarer, Conor McPherson’s new opus at the Booth Theater on Broadway. Since I know this fact about myself I concentrate, hard, on the spoken word and make sure I can see the lips from which they issue. This helps somewhat, but it still takes some time for it to sink in and by that time I’m quite likely to be lost in the weeds around the edges of some Irish dialectic bog. This is not always true since I think it is a director’s job to make sure an accent, or brogue, is comprehensible to American audiences but, in this case, the author of the piece, Mr. McPherson, is also its director and I betcha he thinks all is right with the world in this regard.

Another caveat about this production is also personal and reflects on my own background. I just do not see the charm in abject drunkenness even though this seems to be a necessity in most modern Irish plays (although there is a strong precedence set by early “classical Irish” playwrights from Synge to O’Casey to Behan). Why are we supposed to be charmed by drunks who act like adolescent idiots, stagger around, don’t bathe, spill stuff, piss themselves, throw up, cheat on their wives and girlfriends and their own buddies, stealing whatever comes to hand, and gambling away their money, their self respect and even, in The Seafarer, their souls? Taint funny, son; it just taint.

I did like this play because it has a lot to say about how we screw up our lives and pay the price but, despite some rave reviews, I think the script has flaws that is reflected in the unnecessary length of it. I know it’s wonderful when a speech is flowing like fine wine, but at some point ya just gotta put a cork in it and quit wallowing in rhetoric for the sake of rhetoric. You made your point, for gawd’s sake, get on with it! Perhaps this could be corrected by hiring a director who is not as in love with the long-winded wordiness of his characters as is the playwright. But when they are the same person what’s a dramaturge to do? Yeah, that’s it, you leave everything in and hope for the best and smile when (some) critics rave.

The five-man cast is superb. It’s another coup of ensemble acting and, despite my not quite latching onto the accents at the beginning; they are a joy to watch. Two of them are half-in-the-bag at the opening curtain but the other three catch up soon enough and all five of them are very convincing drunks (even Death himself who seems to be taking a holiday and is scary as, well, hell). I suppose this is not all that easy to do but the fookin’ old rascals were charmingly funny to most of the audience who seem to have similar characters in their family trees and I heard several comments like, “wow, he reminds me of Uncle Charlie.” Well, I’m beating this drunken Gaelic horse to death and I’ll stop; see above about wallowing.

I am tempted to whine here about dealing with the half-price ticket booth on cold wintry days but that’s another blog altogether.

Grater Love

This is my new coffee grinder. It is a C-Mill Electrical by “bodum.” It is French in origin and I think its design elements are exceptionally pleasing to the eye.

My sis and I agreed not to exchange presents this holiday so she labeled it a “host” gift because I’ve agreed to provide her with a sleeping venue for a few days. She also gave me some semi-exotic coffee beans (Blue Bottle is the brand name) and since my old grater recently developed a crack in its exterior this new one was fortuitous in its timing. I’ve already used it to grind up some freshly roasted beans to make one excellent pot of coffee.

This is a cheese grater and/or lemon zester that I gave my sister, not for Christmas (even though it was brightly wrapped, including a bow) but only because she has agreed to use my spare bedroom for a few days this holiday. Maybe her son will give her some cheese or some lemons.

Oddly enough this “Pylone” grater is also French in origin. C’est la plume de ma tante!

A Great American Tradition: Family Dysfunction as Theater

You think your family is dysfunctional? You don’t know the half of it until you’ve seen August: Osage County, a new play by Tracy Letts that somehow, against all odds, opened on Broadway a couple of weeks ago. First of all, it blew into town from Chicago and was immediately halted by the recent stagehands strike; it is a mind-boggling three acts (curtain is at 7:30 to accommodate its length) and, believe it or not, there’s no tap dancing except, maybe, for what the occasional rapid-fire and overlapping dialogue does on your brain pan.

The play is a throwback to those masters of American family dysfunction Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman and, somewhat, Edward Albee (although the 80-year-old Albee is currently throwing himself back onto New York stages with new works). That is, August is a semi-epic family drama that combines almost every possible addiction into one traumatic month (or so) of pathetic, juicy, character revelations that pile up like a bag of steaming odour on the doorstep of this large, sprawling house set somewhere on the plains of Oklahoma (the program says it’s outside Pawhuska, but I’m not sure that’s on any map). Wherever the hell it is you know from the get-go that it’s on the edge of nowhere and this family is one group of either semi-nutcases or the real thing, but there’s a long way to go before the house empties itself out when all the characters see their chance for escape and head for the hills or, at least, exit rapidly stage left.

The thing is that when you start getting to know these people and as more background is filled in and your knowledge of family history increases and as a new twist is inserted into your ribs about every 15 minutes, this “heavy” family drama starts getting to your funny bone. When you think it couldn’t get any worse, it does! You stop thinking “holy cow” and muttering “oh, jeez” and the laughs start, the long and hearty kind. Your tears of sympathy dry up and you begin to realize these people pretty much deserve everything they’re getting and there’s just no saving them from the hellholes in which they’ve dug themselves. Unfortunately, the end-of-play plea for sympathy falls on deaf ears (at least mine)—there’s just nothing to base it on unless there is, possibly, a November: Osage County in the works.

I must insert here that the cast is an ensemble to die for but, still, I’ve got to individually mention an actress named Amy Morton (as the clan’s eldest daughter) who killed me all by herself. Love her, loved her.

All in all, it’s a long evening in the theater and when is the last time (in this day and age when a 90-minute one-act play is a common occurrence) you went to something that has two intermissions? It’s unheard of! But, you know what, this play needs three acts to get everything in and the seat of my pants never complained, the true sign of fascinating and absorbing theater.

Auntie Politics

When I jumped into the blogging pool (two years ago next month!) I decided I would avoid two topics; politics and religion. I have strong feelings on both and I thought it best to not inflict my mostly minority opinions on my more (probably) fair-minded friends and family. But, really now, when I’m hearing that this person is the front-runner to gain the Republican party nomination for President of the United States I trembled at the thought. How the hell can Hillary compete with this?

Art on the Bowery with a side of grit...

The mere use of the words “The Bowery” conjures up an area of Manhattan historically known for being seedy and gritty; a street lined with flophouses and dirty, dark gin mills serving derelicts and drunks. To this day the buildings are old and grimy and in much need of repair or, possibly a better solution, imploded. Presumably the gutters get the attention of occasional street cleaners but you would never know it.

Well, anyway, there’s a new kid on the block called The New Museum of Contemporary Art. Actually, the old Museum of Contemporary Art has been around for decades, mostly in various locations in Soho, but the new, and presumably final incarnation has been set down, willy nilly, on the Bowery at Prince Street. Seven stories high it looks like silvery children’s blocks stacked precariously on top of each other. I was pretty impressed when I approached from Prince Street but I was lucky my first view was in the light of a sunny afternoon. It’s like seeing one of those aluminum Christmas trees for the first time…that is, you are totally overcome by its glitz, never mind that it’s basically nothing one should connect with a holiday. The building’s shimmer is created by a mesh-like covering that is most impressive from a distance but on closer inspection (the ever pragmatic me) will be one hell of a problem to keep clean, especially in that area of floating dirt, soot and, well, grit (which I think is a combination of the two). By the way, this area is known as "The Lower East Side" as opposed to "The East Village;" just in case your NYC geographical acumen is faulty.

The museum opened last week and the first exhibition consists of a collection of international sculpture, but I didn’t fork over the bucks to see it. My first visit consisted of the lobby, the gift shop and the café which was enough for me to get a sense of the space(s) and I am impressed enough to form a resolve to get back there soon to see what’s upstairs. Not the exhibit particularly but to see what’s going on architecturally within the building itself.

When I left the museum the sky was banked with clouds which had the effect of turning the building into a hue of opaque slate…chain mail gone bad in the blink of an eye. It made me wonder if this museum is the harbinger of change in the Bowery or if maybe the grit of the Bowery will be triumphant in the battle for primacy. Again, I questioned what those highly touted architects (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) had in mind with that innovative mesh. Also, shamefully, I admitted to myself that I wondered when the first Starbucks would make an appearance in the neighborhood. Or even, oh my goodness, a Pottery Barn. It sure couldn’t hurt. The Bowery is not a neighborhood I want to stroll around in the light of day, much less in the gloom of evening.

The gift shop is the usual stuff; t-shirts, totes, towels and textiles with contemporary prices to match the museum’s name. Presumably, in time, its stock will expand and you can buy a coffee cup that won’t require taking out a bank loan. I bought a t-shirt with this design on the front. I think it’s kind of cool in a sick sort of way. It’s certainly contemporary.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

At about 6:35 this morning nature called. I opened my shutters and threw up my sash and what to my wonder-ing eyes did appear but winter’s first snowfall and,
uh oh, I fear it looks like it might be a very long year. It’s 20 degrees fahrenheit and to quote Willy Shakespeare (no, not Mr. Lear); this might be a winter of our discontent, unless Mama Nature opts to relent and give us a respite from cold and despair but, oh hell and oh well, this morning with coffee and a bagel with schmear, frankly mein herr, I don’t really care. Oh, and I was just kidding about the sash.