The Great American Play
Josh Schell, Beth Wilmurt and David Sinaiko in the Shotgun Theater production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Gail and I love the theater. We’ve had the good fortune to have seen many of the greatest American plays, with fabulous actors. Long Day’s Journey. Our Town. Streetcar. Death of a Salesman. Glen Garry, Glen Ross. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The list goes on. Sunday night, we went to the Shotgun theater in Berkeley and saw what I think is the greatest, the singular “Great American Play”, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
It is one thing to re-watch the 1966 movie as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton chew the scenery while tearing each other apart, but the intimacy of a stage production, for the entire 3 hours of the play, is vastly more satisfying. This production uses a bare stage with no furniture, just a wall in back with liquor bottles to facilitate the massive drinking that drives the breakdown in social norms and behavior the play highlights. This theater is small, the closeness is palpable.
We’ve seen this play before; the production in San Francisco starring Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner. I think I like the Shotgun version better, partly because of the small venue and partly because of the direction, which just seemed to make the play clearer. For the first time I felt the depth of the love between George and Martha, the love that binds even through the tearing, shattering, soul-killing fighting and game playing. David Sinaiko, as George, has a depth and strength that bears through all the brow-beating and emasculation from his harridan, alcoholic shrew of a wife. Beth Wilmurt (Martha), is stronger and less blowsy at the beginning of the play, gradually dissolving into a blob of tearful jelly as George wreaks his terrible vengeance on her, shattering the central illusion of their marriage.
The play will run just one more week at Shotgun, then return in repertory in December. Tickets are cheap. You don’t want to miss it.
Not by the book
Dinner last Thursday night with our friends John and Becky, and their beautiful 3 year old, Daphne. We wanted to try someplace different, and decided on the Library on Main. Sorry, I wasn’t impressed.
In 1916 Walnut Creek opened a Carnegie Library on this site at the corner of Civic and North Main. That building lasted until 1961, when a new library was opened a block away.
More recently, the restaurant Eleve was there, featuring modern Vietnamese food. The owners closed that business last year, and now operate the bar/dance part of the business and have pop-up restaurants providing the food–at least, that’s what I think I understand from their website. There is some plan to have a different activity on the second floor, too, but I really didn’t understand that.
In any event, the food is currently being provided by 310 Eatery, which was a restaurant on Locust Street that closed. I couldn’t get a straight answer to see if this was to be permanent or temporary.
We started with something they do quite well–popcorn crabcakes.
Bite size crabcakes with remoulade
Crab cakes re-imagined as tiny bites you can just pop in your mouth. They were great.
Then came the fries–this is a big thing with 310Eatery. Fries with “bacon jam”, whatever that is supposed to be.
The fries weren’t crispy, the bacon “jam” just tasted like bacon, with lots of grease. I thought it was a soggy mess, and a horrible version of poutine. There was an alternative with clam chowder instead of the bacon, but it sounded even less appetizing.
The baby had a hot dog. It comes with an absurdly large bun, and, yes, another ramekin of the bacon jam.
I don’t get the aluminum foil pans for serving dishes. This is very nice building, in a good downtown location, and the presentation is downscale–note that the crabcakes were served on a nice plate with garnish, so there is no consistency in their outlook.
Gail also ordered the hot dog, which comes with all the usual fixings–the one pictured is bare only because it was for the child.
I had the fish tacos, which were quite uninspired:
There just isn’t anything interesting here. Presentation is sloppy, the taco has nothing to recommend it, the tortillas were stale. Bleaaaah.
Becky had a soft shell crab sandwich and felt her bun was way too large for the amount of crab. Meals should be in proper proportion.
I thought I paid the check, but as we got to the door the waitress chased me down–it turns out that the bar is run separately and I had paid the dinner check but not the bar tab. That’s just poor organization/bookkeeping. The customer is not responsible for figuring out their system–they need to get their act together and present one bill.
I loved Eleve. Not at all impressed with Library on Main/310Eatery or whatever this is.
My Stomach Hurts
It’s 9:30, and I’m glued to the TV. I can’t write about the great dinner we had last night; that will have to wait until the dust settles.
How this election could turn out this way is beyond me. But then nobody else seems to understand it, either. Books will be written on this election, PhD’s will be granted for studying how and why America could elect an intemperate blowhard.
If, indeed, that is what happens. There is still some slim hope at this hour that sanity will prevail. It ain’t likely, and I’m not placing any bets.
Will pussy grabbing become the new standard for social interactions?
Oh hell, I don’t have anything deep and incisive to say. I’m writing to have something to do, something to take my mind off the looming catastrophe.
God save us all, and God save the union.
Skewered by the service
Here it is Sunday morning. We’re home, in our robes, playing on the computers, and Gail is eating reheated leftovers from Friday night in Modesto. They smell so darned good it makes me write about the dinner.
We ate at Skewers, just a block from the host hotel. A modest place that serves Iranian food, but nobody will call it that because of politics, so they call themselves a kabob house, or Persian.
Cement floor, no tablecloths. Totally generic decor–it could be a Chinese restaurant next week with no difference.
As soon as we sat down, they brought a basket of unleavened bread, fresh off the grill. Drinks were planned and orders taken. Gail and I both had the rack of lamb. It was scrumptious.
The red things on the rice are barberries
On the other hand, it wasn’t very hot. And therein lies the problem with Skewers–the most eccentric service we’ve had in quite some time.
There were 6 of us at table. Jerry ordered a salad, and 4 others ordered the lentil soup, advertised as being fresh made every day, sitting right there on the stove in the pot. Jerry got his salad.
Then, a long time later, came the soup since they said they had to get a quick stove repair because of a technical issue. Which should have come with the salad, of course. Especially as it was supposedly ready. But no, the soup came much later.
Then, 1 minute later, came the entreés. Since we wanted to enjoy our lentil soup (and it was very good), we sent the meals back. That may have been an error on our part.
Finishing our soups, we called for the main event. Five meals were delivered, although they weren’t very hot. So not hot that Gail asked for more, hot, rice, which was delivered quickly.
Poor Jerry, who had the early salad, did not get his meal. They decided it was too cold, and were going to re-make it. So he watched as we ate. They asked him if he wanted something and brought him plate of their excellent house hummus and more warm bread to tide him over until his plate came.
As most of us were finishing, Jerry’s dinner arrived. The bad news is that is was so slow, the good news is that it was hot and he enjoyed it.
Prices are quite reasonable, the food is good, the service is bizarre. It’s like they not only have never run a restaurant, they have never eaten at a restaurant and don’t know how it is supposed to work. The food just comes out randomly.
If you are staying at the Doubletree, Skewers location is unbeatable. The food is very good, the service is an adventure. Fortunately, I travel with Gail “Flexible” Giffen, so we had a good time. The place was full of bridge players, and they all seemed to enjoy their meals as much as we did.
And the leftovers are still great on Sunday.
A Modest Little Town
It’s hard to hold a bridge tournament in the big city anymore; you just can’t get the hotel space and rooms for any reasonable price. Now we’re having a regional at the Doubletree in Modesto, a 200,000 person ex-urb in the Central Valley. Even there, the hotel sold out so much that I could get one night at the host hotel and had to spend another at the Springhill Suites 3 miles away.
Thursday, I played with Mike Rippey while Gail played with Mike’s sweetie, Gretchen. Although she has played party bridge, this was her first regional and only 2nd session of ACBL bridge ever. Good for her for just jumping into the deep end of the pool.
What to do for dinner? I googled “best Mexican Modesto”, and every answer pointed to La Huerta Vieja (The old orchard), so that’s where we went.
Just a basic place in a shopping center on the edge of town, La Huerta Vieja has first rate food, low prices and relatively decent service. We were happy campers.
I went for the fajitas. I always go for the fajitas. I sit and carefully read the entire menu, then order the fajitas.
That’s a good looking plate of chicken, beef, onions and peppers.
I ate too much. Just couldn’t stop loading up a tortilla with rice, sour cream, guacamole, salsa and the meat.
Gail had a combination plate, with chili relleno and an enchilada.
There is nothing fancy, gourmet or upscale about this joint, but it’s a damn good place to get Mexican food cooked right.
Back to the Springhill Suites. Just by random chance, we got a room equipped for handicapped access. I thought it was interesting all the different things they do, and the thought that goes into making the hotel accessible to those with various disabilities.
Not your normal doorbell
This is the system that responds to the doorbell. The xenon light flashes and a loud buzzer sounds. Even the totally deaf will know when someone is at the door.
People in wheelchairs can’t reach very high, so there are robe hooks and door locks at a lower level.
The bathroom is large enough to maneuver a chair and the tub has multiple grab rails and a moveable seat. Even the drapes have special long handles with rings to make them easier to grasp. The attention to detail was impressive.
Okay, that’s enough general observations on the world for one day. Decent Mexican food, and a well equipped handicapped suite at the Springhill. Who knew Modesto was so interesting?
Not a computer hand
People complain that computer hands have skewed distributions.
Friday I played in a team game at the East Bay Community Bridge Center in Oakland. We shuffled and dealt the hands at the table for round two and I picked up this beauty:
It was Club Appreciation week, and there are Gold points to distribute in team games. Betty had 25 teams: I’ve never seen the place so full.
The hand? We played 5 clubs making 6. Our teammates bought the contract for 5 Hearts (how could you ever defend with my hand?) and we picked up 13 IMPS on the hand.
That kind of bidding is how you cone in tied for fourth/fifth non a Friday afternoon.
Tartine Manufactury
Susan and Karl are here for a week, so we need to spend all out time partying. Thursday, we went into the city for lunch with Susan’s nephew Joji. He’s a chef, so we asked him where to eat a hip, trendy lunch and were led to Tartine Manfactury in the Mission for an interesting experience.
Joji and Aunt Susan
Tartine is a bakery as well as a restaurant, which you might have guessed from the loaves of bread at the top of this post. In the modern style, most everything is right our in front, so you can see what’s happening. They have a huge oven, of course:
The kitchen is in front:
The room for pastry making is visible, but mostly I noticed the employee moving a tall stack of baskets, which is what they cook many items in:
It’s good to enjoy your work
The dining room is mostly glass, very bright and open. It’s way too loud for me, but just right for the endless stream of tattooed hipsters who keep this place humming.
Service at Tartine is just plain weird, and not in a particularly good way. You line up and order at the counter, where you get to walk past a case with all the good things you can order from the bakery. Here’s a small sample:
After you place your order, you get an electronic device to place on your table, which somehow tells the staff where you are so they can bring the food. I don’t think they work all that well, since we saw lots of waitstaff wandering around looking lost holding plates to deliver.
The food is good, when they manage to locate you. I had the ham and cheese sandwich, hold the pickles.
Joji had the Spicy Coppa, roasted peppers and Monterey Jack:
Everything was excellent. The food here is just great. I had a chocolate chip hazelnut cookie that was maybe the best cookie ever. Susan raved over her bread pudding. We all enjoyed our meal immensely.
Saying good by to Joji, we headed off for an adventure, first going to Coup d’Etat to see the exhibit of Harry Siter’s work we enjoyed last week at the opening.
We decided to spend the rest of the day just driving around the city and looking at stuff. The Wharf was still busy on a rainy October Thursday, the Embarcadero was in a constant state of growth, the Presidio was beautiful.
We wandered out to Sea Cliff to look at the really big houses where the rich folks live, and noticed a growing trend of decorating houses for Halloween. The spooky holiday has become the second largest event of the years, behind only Christmas in spending. We saw houses with multiple jack o’lanterns, tons of spider webs, tombstones with corny sayings like “Here lies Fester and Rot”. skeletons seeming coming out of the dirt, and this very intriguing figure in a window:
I fell like I want to go back there at night and see how they light it..Them rich folks sure know how to do things.
Eventually, we wound up at the Cliff house as it neared sundown. Since it was a cloudy and wet day, there wasn’t much of a sunset to view, but we stayed for a glass of wine and a nibble.
Two chardonnays, a gin martini, and a glass of Muscat vin de glacierre, a superb dessert wine I splurged with to accompany my cheese plate:
Cow, sheep and goats milk cheeses with accompaniments.
Things I don’t understand in life: why cheese plates come with these little slices of yesterdays bread toasted until they are rock hard, tasteless and unpleasant. Order some fresh bread, or even better, warm toast, and the cheese is vastly better. The restaurant can make bread pudding out of the leftover bread.
There was also a plate of calamari; crispy, hot and gooey in the middle.
Sated with a full day of having fun, we motored slowly home through Golden Gate Park, then the evening traffic. Turns out that traffic doesn’t bother me if I’m not in a hurry to be anywhere.
That’s one way to spend a pretty much perfect day in the city.
A Coup for the Art World
Harry and an admirer
Our friend Harry Siter is a damn fine artist. Last week he had an opening at an art and design gallery in the City, Coup d’Etat. We went with friends, and found the largest, wildest and most interesting gallery opening we’d ever seen.
Coup d”Etat is huge, right in the heart of the design district. This was the first opening we’ve seen where you had to be on the list to get in. Good thing we know the right people.
Harry makes sculpture large and small, and both were on display, although I seem to have been just taking photos of the big ones. Here are 3 of them.
Some of his art is also furniture, as you notice.
The gallery is immense, filled with art and objets d’art in a series of rooms. There were two or three bars, a DJ, excellent catering and a general aura deep coolness.
This was a two man show. The other artist was Peter Openheim, a painter.
Not even a little bit my taste, but that’s what makes horse races. Somebody will love it.
At any gallery opening the people watching is first rate. Here are some of the more interesting people I saw:
We had a great time. The art was beautiful. The crowd was beautiful. Lots of single women, dressed to the teeth. And the toes–the shoes on display were magnificent.
Harry, a man of man friends, knows a woman named Cheryl Rosenthal who created a video of the event, which may give you another flavor of the event.
And that’s how you enjoy a Wednesday night in San Francisco. Just be lucky enough to know the right people and go to fancy openings. Life is good.
1776
John Hetzler, Benjamin Pither and Sam Leeper star in 1776
I may have learned more American history last Saturday night than I did in my entire junior year of high school. We saw 1776 at the Lesher, put on by the Contra Costa Musical Theater.
The play is about the Continental Congress deciding to declare independence from England in June and July 1776. The decision was more difficult than you might believe, and even when agreement was reached the Congress spent days hashing out the wording of the Declaration so brilliantly written by Thomas Jefferson.
This is a strange musical in one respect–it has less music than any other I’ve ever seen. There is a section in act one that is so long without music that the musicians are permitted to leave the pit.
The cast are dedicated and talented amateurs aided by 2 Equity members, Benjamin Pither as John Adams and Douglas Giorgis as Edward Rutledge, the representative from South Carolina. In truth, I was surprised when looking at the program that there were only 2 Equity members, the cast was so talented.
1776 run almost 3 hours, with one intermission. And to make the evening perfect they now sell ice cream during the break, just like in London.
The play runs for 2 more weeks, and is an excellent way to spend an evening at the theater and learn all that history you slept through in your teens.
You can’t rain out a great party
Gail and I took a drive all the way to Big Sur Saturday, to attend the annual bash at the Hawthorn Gallery, right across the highway from Nepenthe. Yes it was raining, but that doesn’t matter to the dedicated art lovers and hard core partiers. Many of the attendees fit both categories.
Sheltering under the tent in front of the bar.
Cars jammed both sides of Highway 101 and all up the driveway to Nepenthe, but I tend to think that red cones mean “Reserved for Mr. Pisarra” and managed to stuff the little car into an imaginary parking place right up front, but I can’t really do that since in reality the space is occupied by many vehicles from this new company which decided they needed all the vans in the market.
After we checked in and found our names on the list, we joined the revelry. There is a full bar in front, as well as a bandstand with live music. People were dancing in the rain, including our friends Ted and Mary.
A little downpour doesn’t stop the seriously fun loving–this was Mary after that dance:
Plenty of other people were having their fun in the non-sun as well.
I saw some footwear that I will have to have, if I can find it on the internet. Nordstrom doesn’t carry these:
Light up tennies for grown ups. Or at least in adult sizes….
There was so much rowdiness in the air that I even had the bartender put 1/8 of a shot of bourbon in my Diet Coke, just for the flavor. I’m rowdy enough without the help of Mr. Jack Daniels.
Then we went in to the gallery, which was just jammed with wet people.
Even the balcony had some people, enjoying some very un-California weather.
The crowd at this party is a strange mix of aging hippies and art world hip. People were dressed to go hiking for a week, people were dressed for a Manhattan gallery opening. You could get dizzy checking them all out.
This couple sitting on the bench with Gail were typical–the man looks like the LL Bean catalog exploded all over him, the woman is in a dress with heels and hosiery. Do they even talk before they go somewhere together?
Gail demonstrating her folding chair to the odd couple.
These women were most decidedly dressed for the scene, not the weather.
The Hawthorn Gallery features mainly the work of the family Hawthorn. Founder Greg Hawthorn is a painter. Brother Chris is a glass worker. Sister in Law Julie is a ceramacist. There are other sculptors, painters and woodworkers, almost all of whom are family members. We did find one artist who is not a family member, just excellent.
Michael Gustavson, ceramic artist
I’m a big fan of glass. Gail, not so much. Even so, we both appreciated these plate that Ted and Mary purchased. The got the ones on top: the lower ones are a different set.
I’m not sure what food you would want to serve on blue plates, but they look good in any case.
Eventually we stumbled on the art work we were looking for–this year’s production from Julie Hawthorn. We have 3 of her pieces already, and are always interested in the new work she creates.
All new work. The one in the middle is coming to live at our house.
It isn’t hard to find Julie–just look for the six foot tall, drop dead gorgeous, woman in white.
She’s ready for her closeup, too.
Julie and her husband Chris live in Port Orford, OR, about 60 miles north of the California border. They have a northern branch of the family gallery there, too, along with a restaurant and a few luxury suites to rent out.
Having negotiated the purchase, talked with friends, observed the new and the outré, danced a bit in the rain and even tasted some bourbon, it was time for us to hit the trail back to Monterey for an abalone dinner on the wharf and the drive home. That’s about all the fun you can have in one day, at least until this time next year when the party rolls around again.
Totally Unauthorized 