I saw "The Body of an American"

What I saw: "The Body of an American," at the newly remodeled Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street, in the West Village, NYC

What I wore: favorite black Fluevog Guides, fishnet socks, Hudson jeans that are too long that now have a ripped button on one of the back pockets because I did that the last time I wore them which was when I saw "Prodigal Son," black t with white polka dots, black open-knit sweater, burn-out velvet scarf that was the gift of a friend in Seattle in the late 90s. 

Mine is the tan car,

stuck behind four yellow cabs,

next to the white bus

What I did beforehand: got stuck in mid-town gridlock and stepped on my prescription sunglasses, the ones I got for Italy

Who went with me: The Bacon Provider, freshly returned from a week of working on the other coast

How I got tickets: Oh, Reader...you knew it would happen. I bought tickets to two shows on the same night this month.  Maybe if I had real-life friends here, I'd have asked around and given them away. But I know like five or eight people in NYC outside of my family. Anyway, I bought more tickets and donated back the originals on the grounds that a small theater like this might put the proceeds to good use. Oh, and if you'd like to tell me how to make friends in Bedhead Hills or NYC when I'm 52 and bitter and currently like really into Schopenhauer, you can comment about that below.

Why I saw this show: I think I got a promotional email suggesting it (and here I am, the one who gets all fucking salty about spam).

Where I sat: last row, in front of the light and sound board, in the brand new, comfortable seats. The guy manning the tech showed up and let out two great, theatrical yawns. I wondered what would happen if I monkeyed with his cables. I'm glad I didn't; this show has exquisite lighting and visual effects. Normally, I cringe at the recent trend of projecting slides on the backdrop of a play, but in this case the set was designed to look as good without the projections, and the images enhanced rather than distracted. 

Things that were sad: It's all been about drugs lately, movies, books, plays. 

Things that were funny: I just finished reading Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers," a 70s novel about a journalist in Vietnam who's pretty lost in his own life and a drug deal gone sideways. My brother recommended it, and I liked the book quite a bit, though when I watched the movie version, "Who'll Stop the Rain," I was disgusted by its neutering of the three main characters. Read the book; skip the movie. Anyway, "The Body of an American" is about a journalist who goes to the more recent war-torn corners of the world and is also pretty lost in his own life, and a playwright who wants to write about him because he is also pretty lost in his own life. I completely relate to the theme of a writer lost in his own life: I really do.
There are a few ways to define "funny."

Things that were not funny: The lighting guy behind me had a tummy ache.

What it is: a play about writers, ghosts, and how life can be scary or seemingly pointless, acted with genuine (and appropriate) restraint by two actors named Michael.

Who should see it: husbands who don't like the feel-bad family-dysfunction dramas, writers, anyone who just ate dinner at one of the many fine restaurants in the West Village, photojournalists, lovers and haters of snow and/or sand.

What I saw on the way home: I expected to see a certain amount of bad driving on the dark and narrow Saw Mill Parkway late on a Friday night, but I got stuck behind a driver whose foot seemed to have slipped off the gas.  I steered around the unexpectedly slowing car, but when it happened a second time to another driver it seemed like a contagious disease had overtaken drivers all over Westchester. Keep going, people. You can't stop driving until you arrive someplace.

I saw "Angel Reapers"

What I saw: "Angel Reapers" at the Signature Theater, on W 42nd, off-Broadway

What I wore: favorite dirty jeans, J. Crew men's striped oxford shirt, tan cardigan, Chinese-made Australian-brand boots, black quilted jacket with Baker plaid trim, silk scarf I bought at the American Folk Art Museum that was made in India.  

"No photography allowed"

What I did beforehand: Tuesday things, Tuesday being the homeliest day of the week
Who went with me: The Graduate
How I got tickets: online, full-price

Why I saw this show: Because the United States of America has always been a home to people of unusual faiths. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

— Hamster d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) March 18, 2016

Where I sat: The stage is in the middle with the audience divided on the two sides, facing each other. I sat in the third row, left, behind the Graduate, between a quiet woman who was barely breathing and a man with a case of the sniffles. 

Things that were sad: The Shakers were celibate. 
Things that were funny: (spoilers)

Things that were not funny: There was a moment, after the last member of the audience took off their coat and sat and the stage manager closed the door and people began to get quiet in anticipation. Well, maybe some people weren't quietening and some people were actually shushing each other (a scolding akin to some honking, which there is also too much of in New York) and the lights started to dim and I watched not for the beginning of the play but for the moment of  transformation: when the collection of unrelated individuals becomes a cohesive audience. I didn't see it. But really the theater was just a room and I and all the people in it dutifully gave the eleven actors our focus despite being able to see the faces of other members of the audience. Because without this choice maybe there is no theater. So as a backdrop to the actors, there was an array of human faces, like indoor moons, also watching but meant to be ignored. And I was undisturbed by them but distracted by a single microphone wire subltly snaked from the bonnet of a performer into her dress. I wanted that wire not to be there; more than I wanted the faces of the other half of the audience to go away, more than I wished the sniffles from the guy sitting next to me would stop, I wanted that wire not to be running from her simple white bonnet to the collar of her 18th century dress.

What it is: a play? dance? musical? interpretative history? recital? pageant? About the Shakers. It answered 74 things about the Shakers, but asked 123 more. 

Who should see it: history buffs, utopians, cloggers, shape-note singers, re-enacters, students of religion, Quakers. 

What I saw on the way home: A pair of Con Ed trucks, fixing something under the street, because New York never stops being broken.

Because New York never stops being broken

I saw "The Wildness"

What I saw: Sky Pony's "The Wildness" at Ars Nova, on W 54th, off-off-Broadway 

What I wore: favorite jeans, boots, scarf given to me by an old Seattle friend that I've lost touch with, long cardigan; you have to check your coat because the venue is small. 

Ars Nova (projected sign on building across W 54th)

What I did beforehand: ate a hotdog  
Who went with me: The Bacon Provider 
How I got tickets: online 

Why I saw this show: I read a review that made it sound a little weird and stupid and like something I needed to see

Where I sat: on a sofa in the section labeled "COAT," our names written on pieces of tape. If you go, get a "premium" seat on the sofas, and don't volunteer to be one of the "Brave Ones."

Things that were sad: the songs were better than the business connecting them
Things that were funny: sequined underwear, lyrics 

Your ticket is a blindfold

Things that were not funny: the Bacon Provider sitting down, looking around accusingly, pulling out his phone and looking up a review of the show and saying, "Oh, God." This entertaining and somewhat insubstantial show was neither as bad as its bad reviews, nor as good as its good reviews.

What it is: While it is billed as an alt-rock fairy tale, I would say it's an indy-pop show, with fascinating costumes, candy, blindfolds, cool lighting effects, decent music that wasn't too loud, and sporadically charming choreography.

Who should see it: fans of Sky Pony

Food King: WE DELIVERY

What I saw on the way home: The Food King, with its sign reading, "WE DELIVERY"

Later that night I dreamed Backup Singer/Handmaiden #1 was living in my yard, at the bottom of a steep ravine. I recognized her by her red-blue wig. I gave her some clothes, and promised her food, and climbed a ladder through the shower to get back in my house.

I saw "Prodigal Son"

What I saw: "Prodigal Son" at the second-most generically named theater I've yet been to in New York, the Manhattan Theater Club (also known, even more generically, as New York City Center Stage 1) at 131 W 55th Street, which is off-Broadway.

What I wore: favorite blue Fluevog Guide heels, Hudson jeans that are much too long and puddle annoyingly around my ankles, black no-iron stretch cotton Brooks Brothers blouse, black Eileen Fisher cardigan, gray rag & bone scarf with black dots that for a while I thought the cleaners lost and I cried over it because you can't buy them anymore but then I found it so I wear a lot and maybe clutch it jealously sometimes, tiny purple Kate Spade purse with a long skinny strap that is really no replacement for women's clothes having functional pockets but what can you do?

What I did beforehand: When I first moved to New York I complained that you can't get a decent cup of coffee, but I have since gotten over the general badness of a lot of the coffee in New York and found where to go. Before the theater, I ate a molasses ginger cookie and drank a decaf cappuccino from Blue Bottle coffee (which is a New York outpost of a West Coast chain) and then walked to the subway to catch the uptown E train. I got on the wrong train, hopped off and then got on the right train and got off at the wrong stop. I was supposed to be meeting the Bacon Provider for dinner and had to walk five blocks instead of no blocks.  

Who went with me: The Bacon Provider and The Graduate (who we should have invited to join us for dinner) 

How I got tickets: online, full price, in two batches because I thought The Bacon Provider was going to be out of town and when I found out he wasn't going to be out of town I bought one more ticket, in the back row

Why I saw this show: recommended by a friend at the barn who has a friend who is an actor and the friend recommended it

Where I sat: Row B, Seat 5

Is your phone off?

Things that were sad: Sometimes, I miss teaching. Sometimes, I think the wrong people get into teaching. 

Things that were funny: I did not like the rambly, new-agey incidental guitar-and-sometimes-piano music used in the show. It was correctly engineered, but I just didn't like it. File this under #myunpopularopinion; it was composed and performed by Paul Simon. Also, when the lights came up, just before the actor spoke his first line, the woman next to me said aloud, "I like the set!"

Saw Prodigal Son at Manhattan Theater Club off-Broadway tonight. Best written play I've seen this year. Spectacular lead actor.

— Hamster d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) March 11, 2016

Things that were not funny: how many prep-school coming-of-age stories are there left to be told? But if you want me to sit on the edge of my seat, tell me a story of redemption. Because, you see, I, too, was a liar once, and know well what liars can do.

What it is: the best written play I've seen this year; the script is for sale for $17 at the coat check afterwards, and they may not have change, so buyers will have to choose, as I did, between paying $20 for it or waiting for change.

Who should see it: fans of the wildly gifted young actor, Timothée Chalamet; people who think about Socrates, Nazis, T.S. Eliot, and Jesus Christ. 

What I saw on the way home: Before the play begins there is a book lying on the stage. If you go to see the play, and you should, check to see what book it is.  Also, check to see what book is left on the stage at the end.

I saw "The Humans"

What I saw: The Humans, at the mildly decrepit Helen Hayes Theater, on the south side of W 44th Street, in NYC

Celebrating International Women's Day in another crumbling theater pic.twitter.com/iL7L7fcMad

— Hamster d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) March 8, 2016

What I wore: those black Fluevog boots with two buckles that I think of as my pirate boots, tights, plaid wool Boden skirt, light pink no-iron Brooks Brothers cotton blouse and favorite Barbie pink cashmere Boden crewneck sweater

What I did beforehand: ate turkey and black bean chili and read an article in Granta 
Who went with me: The Bacon Provider

How I got tickets: online, with a coupon for $10 off
Why I saw this show:  Because it got good reviews in the New York Times,  because The Bacon Provider would be in town, because I walk on W 44th and wondered. 

Where I sat: row F, in front of an extravagantly hipsterish guy with a boy's haircut (in chunks over his balding temples), clearly in his early 30s trying pretty hard to look 22 (but hoping you won't notice), wearing an Aztec-patterned blanket jacket, a green gingham shirt, purple v-neck, faded orange chinos and, yes, a bow tie. I nicknamed him, "Young John Hodgman." 

Guys
Guys
There is a reviewer behind me complaining to his date about seeing three shows this week
And he's wearing a bow tie

— Hamster d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) March 8, 2016

He pulled out his reviewer's notebook and pen just before the lights dimmed, at precisely 8:08 p.m. as he had predicted. He had a date with him, who he should have dropped off at the hospital because she had a gooey, productive cough that kicked in about 40 minutes into the show and I thought she might need an ambulance.

Young John Hodgman behind me readies his pen & paper for notes,tells his date. "They always start 8 minutes after when they say curtain is."

— Hamster d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) March 9, 2016

Things that were sad: play was sad, but not unhopeful
Things that were funny: phone business, New-York-basement-apartment business, almost everything the mother-character said, especially when she was trying to be inspiring 

Things that were not funny: the actors were upstaged by the incoherent granny in her wheelchair, and even the granny was upstaged by the verisimilitude of the sounds the apartment made

What it is: more family dysfunction in two stories (without intermission)

There is no intermission

Who should see it: theater-goers with strong immune systems and an appetite for family dysfunction, students of class warfare willing to have the battles of their expertise acknowledged but not re-fought

What I saw on the way home: When she rose to her feet, the white-blond date of Young John Hodgman steadied herself on the seats saying, "I feel like an old granny." I guess she meant her illness. She was wearing black cat-eye glasses frames that made her pale face even more so. I don't think Young John Hodgman heard her, though, because he was still scribbling in his notebook; he had stopped laughing about 30 minutes into the 95 minute show.

The Bacon Provider bolted ahead of me; he is not a fan of crowds. I was stuck behind a long line of shuffling theater patrons, rising into the aisle ahead of me, slipping their arms back into the sleeves of their wool jackets, checking for their purses and programs. He looked bewildered out on the sidewalk when I caught up to him.

I admitted on the walk home that I wasn't sure I liked it. He said, "You know I don't like depressing plays."

"But it wasn't that depressing. It was good," I pressed. "The acting, the writing. The apartment. The sister? I swear she was real. Someone I totally know. Everything about her. That wasn't even acting. And the mom? Those emails! I mean."

Even a few blocks of walking in New York drags a person on its gritty edge, because New York has no smooth side, but when the streets are quiet enough and the temperature is in that zone between too hot and too cold, it's almost like New York isn't the most terrible place in America, and on this night it was almost like that.  

I added, after another block, "I'm not sure what the point was, but I think I liked it anyway."

I ate Lunch

What I saw: Lunch with Mrs. Gardenwinkle and her best friend Mrs. Triumph, at the Bedhead Hills Wasp and Skeet-Shoot Club

What I wore: I was warned in advance by Mrs. Gardenwinkle that the Bedhead Hills Wasp and Skeet-Shoot Club has a "no jeans" rule in the dining room, but I had a lesson scheduled after lunch so I wore my riding clothes, consisting of freshly cleaned tall dress boots (courtesy of the expert polishing skills of the Bacon Provider), safari tan full-seat Pikeur breeches, black long-sleeved Ralph Lauren polo shirt, new Ibex zippered cardigan sweater, Baker-plaid-trimmed barn coat, black and white check scarf.

What I did beforehand: baked bread (I made the dough the night before)
Why I went: A number of Mrs. Gardenwinkle's year-end tax items came to the house, and I mailed them to her at her new condo. In return, I got a nice card in the mail, with her thanks, and the invitation to join her and a friend for lunch; she had written her email address in cursive just before she signed off, suggesting I reply that way.

A hand-written card from the previous owner

Where I sat: in the seat I was offered, with the view of the covered patio and golf course

Things that were sad: my hosts greeted our server by his first name; his mechanical smile and polite reply reminded me of the obsequious servers at Busch's Grove, back in the St. Louis I grew up in, where white people felt no obligation to pretend not to be paternalistic in their racism. 

Things that were funny: the wallpaper in the Ladies Lounge; listening to Mrs. Triumph and Mrs. Gardenwinkle talk about the Republican presidential candidates; the story of the homeless man in the Bedhead Hills Library 

Things that were not funny: See "Things that were funny" and "Things that were sad."

What it is: I had a salad with grilled salmon on it. It was just the right size fillet and it was  perfectly cooked. The cookie was smallish but freshly baked so the chocolate was melted. The cappuccino was made by one of those do-it-all machines, topped with a bland froth of tasteless milk foam and a tell-tale brown dot of machine-drizzled espresso in the middle. 

Who should see it: I hope they invite me to something again. Mrs. Gardenwinkle isn't much like my mom (her taste is more like my mom's mom's), but they'd be the same age if my mom was alive.

What I saw on the way home: cars and trucks and bare naked trees

What I forgot to tell you: It's been bothering me for more than two weeks-- something discussed at lunch but I couldn't remember. Somehow it came out of the conversation about the Broadway smash-hit "Hamilton," but I didn't remember until yesterday. Mrs. Triumph was describing how to get tickets for a matinee, and Mrs. Gardenwinkle was saying that she'd heard it made sense to get the assisted hearing device because, "There are just so many words!" The topic then shifted to the ten dollar bill, with Hamilton's picture on it, and the possibility of a new design with a woman on the ten or the twenty, and Mrs. Gardenwinkle said, with feeling, "It's such nonsense! Why do they have to go and change who's on the dollars!?"

I've been stewing about it ever since, wondering what might make the most convincing argument. I said nothing at the time, though I'd like a bill with an American woman on it, and I think when we get one I will go to the bank to get a whole stack of them, to give out as tips. 

I saw "Old Hats"

What I saw: "Old Hats" at the Signature Theater, on W 42nd St
What I wore: jeans and Danner boots
What I did beforehand: ate tamales, drank the wrong flavor of Jarritos
Who went with me: R. & The Graduate, both 20-something
How I got tickets: Online, full price

"No photography allowed"

Why I saw this show: I have a friend who is a neuroscientist and before that she was a mime and a clown. We wanted to see this show together, but it turned out that she was at a scientific conference this week. So I had to invite other people.

Where I sat: Row G, on the end (people in seats in the front section were vulnerable to being teased by clowns or chosen to come on stage as foils)

Things that were sad: I really wanted to see this with my friend who used to be a professional clown, and she had to go do science instead.

Things that were funny: Bill Irwin and David Shiner are geniuses of physical comedy. Shaina Taub's songs are witty and catchy and hold their own.

Things that were not funny: This whole Trump thing? Not funny.

What it is: pretty damned close to a Vaudeville show, ok?

Who should see it: anyone who, like me, gets really excited when there's a band providing the music and you can actually see the band and they are excellent and the amplification levels of the music are perfect so you wonder why other shows can't have better sound engineering;  fans of Mr. Noodle; your parents; the Korean exchange student living at your parents who just arrived and might not yet understand any of the song lyrics but will be captivated anyway; your friend Bill who says he hates mimes (but just in case buy him a beer at the bar beforehand); my children; my friend the neuroscientist; you.

What I saw on the way home: scaffolding