An Ideal Husband

Posted on March 31, 2011 by djnpub

As the days in DC are too quickly rushing to an end, I attended another of my STC plays, Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. The set design was beautiful, and the acting was as always superb. The main setting was almost like a elegant photograph or painting of a 19th century rich person’s hall, prominently backed by a beautiful sweeping staircase with flowers all around. The play was entertaining and well executed, but it didn’t blow me away — more the content of the play than the execution. I’d seen this once before with CalShakes, but I don’t exactly remember it. I’m going to miiss these when I can’t go to great plays 5 minutes from home.

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Live Band Karaoke

Posted on March 16, 2011 by djnpub

While crossing the mall on my way home from work tonight, I got a call from Kathy who was at the bar in Hill Country, a new Texas style restaurant in our block that just opened this week, who asked me to join her. After a drink we decided to get a table. I had how idea what to expect. It turned out to be a very fun evening. The food logistics is kind of different, where you go to various stations to pick out your food and it all gets marked on a menu card, then you go eat at your table. The big surprise was that they put us downstairs, where they have live music. Tonight, and apparently every Wednesday night, was Rock ‘n Twang Live Band Karaoke. It was just like it sounds, karaoke, except backed by this quite good live band that spanned country, to pop, to rock. There were plenty of volunteers from the crowd to keep it going for about three hours, who ranged from pretty good to bad. Then one of the restaurant staff, John, got up and did a version of Marvin Gaye’s “Lets Get It On” that was amazing. Great voice and dramatic presentation. He got a standing ovation from the crowd. I felt sorry for the guy who followed him who had done a song earlier, and was actually pretty decent, but paled in comparison. This was another one of those evenings of unexpected fun in DC. It was two day’s before Kathy’s birthday, so I got to get her started a little early.

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Caps Game

Posted on March 13, 2011 by djnpub

During a slow starting morning the day of the daylight savings switch-over, I got a call from my friend Kathy. She and her friend Donna were going to a Washington Capitals hockey game. The third member of their group had dropped out at the last minute and they offered me the chance to go. Quickly cleaning up I joined them at The Green Turtle, then we went in for the game.

This was my first hockey game and it was a lot of fun. The Caps were playing the Chicago Blackhawks, last year’s Stanley Cup winner. The DC crowd is very energetic and enthusiastic. It turned out to be a relatively high scoring game, which was probably good for a newcomer. The Caps won in overtime 4 to 3 which pleased the crowd. Kathy, Donna, and I went to dinner at the DC Chophouse afterward. Spontaneous fun is a great way to spend the day.

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Greek Tragedy LA Style

Posted on March 2, 2011 by djnpub

Wow. Another great night of theater at the Woolly Mammoth where I sawOedipus el Rey. This was a new version of Oedipus Rex, set amidst a Chicano community, in the barrio and prison, that was powerfully affecting. The theater was reconfigured so the stage was like a fashion runway coming out where seats normally are, so I was about five feet from the outside corner of the stage. Like two of the last three plays I’ve seen it started with an actor on the stage as the audience filed in. It was a small cast and all of the action was very present, almost in your face, the stage being so close, as well as the fact that actors came in through the audience as well. When Oedipus and his mother have sex, this was (tastefully) done in full nudity, fully lit, right in front of me. It was very courageous acting. All of the acting was terrific. This is another one of those Woolly plays I’ve seen recently where I had very little knowledge or expectation going in, and have been very pleasantly surprised. I’m so glad I saw this.

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~AC/DC in DC

Posted on February 26, 2011 by djnpub

Tonight I had a lot of fun. Kathy and I joined up with Dan and Patty J, Katherine H, and Rick M to go to Falls Church and see an AC/DC cover band. We joined up in an Irish pub in Courthouse, then went to dinner at Claire and Don’s Beach Shack in Falls Church which is right next to The State Theatre where the show was held. The band, LIVE WIRE, was really good and they played lots of good AC/DC songs. We ended up going up and dancing by the stage. Quite a blast. A week of diversity starting with Shakespeare behind the Library of Congress to rocking to AC/DC tunes in suburban Virgina.

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The Comedy of Errors

Posted on February 24, 2011 by djnpub

I had another enjoyable evening of Shakespeare at the Folger Theatre with The Comedy of Errors. It was fun and fast and it started with an unusual device of the purported director of the Worcestershire Mask and Wig Society showing a short film about putting together this play, that was amusing. The last time I saw this play in California, they used large puppets along with the actors; this time in the opening scene of the father describing the back story, he used little finger puppets of all the twins. It was an enjoyable and cleverly staged play and as I’ve come to expect, the acting was excellent.

The enjoyment of the evening was enhanced by the companionship of my friend Kathy. We had dinner at Sonoma, then took a nice walk back home past the Capitol lit up beautifully in the night (a walk made only a little less fun due to the fact that it was raining).

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Sightings

Posted on February 23, 2011 by djnpub

Today I rode down in my apartments elevator with Supreme Court justice Elena Kegan. She lives in the building. This is the second time I’ve seen here, the first time during the time of her confirmation hearings.

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Cymbeline

Posted on February 10, 2011 by djnpub

Tonight I experienced another great night of Shakespeare in DC, with STC’s production of Cymbeline at the Lansburgh Theatre. Initially the story summary (falsely sullied virtue of a virtuous wife, etc) didn’t excite me, and I had a little difficulty getting into the play at the beginning. But it eventually really grabbed me. This is a rarely produced play; based on my t-shirt the last time I saw this was in 2001 at CalShakes. They used an interesting device of having a fairy godmother reading the story to a little girl outlining the play’s scenes. The story played a lot of bits for humor, which I’m not sure was always the original intent. The bad guy Cloten was played broadly and very amusingly, at one point riding around on a Vespa, very disjoint from the rest of the period setting. By the end I was really loving the play. I was again struck at how good the acting of this company is.

The set was fairly minimalistic but the did some interesting staging effects. For example, a major battle scene at the end had soldiers rhythmically crawling towards each other while the king poured red liquid into a curved water trough that had been part of the set. This conveyed the sneaking and skulking and dying of the armies very symbolically in an interesting way without the usual choreographed banging of swords. They even had a rainstorm on stage, which again points to STC’s amazing production values (even with a minimalist set). All-in-all another very enjoyable night. This is a play I’d consider seeing again.

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The Lansburgh Crew

Posted on February 7, 2011 by djnpub

Among the nice surprises about my apartment building are the periodic social events sponsored at local bars and restaurants that have enabled me to get to know some of my neighbors and develop some nice friendships. Recently we did a nice evening at Carmine’s for some family style Italian dining, followed by a nightcap at Poste. The gang included Kathy, Shelly, Vince, Vicki and Jay. This weekend Kathy had a bunch of us over to watch the Superbowl (which I haven’t watched in at least 5 years) and it was a great time. This also included some of Kathy’s other friends Carolyn, Donna and Tom, and Maureen.

This is a diverse group of folks including a lawyer from the Dept of Justice, a lawyer from the Office of Government Ethics, an FBI agent, a risk manager for the District of Columbia government, an IT specialist from the International Monetary Fund, and a planner for the 2012 London Olympics. I’ve met a lot of interesting people in this building (including spotting Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan coming down in the elevator). This has made being out here a lot more fun.

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Candide

Posted on December 30, 2010 by djnpub

Tonight I saw the next play in Shakespeare Theater Company’s season, a production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, the musical version of the play by Voltaire. It is a satirical comedy rebutting the philosophy of “Optimism”. It was a nice production, and the orchestra and singing were first class. The leading lady basically sounded like an opera soprano. The staging was interesting; after a small room setting, it opened into a fixed setting with walls that looked kind of like a paneled library. The brought staging elements into that fairly plain space in interesting theatrical ways. For a war scene, a few players were running back and forth, and people from the edge were tossing big silver balls back and forth across the stage, which effectively suggested cannon fire. Sea voyages and balloon flights had someone carrying a model in the background, while the actors moved like they were on the vessel. It was very effective. I’m glad I saw it even though this was the second show I’ve seen in two days.

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