Saturday, September 24, 2011

theater with zelia (lyn)

I convince Zelia to join Rattlestick Theater.  Tonight we are going to the first play of their season, The Wood. The reviews are not great.

Zelia has a car and drives it in the city, something I never did when I owned one. We drive down to the West Village and miraculously find a space a block from the theater.  Our plan is to grab a burger at The Spotted Pig, a popular inexpensive restaurant in the area.

We get to the restaurant (they don’t take reservations) around 6:40 and are told there is an hour and twenty-minute wait.  Our play starts at 8.  Obviously this isn’t going to work.  So instead we chose Philip Marie, a little French restaurant a block away.  The last time I ate there was in February 2009.  I was with my friend Don (who died a couple of years ago) and his friend David.  That time, too, we were going to Rattlestick to also see a new play.  That one was called That Pretty Pretty; Or, The Rape Play.  I think a character actually urinated on stage.

I plan to order a burger and fries but since Zelia doesn’t, I don’t either.  We end up splitting a baked brie salad (amazing) and mussels (good, but not filling, and too much work for too little return).  I leave feeling hungry.

The play is better than the reviews suggest.  Parts are difficult to watch, as one scene shows a graphic re-enactment of the 1997 Abner Louima rape by a New York City police officer.  The play is about Mike McAlary, the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who breaks the story and dies soon after.  It’s not exactly a cheery play to watch, though it is compelling.

We decide to stop at 16 Handles on the way home, but the line is too long.  Instead, I come back to my apartment and finish off the pear sorbet in my fridge, making up for any calories I may have saved during dinner. 

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