Our last full day here required a bit of a slow morning to stave off some residual effects of our debauchery from the night before. By the time we got started, we decided to seek out some more Italian for lunch.

And, as I indicated in my last post, you really can’t get Italian in Minneapolis like you can in New York. I mean, the food is actually made by Italians from Italy, and it’s absolutely wonderful. The little sampling we got at yesterday’s visit to Via della pace, was quite the most wonderful prelude to the risotto we enjoyed at Risotteria Melotti right at 309 East 5th Street in the East Village. Their website indicates that they are the home of the best Italian risotto, and I have no reason to disbelieve them. If memory serves, I believe I ordered the Limone e gamberi (that’s risotto with lemon and shrimp), and it was a delicately creamy affair but not by any means heavy like some kind of alfredo dish you might get at, ehrm, Olive Garden.

(Sorry, just needed a moment to calm my gag reflex after thinking about alfredo sauce at Olive Garden. And I think I just committed a mortal sin by mentioning Olive Garden while talking about Risotteria Melotti.)

The restaurant itself is rustically Old World with dense wooden tables, exposed brick walls, yet all brightly lit with tall windows. Our server was delightfully pleasant as she struggled ever so slightly to find the right words to describe the foods, and I found myself having to pay extra attention to everything she said, as her accent was just heavy enough that the words weren’t readily accessible.

You can read more about the Melotti family history on their website, but in short, the Melotti family are, apparently, famous in Italy, and having a risotteria in New York is their dream come true.

(Annoyingly, however, they are one of those places that boasts an entirely gluten-free menu, and I just hate that craze, because so many people think they are sensitive to gluten when I think in reality they just want to be sensitive to gluten so they can say, “Oh, I’m on a gluten-free diet, and it’s done me wonders.” It’s so stupid!)

Anyway, following a glorious lunch (despite the fact that it was gluten-free), we made our way to Hotel Chelsea in, er, Chelsea, mainly because I wanted to see the hotel where Sid Vicious died. In addition to Vicious himself, the hotel was also home to many other famous writers, musicians, actors, and artists like Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Iggy Pop, Arthur C. Clarke, Allen Ginsburg, among others. The building is quite gorgeous: a red brick exterior with elaborate wrought iron balconies. Currently, it’s closed for renovations, and the hotel will re-open in 2016.

The hotel was a stop on our way to the High Line, a public park built on an old freight railway. As it’s on an old railway, the park is generally quite narrow, but wide enough and long enough (it runs from 14th Street to 34th Street on the west side of the island) to accommodate the hundreds of visitors that were sharing the park with us. The High Line itself is really quite neat. I just love these reclaimed urban spaces, prettying up something that was once disused. Visitors make their way past trees, shrubs, flowers, and other greenery while walking on pathways of wood planks or stone. There are also areas with wooden sun chairs where you can recline and watch people, a wider section that is covered where you can purchase food and drink while encountering Tibetan monks asking for money to support some temple somewhere (I couldn’t really understand him), and on occasion there was some art, an installation of yellow heads placed in a geometric structure of iron (Rashid Johnson’s Blocks) or a quite colorful mural recreating that famous photograph of a sailor kissing a woman (Eduardo Kobra’s mural of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photo, VJ Dyay, The Kiss).

In general, the High Line was quite nice, but for some reason I felt it was hyped a little bit for me, so I left feeling just slightly disappointed by the experience. Even still, I adore the project and I love the idea, and do go visit, but just remember that you’re basically gonna just go to an elevated green space that occasionally has art.

Following the High Line, we needed to waste a bit of time before we headed to our last night of theatre, so we got some cocktails and snacks at a place called Porchlight, a bar that boasts Southern cuisine and drinks, located just a block west of the High Line in between 27th and 28th Streets on 11th Avenue, where we enjoyed a plate called the Southern Spread (smoked catfish dip, tasso, smoked cheddar, pickled grapes, preserves, benne seed crackers), some Tom’s Balls (deep fried balls of rice, chicken liver, pork, and trinity), some freshly baked cookies, and some fancy cocktails that I can’t remember the names of and their menu online isn’t helping to jog my memory, so I can’t share with you all the glorious details. I do remember the cocktails being quite good, but having enjoyed some real Southern cuisine in New Orleans meant that no matter how how this place tried, there wasn’t a hope they could even come close to a pseudo representation of real Southern cuisine of even the most dimly semi-good approximation of an attempt.

Unfortunately, a dimly semi-good approximation of an attempt somewhat prepared us for another dimly semi-good approximation of an attempt, except that when I say dimly semi-good approximation of an attempt, I mean the worst night of theatre you will ever experience EVER.

Mark my words, Punchdrunk’s production of Sleep No More was just so, so disappointing on so many levels I just don’t no where to begin, but I shall try.

Let’s first put things into perspective. Our first night in NYC saw us venture out to Brooklyn to enjoy Then She Fell by Third Rail Projects, a wonderfully enjoyable evening of immersive theatre. What Third Rail did was take what little works about Sleep No More, and then improve on it immensely. The She Fell involved a small audience of 15 people, and everyone moved about from room-to-room at the direction of the actors. We were invited to unlock chests and hutches, flip through books, take dictation, respond to questions, partake in small eats and drinks, and imitate the choreography. Since we all moved about the hospital in small groups, everyone got to see every single scene of the play. Everything was wonderfully coordinated, carefully organized, and splendidly acted. The only criticisms I had was that the music was repetitiously boring and distracting, and the choreography wasn’t always executed with the care and precision I would have expected.

Sleep No More, however, is an awful mess of a production. I went in expecting the same level of careful detail that Third Rail provided, and I was anticipating that our interactions with the actors might in some may influence the evening. How wrong I was.

The whole play takes placed in the fictional McKittrick Hotel, which was built in 1939, which happened to be bad timing because World War II started, so reservations dried up, and the McKittrick had to close its doors along with many other hotels in New York. In reality, the space is an old warehouse dressed to resemble a hotel, a hospital, a creepy basement with stone statues, among other rooms. As you enter, you are asked to put on masks to hide your identity (this, no doubt, to make it easier to distinguish between audience and actor), and the masks clearly resembled what we saw in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, which then recalled the voyeurism that film explored, so we, too, become voyeurs into the action in this hotel.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it all goes terribly wrong…

As the evening started, I wandered from room-to-room, opening desk drawers, flipping through books and photo albums, and interacting with other various props like a doll house, stone statues, and a coffin. The set design is actually quite marvelous, and it’s the one thing about Sleep No More I actually appreciated. However, as I explored each room (I came across an album containing pictures of dead people from the Victorian era, when they would take pictures of dead people because it was probably the only photo they could afford for a single person’s lifetime, and wanted something to remember them by), I noticed that all the other audience members were in a terrible rush. I would be the only person in a room, for example, that had a bed, a dollhouse, and a giant mirror, for instance, and I would be opening drawers and handling the props (why else would they bother with all this detail if not to let us explore?), but then someone would peak their head in, dart their eyes about, and then leave. I was left wondering, “What’s their rush? Don’t they want to find something fascinating in these drawers?”

Soon, 45 minutes went by, and I didn’t see a single scene of the play, so I started to wander about more quickly to see what could be going wrong. Why was nothing I was doing causing a scene of events to occur like in Then She Fell?

It was then that I realized that our interactions with the props had nothing to do with anything, and I had wasted so much time (and about $31 of my $85 ticket). Eventually, I finally came across a scene that involved a bathtub with dirty water and a nurse who sat down, read a little note, placed it on the tap, and then left. Meanwhile, a group of 40 audience members or so are desperately trying to watch the action. When the nurse leaves, so too left with her this group of 40 people, scrambling to follow her, like a group of lemmings disguised as impatient wildebeests.

Later I came across another scene that involved a bartender and some other people, and I don’t even care about the details anymore. I think there was a pool table as well. And something happened that involved two men fighting. Or something.

But then all these anxious, mask-wearing people were also around me, nervously and quickly walking about, making sure they get to see all the action. The actors leave, and then with them this large group of people also follow them. It was so distracting, and I was unable to appreciate anything because everyone else was just so nervously and anxiously making sure they also got to see everything.

But it is impossible to see everything, because it’s all such a terrible hodgepodge of nothing happening at all. Just people not speaking, moving about, taking things out of drawers, putting them back in, staring at each other, leaving rooms, entering rooms, performing some kind of pseudo-choreography, leaving again, putting stuff back. I think there was music happening, too, but it was so immemorable.

Also, somehow this was all based on MacBeth, incidentally, but I think they’re just saying that so that they appear intelligent.

Before long, we were all forced down to a giant open area with a long table (I never got to see two entire floors of the warehouse because apparently my attention span is too long), and all the actors are seated at the table in the style of The Last Supper. Then one of the actors gets hung by a noose.

The end.

And to think they had the audacity to offer programs of the show as you exit the warehouse, but only if you pay $25. For $85, I would expect those for free, and I would also expect at least a free drink or two.

No. None of that.

The whole evening was such a horrible experience.

Absolutely awful!

DO NOT GO SEE THIS SHOW!

It was the MOST HORRIBLE theatre experience I have ever had the misfortune to attend.

AND I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Afterwards, we lamented the whole evening at the Olive Tree, the bar right next to the Comedy Cellar, then attended one last night of transcendent comedy.

So, there you have it. A thoroughly disappointing evening that felt like I wandered into a kind of haunted house for kids that happened to have some actors moving about in it. And apparently, among other things, I missed a scene that involved two naked men. That must’ve been why everyone was wandering about so anxiously. “Where are the naked men? I need to see the naked men! I paid $85 to see naked men!”

At long last, my final post on my NYC trip (which, all things considered, was actually divinely fabulous, even though Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More thoroughly ruined the evening of our sixth day here), will appear before too long, hopefully sometime over this long holiday weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving, in the meantime! Please don’t go shopping today or tomorrow. It’s rather pointless.

Stray Observations (a la AVClub):

1. If you want to go to Sleep No More just so see the nudity, Gawker has this handy article.
2. If you want to go to Sleep No More to actually enjoy it, good luck.
3. If you want to go to Sleep No More to be throoughly disappointed, you won’t be disappointed.

For our fourth day in this fantastic city, we checked off a few more touristy things including Grand Central Station (or Grand Central Terminal, officially) and Times Square.

Grand Central is really quite gorgeous, and it is certainly unlike any train station I’ve been to, the ones in Europe included. Even in photographs, my eyes were always drawn to the three giant, arched windows that stand on both ends of the building, and this didn’t change when I saw them in person, their grandiose and majestic appearance commanding attentions of everyone. This grandeur continues throughout the whole structure with polished stone walls, unassuming yellow lights, and above it all, a beautiful ceiling of a kind of blueish/greenish/sea-ish color, and inset within that were golden recreations of constellations including Orion, Taurus, Gemini, and others. Unfortunately, they’ve got a ridiculous American flag hanging on one side of the main concourse that ruins the aesthetic perfection of the building, so try your best to pretend that it’s not there.

All things considered, I do believe Grand Central is the only train station I’ve been to where I highly recommend you go out of your way to see. You usually go to train stations to go somewhere else, but Grand Central was marvelous just to see in its own right.

Time Square, on the other hand, is one of those landmarks that you’ll just see once and then probably never see again, unless you prefer the hustle and bustle of lots of boring people looking at overly photographed and overly hyped, um, things, and I can’t bring myself to write properly about it anymore because each keystroke is becoming increasingly difficult to muster energy to complete, much like how Times Square sapped all my energy from ever wanting to see touristy things ever again. I guess the least I can do is link a picture of the damn place in case you want to see it because I don’t want to go on explaining it anymore.

Following all this, we made our way back to the southern part of the island, stopped at a fine little restaurant called Kottu House (kottus are street style Sri Lankan dishes made with a type of flatbread called Godhamba roti, and I opted for a dish called the Crispy Prawn: spicy curried prawns all complete with all their little legs that I got to tear off and their little eyes that I got to avoid), which was a nice way to have a late lunch, and the food was quite good with the perfect amount of spicy heat, but I wouldn’t by any means go out of your way to seek this place out, but if you happen to happen upon it, then by all means go on inside and enjoy some Sri Lankan cuisine.

After lunch we made our way to a place that reminds us all of something that still seems difficult to understand actually happened. It was a surreal experience heading there, heading to ground zero, the site of something terrifically awful, where nearly 3000 people needlessly died at the hands of ridiculous religious extremists who believed in a mythical god, just like all those delusional Christians during the Crusades. 11 September is a day burned on the memories and minds of so many, and it was very strange remembering the television images of the attacks that I saw that day while gazing at the National September 11 Memorial. How something so horrible happened right on the very ground I walked…

The memorial itself is strikingly beautiful and poetically simple. Where the two towers once stood are now giant gaping holes in the ground, tremendous square voids reminding us of what once was and is now lost. Water continuously flows and falls on all four sides of the sunken cube into a pool of shimmering water, and in the center of all that, an even deeper but smaller cube-shaped void within the pool of water where everything continues to fall, the falling water a touching metaphor for the day when so many people fell to their deaths or succumbed to death in flaming, smoking, and collapsing.

As you walk around the giant square space, you can read and touch the names of those who died on this day, their names cut out of a dark metal and set at a gracious incline, lectern-like, above a stone barrier.

Sadly, the whole experience is severely distracting because of so much inappropriate behavior from those around. I was absolutely horrified and shocked and annoyed and embarrassed that in this solemn space there were entire families posing and smiling for the camera, individuals taking selfies, children running around as if in a play park.

Is this really the time and place? Is this what you do at the grave site of someone you love? Is this how we choose to forget? Apparently so.

There are days when I am so ashamed to be a human, when I see the idiocy of other people and their lack of regard for their actions and the effects it has on other people, when I see a 9/11 Memorial Museum Store profiting as the result of a horrific day, when I see a gorgeous memorial become not only a reminder of the idiots who caused detrimental harm to their brothers and sisters, but also a reminder of the idiots who have no sense of simple decency, taking their selfies, taking their family portraits, letting their children misbehave, buying their 9/11 knickknacks.

Don’t be those people. Just don’t. The whole affair was so distressing that we forewent going into the museum, because even that would be much more of the same: people forgetting what happened when there are artifacts shouting at them, right in their face, reminding them of the idiocy of it all. I will not spend money at these places. It is disgraceful.

But, I suppose that’s why some people are idiots, because you have to be at least somewhat intelligent to realize how idiotic you actually are.

After taking a breather, lamenting the whole experience for the wrong reasons and venting our frustrations to each other, we made our way to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in the Garment District where we were in store for a real treat, a show that ended up being my favorite one of the six we saw while in New York: The Daisy Theatre by the Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes. The show, like Empanada Loca, was a one-person show, except the sole performer, Ronnie Burkett himself, was joined by many, many marionettes.

All the action took place on a stage about 10 feet across, and Burkett was clearly visible to the audience as he manipulated the marionettes. Before everything started, however, he gave us a brief introduction about the show, telling us that normally his work touched on more serious topics like AIDS and suicide, but that The Daisy Theatre was a much more lighthearted affair.

And a much more lighthearted affair indeed! The whole evening was an eclectic celebration of vaudeville and cabaret, highly improvised, the length of the whole show dependent on how much the audience participated and cheered the marionettes and Burkett on. And Burkett was sure to make sure we all did want more, making fun of us if our responses were weak or timid.

The first scene introduced us to fairy child Schnitzel and muscle man Franz. Schnitzel was the most adorable character of the evening, a small baby- and freckle-faced child, bald, with a single flower growing out of the crown of his head, voiced in a squeaky, innocent pipping cheep. Franz was, as you would expect, a typical muscle man making fun of Schnitzel’s timidness and lack of bravery. The whole conversation came to a head when Franz talked about how the right side of the stage was so much better than the left side, this all becoming a metaphor for polarized politics, with Schnitzel moving from the left side to the right, only for a moment, before returning to the left side where he felt more comfortable.

We also met such other colorful characters like Edna Rural, a small town Canadian woman who regaled us of life in the sparsely populated countryside; Major General Leslie Fuqwar, a retired solider who now dresses in women’s clothes and sings cabaret; and Jolie Jolie, a old Parisian singer who probably once graced Moulin Rouge with nightly appearances. By audience applause, she won out over Esme Massengill as the one to close the show.

Jolie Jolie had to teach us all how to react to someone as famous as her, telling us all to “nudge nudge” the person next to us when we heard the announcer mention Jolie Jolie’s name, then exclaim loudly and colorfully, “Could it be? Could it be?” only to cheer, “It is! It is!” when Jolie Jolie appears. It was all quite marvelous fun, even for people like me who get a little embarrassed when the audience is asked to participate in such things like this.

Burkett’s delicate skill in moving the marionettes was absolutely marvelous, and his various voices were expertly performed, each marionette coming to life in believably funny and serious ways. The marionettes themselves were perfectly crafted as well, each one created in a way that recalled expressionistic theatre where each character was an overly-charged representation of some human condition, except presented comically rather than dustily serious. (But don’t get me wrong, I love dustily serious when it comes to such gorgeous expressionistic works like Lulu or Pierrot lunaire.)

Three of the audience were picked to participate in the theatre at separate points during the play, one a handsome young man (who Burkett insisted take of his shirt and who obliged) who helped manipulate one of the marionettes; another young man who was supposed to be a eunuch, who Brukett asked to lie down on the stage, but as Esme Massengill felt around his crotch could tell that he was in tact; and then me of all people!

I got to open up a small 2 foot by 4 foot wooden box at the front of the stage, turn a crank to raise a miniature orchestra of puppets, and turn another crank to make the puppets move as they played music. This was all happening while Jolie Jolie told us of days long past, asking me to look away from her, then look at her, then look away from her in quick succession as she said, “Oh, Tom. Tommy Tom Tom Tom,” in a French accent before beginning on with another story.

The whole evening ended up being about 2-1/2  hours of absolutely transcendent comedy, but unlike Fondly, Collette Richland which felt about an hour too long, The Daisy Theatre was a perfect length of time. And unlike the comedians from the previous night’s show at the Comedy Cellar, I went away from this play knowing that I saw absolutely and positively comedy and cabaret and vaudeville at its very best.

So bravo, Ronnie Burkett! It was a real pleasure attending the closing night of your show, and I do hope that perhaps you might be able to maybe come to Minneapolis’s own Open Eye Figure Theatre to grace audiences here with your wit and charm and charisma with all of your wonderful little marionettes.

Following Ronnie Burkett, we made our way to the Comedy Cellar for a second night of comedy. We were very sure to arrive in plenty of time so that we were the first ones to enter so that we might get to sit in the front row. Amy and I frequently look like we’re on dates, even though it’s very clear that I’m gay, but I always wonder about how we might confuse people. “Doesn’t she know?” people might whisper, or “That poor guy’s still trying to stay in the closet!”

And we surely did confuse one of the comedians, Kevin Brennan. The exchange went something like this:

“So, what’s your story? You guys on a date?”

“No, we’re just friends.”

“Well, what’s the matter with him?” he asked Amy, and Amy said, “He doesn’t play on that team.”

The comedian misheard her, I believe, and asked, “He doesn’t play games?”

And then she had to spell it out, “He’s gay!”

I was giggling away way too much to help respond to anything, but Kevin Brennan was really quite wonderful when he said something like, “By the way, I know some people get weird when you bring up the gay thing, but I’m all for the recent supreme court ruling.”

So, good on ‘ya (as they say), Kevin Brennan.

In addition to more of Brennan who we saw the night before, we were also treated to standup by Mike Yard, Jermaine Fowler, Jeff Leach, Liza Treyger, and Paul Mecurio, but I’ve been so slow to post these that it’s been so long ago now that I can’t quite remember their schticks. We had a good time nonetheless and laughed a lot, I just don’t remember very much of what they said that made us laugh. Jeff Leach is British with long hair, so he did this schtick about Game of Thrones (or something) and how Americans always cast British in evil roles (which is kinda an old joke), but I can’t remember much else.

At this point in our journeys, we pretty much confirmed what we feared before we headed out to NYC: that a week in this city is not enough time. Even when cramming as much in as we have (but not cramming too much in that the moments are cheated of their worth), there was still so much to do and so much to see. We were keenly feeling the brevity of time by this point, even with 2-1/2 days still to go while here.

But, until I write about our final day in town, it’s far from being all over… yet…

Stray Observations (a la AVClub):

1. I was surprised to see the Times Square globe on display. For some reason I thought they only took that out for New Year’s Eve.
2. I was also surprised by the ceiling of the Grand Central Station. I always fixated on those giant windows and never cared to seek out photographs of that gorgeous ceiling. Make sure you look up!
3. I also am still so surprised at how everyone behaved at Ground Zero. Clean up your act, people. It’s disgraceful.

Many of our adventures in food thus far were rather lackluster, with the exception of Katz’s sublime pastrami on rye on our first day in town. Our third day in, however, helped to rectify some mistakes in our culinary adventures.

We started our day with brunch at Russ and Daughters Cafe, a fine restaurant indeed located at Orchard and Delancey. (This area of town ceases with a numbered grid of streets and avenues, but we’re roughly three blocks south of 1st Street, and Orchard lines up roughly with 1st avenue. All of this places us just south of the East Village.)

Their menu consists of a marvelously diverse selection of salmon, sturgeon, herring, and other whitefish, another equally diverse selection of caviar and roe, as well as other options like eggs and matzo balls.

In a word, simply divine stuff! I opted for a plate called the Lower Sunny Side which was sunny side up eggs, smoked salmon, and potato latkes. Everything was all perfectly seasoned, the salmon was delectably scrumptious, and the potato latkes (the Jewish equivalent of potato pancakes), were satisfyingly crispy. Do make sure you can visit Russ and Daughters, if you can, as brunch here was definitely a highlight of our trip.

Following this, we made our way a little farther south to catch the Staten Island Ferry in order to catch glimpses of the New York cityscape from the Upper Bay (the mouth of the Hudson River) as well as views of the Statue of Liberty. You could say that taking the Staten Island Ferry is the poor person’s way to experience these views, as the Staten Island Ferry is free to ride. The ferry provides stunning views of the city in its entirety, something that’s quite difficult to do when actually in the city (unlike smaller cities like Minneapolis, where all you need to do is go to Uptown to view the entirety of Downtown), and you get somewhat close (but not close enough) to enjoy views of the statue (or “the lady,” as we called her while we were there).

It was quite disappointing not going into the statue itself. We hadn’t realized until it was too late that tickets into the crown sell out quite far in advance, and we didn’t want to go to the lady if we couldn’t get into the crown. So, we settled for some less-than-spectacular views of the icon from the ferry, with the idea that one day we shall come back later better prepared. So, do make sure to plan far enough in advance to get into the crown, as I feel that (while it was exciting seeing the statue), the views from the ferry just didn’t have the same exhilarating satisfaction of seeing it up close and inside.

(Also, on a side note: the ferry crosses briefly into New Jersey waters [the statue itself is actually in New Jersey, interestingly enough], and so if you’re like me and want to some day visit all 50 states but don’t really have a desire to go to such substandard states as New Jersey, just ride the ferry to check off that state from your list.)

(Another quick side note: Staten Island is dull and boring and I don’t have much to say about it so we left back to Manhattan very quickly.)

Following our adventures on the ferry, it was already time for dinner, so we made our way to Momofuku on 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets. Along with pastrami on rye and bagels, ramen is another classic New York dish to enjoy. (Our adventures in pizza and hot dogs will come a bit later on our trip…)

Minneapolis doesn’t really have good ramen, the stuff at Moto-I here in Minneapolis is just a saline bowl of salt. (Although I’m quite looking forward to see how Matthew Kazama’s new ramen shop will stack up when it opens.) The ramen in New York, in general, is in another league entirely, as it currently stands. At Momofuku, I opted for a bowl of ramen with pork belly, pork shoulder, and poached egg, and it was delectable! The pork was mystifyingly tender, the broth was delicately seasoned filled with layers of aromas, and the noodles were just perfectly wavy and lengthy. Momofuku has an open kitchen, and we got to sit at the bar to watch all of the action happen. The manager in charge was very passionate about her job as she reminded her cooks, “Are you tasting the broth before you send it out??” and “Why are all these bowls sitting out?? Put them away!!” and “Clean up right away as soon as you’re done with what you’re making!!” Everyone diligently followed her suggestions, and the whole operation ran with precision and care.

Following our dinner, we made our way to the Bank Street Theatre in the Greenwich Village and Meatpacking District area to enjoy the Labyrinth Theatre Company’s Empanada Loca by Aaron Mark and featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega as the sole performer on stage. Rubin-Vega is an accomplished actress, a recipient and nominee for several prestigious awards, and she originated major roles in RENT and Anna in the Tropics.

Rubin-Vega’s performance as Dolores in Empanada Loca was absolutely stunning. It takes place deep below New York in the city’s dark and dingy sewers where all she has is an old massage table and a bottle that collects water from a leaky pipe. She sips from the bottle a couple times through the show, as for 90 minutes or so, it’s all her regaling to an unseen listener a story about how she ended up where she did.

After we learn about how Dolores started drinking at age 9 when her police office mother was killed by gunshot, how she studied for two years at Hunter College to be a city planner, how she dropped out after meeting a man called Dominic who was a drug dealer, and then how she started a new career as a massage therapist, we learn that she created a partnership with a man called Luis who owned a restaurant, and in an obviously Sweeney Todd-ish way, Dolores’s guests to her massage table end up as meat in Luis’s empanadas. (This isn’t really a spoiler, as the subtitle to the play makes it clear that the show is a riff on the legend.)

(Loca, by the way, means “mad” in Spanish, and empanadas are, of course, stuffed pastries.)

Everything in the show comes together marvelously, from the eerie lighting, the sound of subway trains overhead, the realistic set design, to Rubin-Vega’s performance. I want to call her performance a tour de force, but I hate it when people say that, just like I hate it when people call anyone a genius. But, it really was an attractively sublime performance as Rubin-Vega nonchalantly describes the gritty details of all the deaths she witnessed in her life, all the hardships she endured, but also all the successes she’s had (such as it is, dispatching unwilling massage victims to Luis’s empanadas).

Following the show, we made our way on foot to the Stonewall Inn, the bar that marks a major watershed moment in the gay rights movement, but it’s really nothing spectacular. It’s your standard gay bar with overpriced drinks, unwelcoming and judging gay men, and I think there were pool tables as well, but I can’t remember.

We quickly made our way from there to admire Washington Square Park which bore a strikingly uncanny resemblance to the northeast corner of Hyde Park in London by the Marble Arch and Speakers’ Corner, then to cocktails at a bar called the Up and Up before getting in line to attend our first night of standup comedy at the Comedy Cellar, as made famous in Louis C.K.’s television series, Louis.

The venue is just as cramped and tiny and dark and questionable as it appears on Louis’s show, but all in a wonderful endearing way, and the show featured on the microphone Jon Fisch, Mike Vecchione, Kevin Brennan, Sherrod Small, Michelle Wolf, Kurt Metzger, and Paul Mecurio.

I have a weird relationship with standup. I’ve only until this show seen it on video, and I adore comedians like Eddie Izzard and Kristen Schaal, but there are lots of other comedians that I just don’t think are very funny, and I find myself watching them tell jokes that don’t make me laugh while the whole audience on the video cracks up.

However, being in the presence of these comedians actually did make me laugh, but I have to wonder if I would laugh if I actually saw them on video, which then made me wonder if I actually did like these comedians.

That said (and since I’ve been slow to post these and it’s now nearly almost an entire month since I saw the show), I do remember Michelle Wolf’s performance quite vividly. Perhaps it was her giant hair, but I do remember her bit was the one that made me laugh the most. She did a hilarious impression of her Jewish mother that I remember quite clearly, and she had a delivery that was matter-of-fact but not deadpan. I do prefer comics when they’re more understated and less “silly walks” and all that, and Wolf was right up my alley.

To round the evening off, we made our way down the street to Ben’s Pizzeria, the exact same pizzeria that we see Louis eat at in all the opening credits to his show. And what pizza it was! You really can’t get pizza like that anywhere else! (Maybe Chicago? I don’t know.) But it really was the best slice of pizza I ever had, and we undoubtedly knew in that moment that we would have to have more while we were here.

So there you have it! We definitely made up for lost time dining at substandard places during our first two days with all the sinful gluttony we allowed ourselves for our third day in. And how appropriate that our uptick in better cuisine lined up with a play about sinful empanadas, if you take the meaning.

I am going to try to post these a little more quickly, as I’m worried how much longer my memory can hold in all the details. I’ve got four more NYC posts to go, and at this rate I’ll finish by Christmas, and I want to avoid that.

Stray Observations (a la AVClub):

1. Greenwich Village was the most European of all the areas of the city we explored. Apart from the streets being all perpendicular and parallel to each other, they were nevertheless all tiny and narrow and surrounded by old (or new, if you’re comparing to even older cities) buildings. It was kinda rather like a posher and quieter version of the East Village.
2. Go to the Stonewall Inn if you want, but it was really boring. The historical importance of this place cannot be overstated, but don’t go in expecting to see a great mecca of a gay paradise. It’s just a bar where something terribly important happened to have happened.
3. Now that I’ve discussed three of the plays we saw so far, I can’t help but be reminded that Minneapolis really does have a quite good theatre scene in its own right. We may not have the stars, but we certainly have the talent. Shows like Empanada Loca and Fondly, Collette Richland would be fine and welcome additions to our vibrant theatre community.

Our second day in New York brought us to some wonderfully touristy things to do, and I highly recommend you do both.

After enjoying a so-so bagel (there was just too much crap on it, whereas the pastrami on rye at Katz’s was poetic simplicity) at Best Bagel and Coffee in between 7th and 8th Avenues on 35th Street, just a few blocks away from the Empire State Building, we made our way to, naturally, the Empire State Building.

Like St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Eiffel Tower or the Kölner Dom, this is one of those iconic buildings that you simply must experience. As always, traveling here in the off season was quite nice, as there was very little waiting to get up to the observations decks. For $52, you can visit observation decks on the 86th and 102nd floor. I’m tempted to say that you really need only go to the 86th floor (which costs “just” $32), as the views are quite breathtaking even from that height, but I can’t bring myself to say you shouldn’t also do the 102nd floor. Here’s why…

I was rather absolutely surprised to discover that the 86th floor observation deck is open to the air (and looks like nothing of what’s seen in this episode of Doctor Who, not that I’m surprised, but I couldn’t help myself from giggling as I looked around the real observation deck) with nothing but tall metal bars bending slowly inwards at a gracious arc toward the floor. If you have any fear of heights whatsoever (as I do), this is quite a rear-iris-clenching and week-knee-fainting experience. I don’t have problems with heights when something in the way obscures the drop (as with the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London), but the Empire State is a sheer drop. And I remained uncomfortably aware the whole time I was on the 86th floor of how other visitors were holding their mobile phones OUTSIDE THE BARS TO TAKE PICTURES WITHOUT ANY TORMENTING FEAR THAT THEY MIGHT DROP THEIR PHONE AND KILL SOMEONE BELOW.

I just don’t trust my conscience enough that I would be able to hold onto my phone to take such a picture without going limp-wristed and dropping my phone entirely. The very idea causes my whole body to cease up in uncontrollable angst, and the very whimsical thoughts of losing control of my self-control sometimes dart in and out of my mind at speeds so fast that it’s difficult to remember what reality is.

But enough of how scary it is, because the views are breathtaking. New York is a city unlike any other, spanning seemingly forever, a metal and brick and concrete grid of tallest buildings all geometrically placed, and within, a giant rectangle of green right in the center of it all, called–creatively enough–Central Park. Unlike London with it’s labyrinthine streets twisting in an out between 1000-year-old buildings of stone and mortar and 10-year-hold buildings of glass and steel, this is London’s younger sister who had the sense to plan the streets first and the buildings second. (However, I still kinda prefer London’s streets, all things considered.)

When you make your way to the 102nd floor, you are now encased within a glass and metal cylinder of maybe 30 feet in diameter (but I’m a terrible judge of distances like that). The views seemed very much the same, and being enclosed and away from the open air made the experience slightly less exhilarating. But it did calm my fear of heights as the sheer drop was obscured by the building below, and I was able to enjoy the sights slightly more comfortably without worrying about people losing control of their senses and dropping their phones.

After marveling at various landmarks like Central Park, the World Trade Center, the MetLife Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, the United Nations Headquarters, and many others, it was time to get ready…

(Oh, there is a mini museum in the Empire State that you can view before you make your way to the observation decks, complete with guided audio tour, but it was all kinda… meh… so we skipped over it… but the art deco interior of polished stone and shimmering glass is nonetheless quite impressive.)

…for our second touristy thing for the day to do: rowing in a boat in Central Park.

Head to the Loeb Boathouse on the Lake (yes, the lake in Central Park called the Lake), located at about 74th and 75th. It’s here where you can rent a row boat and go boating on the lake called the Lake, just like in all those Woody Allen films. Make sure to bring along cheese and crackers and champaign. Again, as it was the off season, there was no waiting, and rowing a boat proved relatively easy. And don’t worry about bumping into other boats, as it might happen, but people are terribly friendly when it does happen, just don’t do it on purpose. Be on the lookout for turtles (we saw three, or perhaps saw the one three times), and you’ll be sure to admire Bethesda Fountain as well as the numerous tall buildings that stare down on the park.

Rowing on the Lake was definitely a treat, but what a superb treat we were in for when we saw Sibyl Kempson’s Fondly, Collette Richland at the New York Theatre Workshop, created and performed by Elevator Repair Service under the direction of John Collins. The work was also commissioned in part by Minneapolis’s own Walker Art Center with additional support from the Playwrights’ Center, the New York Theatre Workshop, the Performing Garage, and Abrons Arts Center.

The NYTW is known for staging brand new works, having done so over 100 times in the last 30 years. And Fondly, Collette Richland joins that number.

It’s a bit hard to describe this play, and I’ll continue to struggle to describe the play, but I think the Elevator Repair Service summed it up pretty nicely themselves:

“While eating a quiet dinner at home, Mr. and Mrs. “Fritz” Fitzhubert (along with an uninvited guest) are summoned through a mysterious tiny door in their living room. On the other side, they find themselves in a phantasmagorical Alpen hotel where forgotten religions seep in through the cracks in the walls. Lost relatives, conniving employees, and chatty society ladies awaken their mysterious ancient selves and lead them on perilous hikes that will leave their lives forever altered.”

But even that description (while apt), cheats at what a magical journey this play takes its guests on, and even still I’m having difficulty describing exactly what this play is about, because it’s about much more than religions seeping through walls. And it’s no doubt about more things that I missed entirely, and I would need to view this play perhaps three or four more times to fully comprehend even the slightest bit more of what’s going on.

And this isn’t a criticism, as lots of art–like a good wine–deserves a couple goes to create a palette for it and to fully admire and appreciate every aspect of the work. (My only real criticism is that the whole play is probably about an hour too long, clocking in at over 2-1/2 hours.)

Forgive me as I struggle to write, but let me describe a scene that happens early on so you can understand a bit of the humor in the work. Before any of the phantasmagoria begins, we witness a man, Fritz, and a woman, Mabrel, sitting down to dinner. The stage is set in a modest, 1950s era style, and both actors are similarly dressed in clothes of the time, suggesting a period when the man worked away from home at some grey office and the woman prepared all the meals and did all the housework.

As the two bicker over dinner, there’s a knock at the door from someone we can’t see who introduces himself as Wheatsun, but Fritz and Mabrel at the table act as if they never experienced a knock at the door, suddenly jolting stark upright in their chairs and looking confused. The conversation that follows continues in a way that involves yelling words and sentences very clearly across the stage and through the door while still remaining seated at the table, generally at a pitch rarely varied, everything clearly articulated, but all said in a halting manner, littered with commas, something like this:

Mabrel: “Who, is it?”
Wheatsun: “I’m, a politician. I don’t mean, to disturb, you. May I, come in?”
Mabrel: “Well, we have just, sat down to dinner, and I only, made enough, for two.”
Wheatsun: “If I, could only, have some of your, time, I will be off, shortly.”

Or something like that, for a couple minutes. Eventually Wheatsun is allowed to enter the house and sit down to dinner with Mabrel and Fritz, and then the evening starts to enter into a world where we seem to witness someone’s mind as a play, thoughts darting in and out of existence in a way that only makes sense in a dream, all announced into existence by a bright light that emanates from behind a small door in the far left wall. We eventually meet a priest playing the piano, a cat wearing high heels, Jesus Christ telling jokes, amongst others.

For much of the play, I’m left wondering, “What on earth is happening?” Indeed, a man planted in the audience asks the very question, which prompts all the actors to break character and the fourth wall. We see all the actors on the stage emerge (even the ones we haven’t met yet, which gives a tantalizing glimpse into what is to come), addressing the man directly to the audience.

I still feel like I’m not explaining everything very well, only because I wish I could view this play five more times so I could be a little more articulate, but I imagine that leaving one speechless and inarticulate at the end of this play could perhaps be a part of the goal.

In short, there is much to marvel at, from the cast, the script, the lighting, the set design, the sound design, the direction, everything all coming together in a clear vision and aesthetic, despite the general feeling that everyone and everything is just making things up as they go along, when in fact everything is planned very accordingly and every word and every action has a very clear raison d’etre. Watch this video to see some of the visuals that I’m struggling to talk about and to give you an idea about what it is you would see.

Not everyone will like this show, but not in a way where you’ll either like it or you’ll love it. You’ll either really really like it, or really really hate it, or really really want to like it, or really really want to hate it, or you might find yourself going, “I know there’s something important here, but I can’t pinpoint what it is,” or you might find yourself going, “Hm… that’s different. I don’t think I’m smart enough to figure it all out yet, though,” or you might find yourself going, “I have lots of questions, and I don’t get it, but I think that’s the point,” or you might find yourself going, “Um… all right, I guess this play is a play is a play is a play is a play.”

(Or you might be two angry old men who actually stayed until the very end to boo the play, but then are too cowardly to boo after the lights come up, which is what happened the night we went, or you might leave during intermission, or you might jump to your feet for a standing ovation.)

Or you might find yourself going in some other direction entirely. In any case, do go see this show. It’s since closed at the NYTW, but hopefully it will be produced somewhere near you soon. I for one would love if it came to Minneapolis so I could experience it all over again.

I’ve rambled on long enough about how I don’t understand this play but about how much I still loved it regardless, I think, but I do want to mention one last thing about the evening. We had the pleasure of chatting with Lindsay Hockaday, one of the actors, at the nearby Tile Bar. She touched on many of the sentiments I recounted above, that the play is about so many things, and that it may not make sense right away, and that each person will take away bits and pieces. She also talked about how the audience we were in was the quietest audience that they had yet had, which confounded the cast backstage no end, but who where then surprised when some of us stood up to clap at the end. She also loved how they got boos, too, as that was a first for the show.

So, there you have it. Perplexing, beautiful, surreal, and confounding, all presented as a glimpse into the tangental mind, thoughts coming and going without much explanation and without any judgement but with a fond admiration for the whims of thought. I do hope I can see this play again.

Stray Observations (a la AVClub):

1. I highly recommend you forgo staying in a hotel when you visit NYC. Our fifth floor apartment was quite wonderful in its own right, and it allowed us a glimpse into what it might really be like to live in this city.
2. You can find some marvelous deals on Airbnb for your stay in New York. I particularly fell in love with the East Village neighborhood, where our apartment was, right on 6th Street and 1st Avenue.
3. The East Village seems to be a prime place to stay as it is. It’s not very touristy, there are small grocery stores at every corner, and it’s the least “noisy” of the “less posh” neighborhoods.