A lot of words about food and drink -- among other topics

Days 17, 18, and 19: Saturday, March 4, Sunday, March 5, and Monday, March 6

We spent Saturday back on 29^th Street, working. I’m guessing the bar was loathe to let people use the upstairs on a weekend when paying customers might actually want to be up there, so we rehearsed in a cramped room that had recently been vacated by a large group of sweaty actors, giving the unventilated room an aroma that was a pleasant combination of men’s locker room and stable.

We turned on the “air conditioner” (please note ironic quotation marks), which cleared the air some before launching into a run-through and some scene work. Gino, our esteemed playwright, dropped by late in the process to see how badly we were (or, more specifically, I was) mangling his play, but he seemed pleased enough with the results to let us continue, so I consider that a win/win.

There’s dialogue in the play about Calvados, a apple-based brandy (that Gino describes as “a hangover in a bottle”), so before each of our rehearsal processes, I purchased a bottle of the stuff. The first one was pretty nasty, though it disappeared quickly enough. I’d bought a bottle here at a wine shop in the West Village, and brought it to our first rehearsal (only three weeks ago now, but what seems like an eternity), where it had sat unopened until this rehearsal. We cracked open the bottle and shared shots (this version had a kick, but wasn’t too bad, actually), then we all took photos of a diorama Beth had arranged of the bottle of Calvados, a bottle of Beaujolais Village (also mentioned in the dialogue and also purchased in the Village), and the postcard for the show.

This show just calls for prodigious amounts of alcohol

After this rehearsal, our schedule called for two days off. Normally, we’d have just one (Sunday), but since Monday was going to be the load-in day at the theatre, we had that off, too. Just as normally at this point, I’d have gone to a restaurant to celebrate our temporary respite, but I decided I’d rather cook at home. I stopped at Trader Joe’s on 14^th to stock up on victuals, but soon learned two things about that particular Trader Joe’s: 1) If you go on a Saturday evening, the line for the register will wrap all around the interior of the store (there’s one line for all registers, and patrons wait until someone tells them which numbered register to go to), and 2) the shelves will be picked clean as though a hurricane were due. Fortunately, though. I was able to obtain a steak, a potato for baking, and some other necessities Unfortunately, I was also able to obtain some of the impulse buys that are oh-so-conveniently arranged for the patrons waiting in the endless line to pick up on a whim.

Eventually, I lugged everything home (fortunately, it’s not that far from the apartment), unloaded my bags, and fired up the oven to bake the potato. After just a few minutes, though, I discovered another secret of this apartment. Being in New York, it lacks for space, so the oven becomes a convenient place for storing cooking pots and pans—something the unwary guest may not be prepared for. In addition, those pots and pans—when heated to the proper temperature—can create a mighty cloud of haze and smoke that, given the somewhat-freezing temperatures outside, cannot be dissipated through the mere opening of a window. They just kind of hang there until the tiny kitchen fan absorbs them.

Undaunted by my carelessness, I figured out how to operate the countertop toaster-oven (no mean feat, to tell you the truth) and put the potato in there. When the timing was right, I pulled the cast iron skillet from the hanging rack, heated it to proper temperature, and fried up one of the two steaks I’d bought (they came two to a package). The meat cooked quickly enough, but as it rested, I discovered that there were no steak knives in the house (or, if there are, I don’t know where), so I’d be forced to use a butter knife on the meal. And if that weren’t enough, the steak was so thick it really hadn’t cooked all the way through, so I was forced to play caveman and eat my cooked-on-the-outside-damn-near-raw-on-the-inside meal with my hands, accompanied by the Beaujolais, the bottle of which had to be emptied before we could use it in the show.

Good times.

From there, it was up to bed to watch some TV and write some—not neglecting the chance to look over my lines, though.

Sunday dawned crisply, coldly, and sunnily; it was a quite lovely day, which was fortunate, since I’d be headed over to the West Village for a production of Sweeney Todd. The novelty about this revival is that it’s an import from London that was done in an actual Victorian pie shop. That shop has been meticulously reproduced in the Barrow Street Theatre (which is, actually, one of my favorite theatres; I saw the only tolerable Our Town I ever expect to see there), to the point of serving meat pies before the show.

It’s quite an operation, with (I believe) four levels of tickets. Balcony seats of a sort, bleachers in the back of the shop, then rows of tables in the shop itself, divided between patrons who are eating meat pies and those who are not. I chose to get a pie, which entitled me to early admission. I showed my ticket, was ushered down a short entryway, and was shown to a serving counter, where (much as Harpo and Chico Marx and Allan Jones proceeded down an assembly line of free food in A Night at the Opera) I edged along as a skilled team placed a pie on a metal plate, slapped some potato mash on it, drowned it in some foul-smelling liquid, and handed it to me after asking me what kind of liquid refreshment I’d like. I opted for a beer. 

The whole meal had to be consumed by twenty minutes before “curtain,” since the tables themselves have to be cleared to allow the actors safety as they walk, crawl, and perform all over them. (The actual primary playing space is a narrow area between the tables and the counter.) The food was actually pretty good; even the foul-smelling liquid was tasty.
 
Soon enough, the cast members started coming out (all except Jeremy Secomb [Sweeney] and Siobhan McCarthy [Mrs. Lovett], of course), and it was reminiscent of Evening at the Chat House, as they were just themselves. At the end of our table was Matt Doyle (who played Anthony, among other roles), and he spent most of his time chatting with someone at the table about the production and other showbiz matters.

Once the show started, as I said on Facebook, I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun in the theatre. Treating the show this way—as a spook house, for all intents and purposes—makes it a delight, and the quality and intensity of the performances helps. There’s some audience interaction (of the best sort; Sweeney angrily tells a patron to “move over” and plops himself next to him; in the barbering contest, he “plucks” a hair from someone’s head to test the sharpness of his razor; Toby runs over the tables spreading hair tonic on people’s heads) and it’s certainly the best Sweeney I’ve seen since the original production.

Afterward, I was in a marvelous mood, and happened by an Irish pub, so I dropped in, bought myself a jar, and listened to a Celtic band play for a little while before heading home. I had the idea that, since Beth’s boyfriend would be leaving at the end of the week (to do the entire Appalachian Trail in one go. Seriously.), it might be nice for them to do something stupid and touristy like go to the revolving bar on top of the Marriott Marquis (the one that was built on the graveyard of so many theatres). They thought it might be a good idea, so we went—and I’d forgotten what a tourist trap it is. Suffice it to say, between the cover charge and the prices of a Manhattan and an iced tea, I dropped nearly forty bucks. Well, it’s an experience and the view was nice enough.

After that, it was back to Junior’s (for me), for another slice of cheesecake, then home to prepare for another day off.

Monday, I really had nothing to do—though I did have a ticket to see Stephen Colbert’s show, so I planned out my day to allow me time to hit the Drama Book Shop (nothing there, but I did drop off some postcards for the show: Always Be Plugging), file our show contracts at the Equity offices, and see the theatre space for the first time while everything was moving in. The thing that most surprised me about our theatre is how small it is. The audience is right on top of us, and there’s no wing space to speak of (not that we need it). The stage is, I’m guessing, about twenty by twenty-five feet, so it really has an intimate black-box feel. Since it is so small, I was able to see all I needed to relatively quickly, so I proceeded to the Ed Sullivan Theatre for Colbert. 

Up the block from the Ed; little did I know how late I was

I misread my confirmation email, so instead of having to get in line at 4:00, that was actually the cut-off time. I was there in plenty of time, but it was still a little confusing, especially since I’d just bought a hot tea that I figured would keep me warm while I waited in line outside. I had to dump it, virtually undrunk, then waited in the lobby.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m going to quote my Trip Report from Facebook here:
I'm honestly baffled at how CBS treats the customers. They're herded in the lobby for nearly an hour before the house opens, and, once in, patrolled to make sure no one is using their phone or taking photos. I understand the former, but not the latter. On top of that, despite their pleas about noise and energy, there's nothing but canned music for the first fifteen or twenty minutes.

When the warmup does come out, his set is a good fifteen minutes before the band (which has gotten much better, even if they rely too heavily on New Orleans-based music [though the trumpet player was featured in a very nice version of Cole Porter's "All of You"] for my tastes).

Because I got in line late, I was in the balcony, which is nice enough, but I could actually feel it shake during the mandatory "stand-up-and-clap" stuff. On top of that, the last two rows of seats are folding chairs, not theatre seats.

The ceiling and restorations to the theatre are very nice, and a lot of care is taken with the lighting. I was particularly taken with what they did during Judd Apatow's panel, with a nice orange glow everywhere (that was never going to be seen on camera). They used only a couple of projections on the dome, but they were well-done.

Colbert makes a point in the Q&A of telling the lower section how much he likes the dome and how he bets those folks wish they had the "shitty seats" now. The show runs smoothly enough.

There was a technical glitch when Colbert fucked up a bit with a blackboard and they had to go back to starting position (looked fine in the edit). There was the briefest of Pat Farmer sightings, and then it was over. They really hustle the crowd out—again, no photos!—and we were out in the street by 6:45. It's an efficient process, but still has some bugs, for my money.

After that, I had a craving for a burger, but wanted to be close to home, so I found a place just south of Houston that offered a pretty good burger, some amazing fries, and a very nice beer for a very reasonable price. I had a nice chat with the barman, plugged the show yet again, then stopped at a market across the street for some ice cream (I had a craving), and was home in no time at all to prepare for what was promising to be an exhausting week of tech—and opening.

 Not to scale