IDEASMYTH SNACKS will be sporadic newsflashes on whatever I thought was savory enough to share–here’re the first few amuse bouches….!
HILLARY: A Modern Greek Tragedy with a (Somewhat) Happy Ending
Many of you may remember the wonderfully witty Wendy Weiner (tongue-twister!) from the Beyond Words stage or from her one-woman shows that swept up much critical acclaim at the NY and SF Fringe Festivals? Anyway, this time she gives herself a break from the limelight to delight us all with this perilous parable about Hillary–or the Billary–JUST as she’s back in the news (which may force a jiffy rewrite a new ending???). Clever conceits abound and while some of the references will strain your political memory hard drive (golly who remembers Kenneth Starr anymore?!), you will come out of the theater with a fresh new psychological context for thinking about this controversial couple–or beast of two backs?–and the enduring challenges of balancing love and ambition that face both genders–challenges that no doubt will endure long after these revived bits of sordid trivia become truly ancient history.
See the positive NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/theater/reviews/29hill.html?ref=theater
For those thinking about promoting your own shows, I thought this was a very effective little teaser:
And all female playwrights should know about: http://www.newgeorges.org
And for a very delicious unexpected surprise….
FRANKIES 457
…right next door to the Living Theatre (where HILLARY is now playing) delivers simple Italian dishes served up just right. Started with their chewy crusty bread with their emerald (their own private label) olive oil and continued with the shaved fennel/celery root/parsley salad, wallowed into their homemade gnocchi alternating with hot saus age and sage butter pasta and wound up with their perfectly soused tiramisu. This is the Manhattan outpost of a Brooklyn original…Halleluja and amen for the best Italian I’d in ages–all the more savory because we had walked in with no expectations. Their website also shows some smart entrepreneurial underpinnings:
http://www.frankiesspuntino.com/oliveoil.php
(Another favorite-Italian-next-to-a-cultural-venue? Sfoglia www.sfogliarestaurant.com, diagonally across from the 92nd St. Y–like Frankies 457, it puts a new twist on comfort food in and even cozier ambiance.)
DOUBT, THE MOVIE
The incredibly brilliant and morally complex Pulitzer-prize winning play by John Patrick Shanley holds up very well in this fine movie adaptation (Shanley wrote the screenplay and directed). The closeups on the expressive faces of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep make the dilemmas all the more heartwrenchingly intimate. (And also guarantee Oscar nominations for those two as well as the two stellar supporting women.) That said, some of the subtlety has been lost in the ham-fisted weather analogies and in padding the script with more backstory scenes than needed. However, the abbey meals with the nuns do add some welcome levity to the otherwise intense film. Now I just want to sit down with a copy of the play and compare it scene-by-scene with the screenplay…
http://doubt-themovie.com/
Victoria C. Rowan
Creatrix-in-Chief, IDEASMYTH
Desk: 212-842-5956; Cell: 917-716-7587
VCRowan@IDEASMYTH.com
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http://www.dailycandy.com/new_york/article/34774/Write+On
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
–Goethe
