October 21 – Day 45: Well, All the Jokes Can't Be Good
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Today's title comes courtesy of Mr. Julius H. Marx in Animal Crackers:
We finally hit the end of the week. I still don’t feel great, but don’t
really feel bad; I’m more tired than anything. As I write this, I’ve got kind
of a raw throat (right around the uvula, where the nasal apparatus meets the
throat), and a tiny bit of congestion. I’ve sneezed a couple of times in the
last hour, though, which is very unlike me. I’m hoping a good night’s sleep—and
some NyQuil—does me some good.
Anyway, it’s felt like a long day. After yesterday’s arrival at the
theatre with the dressing room locked, I decided to postpone today’s arrival
just a little. If nothing else, it gave me about 15 minutes more sleep. It was
cold last night, and I couldn’t get the radiator to work, so when I woke up, it
was a little chilly in here. It wasn’t really noticeable until I was in the
shower and didn’t have the hot water running over me. I persevered, though, and
was soon ready to go. I wasn’t sure what the temperature actually was (it was supposedly
46 degrees when I woke up and 49 when I was ready to go), so I opened the
window to stick my hand out to see if I could tell. I couldn’t.
I put on my new warmer jacket and left the house, got about 50 yards down
the street and thought it was good, but not quite warm enough, so I went back
and put my other jacket over it, and that was fine the rest of the day.
I stopped for a tea (which was waiting for me!) and continued on to the
6, walking through the farmer’s market that surrounds the park on Sundays. I
only wish I had the time to stop and shop, though (other than making toast) I
haven’t done any cooking.
The commute was the usual, and I arrived at the theatre pretty quickly.
Trish was doing her hair and Face Timing her nephew (somewhere in Canada, one
assumes) and I got roped into saying hello.
The preshow was typical, though everyone seemed pretty ready for the week
to be over; I know I was. It wasn’t so much whatever I’ve got going on in my
nose and throat; it was just being tired.
As far as the show went, it was okay for the most part. YAQA, but I just
felt like I stunk up the joint. I like to gruff up my voice when I play Kraft,
and when I started, it just wasn’t where I like to place it. I mainly felt
disconnected with the words, though. They were all there; I just wasn’t feeling
them. Maybe autopilot is enough, but I didn’t feel satisfied with anything I
did as Kraft. Goebbels and Gutman were okay (no dropped water bottles today),
but Kraft never seemed to click for me. As I’ve mentioned before, that’s the crazy
(and great) thing about live theatre. I can try doing the exact same thing I
did the night before, and sometimes it just isn’t there. Other times, I do
something different and it works crazy well. Go figure.
Despite the cold, under normal health conditions, I might have been
tempted to walk home, but today, I just wanted to get back, so I took the 6 to
Union Square, stopped to buy some peanut butter, crackers, and the Sunday Times, came home, collected the wash,
and headed straight for the laundromat. I picked a good time, since it was
nowhere as busy as last week. (Maybe the cold was dissuading people?) It took
something over an hour to finish everything, then I came back home, put everything
away, and collapsed—sideways—on the bed.
I napped for about 45 minutes, and could happily have stayed there the
rest of the evening, but I was getting hungry and decided to go out to dinner.
Walking back from the laundromat, I had passed by a number of places, but
figured that I was going to hit either Pardon My French or the Cornerstone Café.
Both were pretty empty (again, the cold?), but in looking at the menus online,
I realized I would either have steak frites at the former or chicken and pasta
at the latter, and since I’d had steak just the other night, I opted for
Cornerstone.
The table in the back where the guy in black is sitting? That's where I was.
Looking at the menu once I got there, I was torn between chicken with
lemon sauce over fettucine, chicken parm, baked ziti, or spaghetti and
meatballs. The siren call of meatballs won out, so it was that, a bowl of
chicken soup, and a glass of pinot noir. It wasn’t bad. Very fresh (especially
the soup) and flavorful. Great service and just a really nice atmosphere. It’s
the kind of joint that should be in every neighborhood; simple, home-made fare
with enough of a flair to make it special enough. (Apparently, they do a very
good brunch, but—as explained previously—I’m not a brunchy kind of guy.)
I came home, watched some TV, and am now working on this post. I expect
to be turning in soon, and have no idea what I’m going to do Monday. A lot of
that depends on how I feel when I wake up, whatever time that is. I don’t want
to waste the whole day, but I also don’t want to force myself to do something.
We’ll see. All I know is that I’m on my own until Tuesday evening.
Attentive readers—or at least those with nothing better to remember—will recall my purchasing a battery case for my new phone that was the wrong size. I assumed that exchanging it would be a breeze: a few minutes at the customer service counter to return the old case and buy the new one, then I’d be off to rehearsal. As almost never happens, I miscalculated. I had scoped out the local Best Buys, and thought the one at 23 rd and 6 th would be most convenient. I mapped out my route: walk to Astor Place, take the 6, walk the long block to the store, do the exchange, walk back to take the Q or the 6 uptown, and be at rehearsal in plenty of time. My mistakes began when I left a little later than I’d expected to, so I had to take the 4 instead of the 6. When I realized that really wasn’t going to do me any good, I thought I could just get off at 14 th , then transfer over, but my subway app was showing an unusual logo that I couldn’t quite figure out. I ended up thinking it might be
If I thought yesterday’s post was lacking in content, today’s will make that look like War and Peace . Before I get to that lack of content, though, a word of explanation on our title. Back in 1977, David Mamet wrote A Life in the Theatre , which was a marvelous play about two actors, one older and one younger, working in a regional theatre somewhere. (Remember when Mamet wrote marvelous plays? Remember when he wrote good plays?) I don’t know if it’s aged that well, if only because so much of the repertory system it deals with isn’t around anymore, but I saw the original production with Ellis Rabb and Peter Evans. (It may have been the first off-Broadway show I ever saw.) The scenes with the two actors in their real lives alternate with on-stage scenes parodying various types of shows, including a Chekhovian thing with the older actor, bearded and sitting in a wheelchair, looks out a window before emitting—with a melancholy sigh—“Oh, the autumn …” In the 40 years since I saw t
Since Saturday’s World Series game had gone nowhere near as long as the previous nights’, I was able to get a reasonable amount of sleep. I’d gotten a message from John on Friday about whether he could change the linens on Sunday, and I told him that I’d be gone between noon and 6:00, so any time in there was fine. As it was, I was running a little behind and didn’t get to leave until 12:20, which was just when he showed up. He knocked, I let him in, put on my jacket, and left. While I was on the train, there was an email to the cast from GG saying he had an extra ticket to that night’s performance of Thom Pain (based on nothing) with Michael C. Hall at Playwright’s Horizons, so I took him up on it. I wasn’t especially looking forward to it (a little bit of the playwright, Will Eno, goes a long, long way for me), but it was a chance to hang out. I don't get the title, either. Got to the theatre, and Andi had brought banana bread (which was very good), so we all chowed
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