October 28 – Day 52: Baseball Pain (based on a Series loss)

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 down on that. I was still trying to decipher my symptoms—perfectly fine to congested throat and lots of snot and back again—but felt pretty good. While the show itself felt very good—and got a very good reaction from the audience—we were informed when we came in on Tuesday that we’d actually slowed things up a bit, which I think surprised us all. Before my first entrance as Kraft, Elizabeth made sure to ask me what my name was. I remembered it this time.

I wasn’t sure if the plan was to do something between our curtain and the other show, but when GG said he’d meet me at the theatre at 7:15, I realized I was on my own for supper. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I decided to walk down to 46^th Street (aka Restaurant Row) and see if I could find anything good. It was kind of gloomy when I was walking west on 59^th, but as I turned down 8^th, there was a pretty amazing weather phenomenon, where it was dark and cloudy to the east, but with what seemed to be a brilliant sunset to the west. Seeing that, I decided I’d like to go to someplace with a view. I thought briefly of the revolving restaurant on the top of the Marriott in Times Square, but it wasn’t open yet and, even if it had been, it invariably costs an arm and a leg. Checking my phone, I settled on the R Lounge at Two Times Square (aka the Renaissance Hotel on 48^th between 7^th and Broadway). I don’t know why I’d never been there. As places in Midtown goes, it’s not that expensive (not to say it’s cheap; it’s all relative …) and has incredible views of Times Square (which is nice when you’re above it, rather than in it).

 Before and after dark -- though Times Square is so overlit, it's hard to tell the difference.

I didn’t really want to go all out and order dinner, but settled for some hot pretzel sticks (basically, a couple of soft hot pretzels straightened out). They were a nice change of pace for me in that, invariably when I order a hot pretzel from a cart, they’re cold, stale, and hard as a rock. These were hot, fresh, and soft. Paired with a Rye Manhattan, it was a perfect snack. (It might have been better without the football game being projected on a big screen, but I guess you can’t have everything …)

I stayed for about an hour, then took off for 42^nd Street and Playwright’s Horizons. Wanting to avoid Times Square, I walked west on 48^th between 7^th and 9^th, which may be someplace I have never been before. It was quite nice, which was surprising, being so close to Times Square and (what in decades past had been) Hell’s Kitchen.

I arrived at the theatre, and was surprised that I couldn’t figure out which theatre in the complex was the one I wanted. Everyone was getting in the elevator, so I joined them. Everyone got out and I told the operator (imagine; an elevator operator!) that I was actually there to see Thom Pain. She did a kind of a take and told me I wanted the Signature Theatre down the block. Feeling like a boob, I thanked her, and she assured me that, not only was I not the first to make that mistake, when she worked at the Public Theatre, people were always coming in to see Stomp, which is a couple of blocks away. She took me back to the ground floor, I got out, made a left, and continued on to the Signature.

I arrived about 7:00, and planned to have a tea before the show, but ran into GG in the men’s room, so when we were both finished, we met in the lobby and sat at a table, talking until most of the audience had entered the theatre. It turned out that Trish was there, too, so we got to talk a little to her.

We went in, had great seats, and waited for the show to begin, which it eventually did. I found it okay. As I said, a little of Eno’s writing goes a long way for me. I find a lot (if not most) of it clever and funny, but the play (or monologue, I guess) really doesn’t add up to anything for me. If the point was the ways in which our thought processes are scattered, non-linear, and jumbled, it succeeded (I guess), but I don’t know that that was the point. It was well-acted and –directed, but it seemed like a lot of effort for very little return. I actually think part of the problem may have been the venue; it was in (what I think is) the largest house in the complex, and the energy felt dissipated. GG had seen the original production, which had been staged in a small, 40-seat house, and it all seemed kind of unpredictable and dangerous to him, neither quality of which was evident to me here. Maybe it was the differences in the actors, the venue, or just the play itself, but I came away glad I’d seen it, but nothing to write home about.

After the show, we met up with Trish and her friend Astrid, who was one of the original cast members of Come From Away (a show I loved), and who is still in the show after being with it for four years. She couldn’t have been nicer or more fun to be with, and the five of us (GG’s girlfriend had joined us after coming back from upstate via Port Authority) sat at a table and swapped stories. Since the theatre has a post-show happy hour, they all had beers (I had tea and pumpkin pie), but when they went back for the second round, the bar had already closed. We split a bag of tortilla chips Trish had brought, and left after about an hour.

I’d been following the World Series while we were sitting and talking, but it wasn’t going particularly well for the Dodgers. I kept following on the subway, then down St. Marks. I got to the taqueria in the top of the 8^th, by which time the crowd was pretty thin. The game—and the Series—ended within about a half an hour, and rather than watch any of the fawning postgame show (one can take Joe Buck swooning for the Red Sox only so much), I left and came home. Since Monday was our off-day and I had no plans, I caught up on some television and read a bit.