The Husband audaciously announced it in public: “Oh no, we won’t be doing that because it would mean that Steve would actually have to leave the house.” Making this his response when queried about seeing a recent film, made me bristle & I was grouchy for 24 hours, well grouchier than usual.
I am not agoraphobic or unsocial, instead, I have been rather proud of how I have faced our family’s economic collapse along with our country’s Great Recession. Going out in the world costs money & staying home costs very little, except for that pesky little the cable bill. I live in a house that is a sensory experience. Post Apocalyptic Bohemia is a visual adventure full of music, books, magazines, the Internet, animals & every TV channel available for my comfort & curiosity.
I felt the need to prove that, thrifty though I try to be, I realized it was time to step-out & yesterday I went out into the world with The Husband as my date.
It had snowed only 2 days before, but yesterday was a perfect late winter day, 60 degrees & sunny. Your host & his spouse set out to Portland’s Pearl District. We attended a performance of the blazingly good play- RED at Portland Center Stage. The theatre experience was first class, perfectly acted, directed & designed & only 90 intermission-less minutes. We strolled the Pearl District & enjoyed a late lunch of Portland’s best veggie burger & fries at Big/Little Burger. We returned to the nest in time for a brilliant sunset & the satisfaction of having an adventure for less than $75. Half price theatre tickets, pre-show cocktail, cheap, but yummy lunch… The Stephen’s New Austerity Method.
Daniel Benzali & Patrick Alparone in PCS's RED
Red is an exciting & intense 2 character bio-drama about the work of one my most favorite painters- Mark Rothko. Red it is not, thankfully, an artist appreciation class, but a character portrait of an angry & brilliant artist that asks that the viewer of his paintings to feel the structure & pigments of his very thoughts. Set in a NYC studio on the Bowery in the late 1950s, the play follows the initiation of a newly hired assistant, into the uncompromising aesthetic of Rothko (who lived in Portland from age 10-18), at that time that he was working on a commissioned series of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant in the brand new Seagram’s Building.
Red captures the compelling relationship between an artist & his creations. Only Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With Georgeseems similarly successful.
Digging for a bit of information about the history of Red, I discovered that the gifted playwright- John Logan, is responsible for the very different screenplays for 3 films in 2011: Hugo, Coriolanus & Rango, as well asThe Miraculous Year, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,The Aviator, The Last Samurai, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Time Machine, Gladiator, Any Given Sunday & RKO 281.
Logan is from Chicago where he worked as an actor for decade before starting to write for the stage. Red won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2010 & he has been nominated for an Oscar for 3 times, including this year’s Hugo.Up next, the new James Bond- Skyfall & the film version of the musical Jersey Boys.
He is very attractive, in that butch, but broken impish Irish manner. John Logan is openly gay. Today is not his birthday, but he was on my mind. Logan is 50 years old, lives in LA & seeks to be single. I am willing to leave my house to go an adventure with him.
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