Don Giovanni and Via della Pace

Mozart’s opera buffa Don Giovanni is quite a bit about class. The don lures lovers by the offer of marriage into unimaginable wealth. This was not so apparent in that other Don Giovanni I saw—the Franco Zeffirelli production at the Met Opera, starring Plácido Domingo. In the Met production every character was dressed opulently. These fine points are not lost in the downtown Amore Opera’s Don Giovanni, performed by opera stars and starlets who never sing flat. The overture, by a 24-piece orchestra directed by Douglas Martin sounds as sweet as it did at the Met.

Rob Garner commands the role of the rake, even doing a respectable turn at a sword fight. (Here he is with another Taci superstar, Brad Cresswell.) Garner’s sonorous Deh vieni all finestra, o mio tesoro had tenderness and soul. His descent into hell was thrillingly hammy.

It’s only a measure of my respect for this handsome baritone that I felt some distress when he removed his tricorn hat and his curly, pony-tailed wig seemed momentarily flattened down. Don Giovanni would be nothing without his right hand man, Leporello. Tenor Frederic Rice was extraordinary as Leporello, squeezing every comic possibility from the role. He was somewhat apologetic, rather than boastful, as he sang Madamina, il catalogo è questo.

The don’s women are either paid supplicants back at his palace or noblewomen and peasants alike who are understandably angry at his behavior. Victoria Wefer, Iris Karlin, and Sarah Moulton Faux were full-throttle as Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina. The Amore production suggests that the clown Leporello gets together in the end with one of Giovanni’s exes, the sadly pregnant young Donna Elvira, offering a happy future at least for these two.

If any stage production in New York City deserved a standing ovation that day it was this engrossing, faithful, and fleet production by Nathan Hull. But most of the sold-out audience was too old to jump to their feet. That’s the thing about opera. Amore Opera tries to expand the audience by offering witty productions with a revolving cast, well-matched subtitles, and charming sets. It goes without saying that tickets cost a fraction of what they do at the Met. Amore is looking for a new home, unfortunately losing the gemlike Connelly theatre in the East Village. Hurry to see them there.

Via della Pace is the real thing and has a lot in common with other historic Italian restaurants/caffès with its murals, tin ceiling, distressed wood, good food, and a silent soccer game on a screen over the bar. Comforting pastas and a well-turned tuna steak give Via della Pace an edge over competition. Or maybe it’s their hot pressed, toasted bread served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Fresh bruschetta is piled high and comes in broad variety, served with a boat of oil and vinegar dressing. It’s irresistible to linger further, over coffee and Italian pastries or biscotti.

Epic Poetry and Las Tapas

Epic Poetry traces a young woman’s search for the father she never knew. The resourceful Connie Castanzo is our heroine, and Noah Witke plays the 13-year-old half brother she discovers on her quest. They enact a story that is being played out more and more in our fractured world.

James Bosley’s play gives new meaning to the search by splicing in the Odyssey and the Iliad. The Greek chorus is composed of characters met along the way. Drummer Jason B. Lucas punctuates the story. Tubular bells, singing wine glasses, and Carmina Burana are used to great effect.

This odyssey snakes through the subway and out to the sunnier outer boroughs. Set designer Duane Pagano transforms the space with city skyline and chain link fence, and when the action moves to a trailer park, pink flamingos and plastic windmills. A trailer park couple is embodied with gusto by Elizabeth A. Bell and Carlos Molina. Rik Walter provides more comic relief. The lovely actor Bill Christ is the long-lost father returning from a war. He is not our heroine's hoped for and dreamed of father, but she has travelled so far that she knows how to handle, philosophically, any surprise that life deals her. What a good story she’ll have to tell when she returns home.

Up Theater Company is dedicated to entertaining the Inwood neighborhood with regional theatre of the highest order. “We eschew crowd pleasing chestnuts” is how they put it in their mission statement. They are lucky to get a director known for his edgy work in Shakespeare (including Hamlet set in a prison, the well-received Bound in a Nutshell, 2008). Gregory Wolfe directs this new play for Up Theater with characteristic grace and wit.

 

Photo Becca Pulliam @Please Repeat the Question

The Washington Heights Inwood neighborhood that supports its local cultural establishments has a selection of fine restaurants. We were directed to Refried Beans, but went instead to the new Las Tapas, serving Spanish happy hour pintxo or tapas. We were seated in a back garden with a fountain.

Diners around us ate heaping salads with a side of cassava chips before entrées , but we stuck to the tapas, or small plates, menu. Pulpo y Papas, tender octopus with Yukon Gold potatoes was a classic. Tortilla, the ultimate potato omelet is served warm here (rather than room temperature as we've had it before). Creamy croquettes come with two sauces. Grilled asparagus was so fresh, straight off the grill, with melted Manchego. Our favorite was Chicharon de Cuerda, or pork belly with a crispy crust, served on chickpeas in a heady red sauce. Toasted baguette allows you to mop up. Complimentary garlic olives help you wait for your food to arrive. Las Tapas serves six kinds of sangria, including a four-glass sample. A long happy hour (from four to eight) makes anything possible.

Finding Neverland and City Kitchen

Matthew Morrison and Kelsey Grammer, photo by Carol Rosegg.

The new musical Finding Neverland is based on the 2004 film. Matthew Morrison plays the sensitive Scottish playwright, author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie. One afternoon in London’s Kensington Park, Barrie stumbles upon Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (the fabulous Laura Michelle Kelly, aka Mary Poppins), with her four lovely sons and their shaggy dog. Carolee Carmello is powerful as Sylvia’s mother, the famous mystery writer Daphne du Maurier. The family releases the playwright from writer’s block, and one of the boys becomes the inspiration for Barrie’s indelible creation, the boy who never grew up. The boys rotate the role of Peter.

Arden, our nine-year old reviewer, swooned when the “Glee” star appeared on stage. To us it seemed at first that Matthew Morrison might be phoning it in. Or was it the heavy tweed suit, the Scots accent, and the beard that hid his chiseled chin? He redeems himself in Act 1 when he has a chance to show off his remarkable dancing skills. Mia Michael’s choreography is angular, abrupt, and there are lots of vertical jumps. The choreographed dinner party is a gem.

Kelsey Grammer is delightful and totally present as the curmudgeonly producer and also Captain Hook. His dead-pan delivers. The ensemble actors in the backstage story and Teal Wicks as the first Mrs. Barrie are fun. There is something satisfyingly dark about it all. The pop score by British rocker Gary Barlow is manipulative but sweeps you up. Catharsis comes with sparkling stars, a storm of glitter, and Tinker Bell’s flight. We left feeling shaken and stirred.

Like salted caramel and "large plates," the food court is a trend. Brand new City Kitchen has sushi, Gabriela's Taqueria, Kuro Obi noodles, Luke's Lobster; homemade pita and salads from ilili Box (our best destination); local green pickles, wedge salad, and the Juicy Lucy burger at Whitman's (Arden's best pick), alluring Wooly's Shaved Snow and other vendors. It's a good place to take children, allowing a huge choice and the ability to see the food before ordering.

Rather than eating in the food court, carry your boxes to the spacious adjoining hotel lobby. It's peaceful there, however if you would like less peace, and Mom would like a drink, broad steps lead down to a flourishing bar with a huge movie screen showing vintage rock concerts. 

Wolf Hall, Parts I and II, and Russian Samovar

The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hilary Mantel’s books on the court of Henry VIII, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, is the scintillating two-part “Wolf Hall." This king is driven (at least in Part I) by his heart. He needs to get his marriages annulled under the Catholic Church, which leads to the Reformation. Characters speak at times in modern short-hand. “Thank God!” Thomas More. “No, thank me,” Thomas Cromwell.

At the center isn’t More, Henry VIII, or Anne Boleyn, but wily advisor to the king, Thomas Cromwell. The BBC miniseries has Mark Rylance to play Cromwell like he’s constantly having to save his own neck. Ben Miles is sleek and smoother, more of an Eddie Haskell and a Republican. Courteous but deadly, he sounds like David Brooks explaining the Bush administration’s war.

Lydia Leonard is a thrilling Anne Boleyn, who may be young but knows her power. She protects religious “heretics,” and unfortunately can’t guess what’s coming. The king’s new mistress was always kept under wraps until the current queen could one way or another be deposed and the next one installed. (A funeral dissolves into a wedding onstage.) In Part I, handsome Nathaniel Parker’s King Henry is sweet as a puppy. In Part II he feels the effects of gout, though he is still somewhat of a pushover for women. Was this ever possible? “Henry the Eighth to six wives he wedded: one died, two survived, two divorced, two beheaded.”

Hilary Mantel has said in interviews that she “leaves certain questions unsolved” as would only be honest to do in writing about the Middle Ages. Her revisionist Thomas More is not A Man for All Seasons. “He was a great man apart from when he wanted to burn people alive,” Mantel has said.

The mostly empty stage facilitates swirling costumes and skipping, joyous dance. You wonder whether there really was a sixteenth-century dance step where they snapped fingers in unison. Such is the authority of Hilary Mantel that you accept that she discovered rather than invented anything.

After a didactic first half hour, the remaining five hours plus fly past. The production was condensed for Broadway, yet, you feel nothing important is left out, including two-faced sister Lady Mary Boleyn, the royal lapdog, and Mark, the lute player. Leah Brotherhead is a freshly imagined Jane Seymour. Can’t wait for the third in the trilogy: The Mirror and the Light.

Table 16, where Joseph Brodsky wrote.

Between Wolf Hall I and II at the Winter Garden, it was a treat to eat pelmeni with dill and sour cream, tender smoked salmon and sturgeon, and "herring in a fur coat" (layered beet salad) at the nearby Russian Samovar, a non-glitzy piano bar.

Our corner banquette, table 16, is a shrine to poet Joseph Brodsky. At another table sat Bolshoi ballerina Maria Kochetkova, wearing sweat pants, dining with a fellow dancer before a performance.

The Russian Samovar was nightclub Jilly’s in the Sixties, Frank Sinatra's hangout. If Frank’s ghost walked in, he’d appreciate in the stairwell that a graffitied wall from the old Jilly’s was left intact.

The Heidi Chronicles and Butter Restaurant

Nothing has captured the beauty and excitement of the women’s movement in the 1970s like Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles. This star-studded revival leaves behind the cushy Ivy League feel of past productions and makes the revolution egalitarian. Sharp supporting roles by Tracee Chimo and Ali Ahn bolster the thrilling Broadway debut of Elisabeth Moss as Heidi Holland, art historian and trail blazer.

Heidi’s slide-show art history lesson promotes unsung women painters of the Renaissance. At a feminist consciousness-raising session, Heidi is ill-at-ease, alienated from a woman asserting independence by refusing to shave her legs (a dated reference, and the only one that may require more explanation). Participating in a morning television panel, Heidi is overlooked by the host, and the men on the panel interrupt her. She feels frustrated and insecure. Two full-strength actors portray her great friend, who is gay, Bryce Pinkham, and the manipulative boyfriend that she finally leaves behind, Jason Biggs. Songs by Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin provide underpinning.

Elisabeth Moss is an actress for our times. She’s the liberated Heidi sort: smart, self-sufficient, considered a sport. In “Top of the Lake,” Moss's character uncovers, in the New Zealand outback, and led by Holly Hunter, an all-female utopian community living in discarded boxcars. Moss made that seem real. Her Peggy Olson grounds “Mad Men”—she adds a needed threat. Heidi Holland wins, too, but sometimes she breaks down. Moss is so affecting on stage that when her character gives a commencement speech and gets carried away and cries, sniffles could be heard around the audience.

This is an exceptional revival in every way. Pam MacKinnon shakes up this wordy, unwieldy, cathartic play. She is marvelous directing the juicy roles that every actress wants to act: Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Heidi in The Heidi Chronicles.

 
Down the street from the Music Box is Butter restaurant. Chef Alexandra "Alex" Guarnaschelli is a television star and cookbook author. Hot Parker House rolls served with herb butter begin your meal. The butter is fresh, from local Jersey cows (either from Jersey cows or from cows in New Jersey—we couldn't tell from the menu's unspecific wording). Alex may be all about comfort food, but she also wants you to try the unexpected. Butter’s menu used to include ostrich. The menu changes all the time. Her current signature main course is peppery charred whole cauliflower with braised carrots and sherry reduction.

The food looks as good as it tastes, served on a collection of vintage restaurant plates. Tuna carpaccio is in cubes on top of melon-balled cucumber. Grilled Long Island striped bass has sesame vinaigrette. Flavors are subtle, and the chef has a light touch with salt.

The former East Village location was more celebrated. Like it, Butter midtown is windowless and cavernous. You walk downstairs to a dark and woody lounge with a central core and view of shadowy foot traffic overhead. A hideout for a rendezvous and favorite for Sunday brunch before a Broadway matinee. The $35 prix-fixe lunch makes it permanently Restaurant Week (a New York City tradition that every city should adopt). Next time we’ll order the frozen toasted marshmallow faux Mallomar.

Rasheeda Speaking and West Bank Café

Master class in a doctor's office. Photo by Monique Carboni.

There is a pre-Obama retro vibe to Rasheeda Speaking by Joel Drake Johnson. Timid, white Ileen, played by Dianne Wiest, is asked to spy on and list the infractions, like arriving late to work, of her black co-worker, Jaclyn, played by Tonya Pinkins, building a case for human resources to fire her. Jaclyn has just taken time off work after having an allergic reaction to the Xerox machine that sits next to her desk.

Dr. Williams (delightfully unctuous Darren Goldstein) condescends and offends both women, including speaking with Jaclyn in jocular black dialect. He flatters Ileen and rewards her with the title “office manager.” The employees are obliged to flatter him. He loves for Ileen to tell him, “I love my job. I love working for you.” To Jaclyn, he asks, “Do you think I’m fat?” She offers him donuts and gives him a Hallmark card in which she has written, “You are not fat.”  

The windowless Chicago doctor’s office (marvelous set by Allen Moyer, fluorescent lighting by Jennifer Tipton) is decorated with wilting philodendrons and a Georgia O’Keeffe flower poster from the Chicago Art Institute. It’s a chillingly lifelike set for a ninety-minute master class in acting, each moment coached with humor and infinite finesse by first-time director Cynthia Nixon.

Ileen feels terrible about what she has become. Another brilliant actress, Patricia Conolly, plays Rose, a delicate elderly patient. Because she is clueless, her racial epitaphs (“It’s like they’re paying us back for slavery”) float past unacknowledged. Jaclyn is indeed in a toxic environment. You can probably guess which one of them winds up leaving.

Generous prix fixe at West Bank Café

Established in 1978, West Bank Café has a dedicated following and is difficult to book before or after a play. The reason is the food, and for instance, kale salad—now on every menu across town—is ingenious here, mixed with grilled octopus, radishes, and smoked salted almonds. A 3-course prix fixe for $35 gives as a main course salmon or chicken with abundant vegetables. Entrees include rainbow trout piccata and black linguini with rock shrimp, and desserts, hot chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice-cream and caramel. The cocktail menu sounds delectable and wine by the glass is good value.

West Bank Café has a downstairs space, the Laurie Beechman Theatre, where many great performers have done shows, including, as recently as 2013, Joan Rivers.

Honeymoon in Vegas and Wolfgang's Steakhouse

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Photo by Ruven Afanador for Vanity Fair

Based on the film written and directed by Andrew Bergman, in which a sweaty Nicholas Cage tried to pay off a gambling debt with his fiancée, Sarah Jessica Parker. As long as you ignore the woman-as-chattel theme, you’ll have a great time at Honeymoon in Vegas. The onstage orchestra sets the mood with a terrific overture.

Tony Danza is suave as the casino owner Tommy Korman, in mourning. Betsy Nolan (Brynn O’Malley) is a dead ringer for Tommy’s late wife and a Vassar-educated teacher to boot. O’Malley has an edge that makes Betsy believable. It’s stunning when she appears as a mirage of Tommy’s less impressive dead wife, with crazy hairdo and manicure, chewing gum and sunbathing in a bikini.  

Rob McClure’s sweet Jack Singer stumbles his way to heroic, but first wins the audience singing “I Love Betsy.” When shopping at Tiffany’s for Betsy’s ring, his mother’s ghost (Nancy Opel) hilariously rises from a display case. Jack’s manipulated into playing poker with Tommy, who suggests as payment for a huge debt a chaste weekend with Betsy. Insulted, Betsy ends their engagement and stalks off with him.

Tommy secretly plans to marry her himself at a 24-hour Nevada chapel, but first spirits her away to his private island in Hawaii. The orchestra changes into Hawaiian shirts for this part. Jack follows them and proves his mettle by skydiving and by resisting the local women. Despite Catherine Ricafort’s vibrant voice and selling of the song, “Friki-Friki” is a road bump.

Lyrics and music by Jason Robert Brown are otherwise so clever that you follow every word. Choreographed showgirls and Elvis impersonators add zing. Sleazy, cheesy Vegas denizens are expansively portrayed by David Josefsberg, Michael Saldivar and George Merrick and all of the others. Honeymoon in Vegas is a very classy production.

Head waiter, Matt

Wolfgang’s is a high roller’s steakhouse. The Times Square location has tall windows and unusual spaciousness. It’s light and airy any time of the day. Park Avenue Wolfgang’s has an amazing vaulted tiled ceiling. We’d like to visit all the locations and compare them architecturally. They're always open; lunch and dinner served seven days a week including holidays.

Mouth-watering smells hit as you walk in, and a one-page menu makes the choices seem manageable. That’s a little deceptive, because it’s hard to skip extravagant appetizers, like the specialty Canadian bacon strip that would be a main course in any other country. Chunky crab cake comes with a cool and delicious herb sauce that we’d like the recipe for. Tomato sauce, horseradish on the side, accompanies the seafood platter and is also a fine sauce. Steaks and lamb come perfectly seared and tender, with brilliant flavor. Baked potatoes the size of footballs and chipped German potatoes lead as side dishes. Another favorite with guests is creamed spinach that is pure spinach (without cream). Their famous Schlag with dessert is so fully whipped, the way it's done at the Wisconsin State Fair, that you can cut it with a knife and fork, and it’s served in the size of the snow bank outside.