Everyday Rapture

I now have Sherie Rene Scott's rendition of "Up the Ladder to the Roof," right at the top of my everyday ipod playlist. I saw "Everyday Rapture" last night and downloaded the song from iTunes the minute I got home. I downloaded too, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," "It's You I Like," and "I Guess the Lord Must be in New York City." It is worthwhile to note, I think, that I had each of these songs already in my iTunes library. I just couldn't wait to have Sherie Rene's Scott's versions from "Everyday Rapture." Couldn't wait to listen today.

This is the Broadway Roundabout transfer to the American Airlines theater of this small play that plays big, due to the force of nature that is Ms. Scott. Now, I am, in fact, predisposed to like a vehicle for Ms. Scott's lavish talents--I like her. But she does something so marvelous here, that is simply nowhere near as easy as it seems--she chooses, and then renders her own perfect version, of the perfect song for the perfect mood. There are more moments here of sheer musicality and resonance than perhaps any one-womanish show has any right to.

I say one-womanish. There are only three others--her terrific duo of backup singers, The Mennonettes, and broadwayislove09@earthlink.net (15 yr. old Eamon Foley in what may well be a star-making turn). Now, don't get me wrong--these three are a smash!

In the book, which is long on analogy and metaphor, Ms. Scott whispers a sort of incantatory wish to be "living in the song," as Judy (Garland) did. Then she steps right in, and lives in 'em! Hey, if you're gonna throw down the gauntlet to a Broadway crowd--you might as well throw the thing way way down, right?

The minimal set is just right here-- it lets the sheer candlepower of the star shine through for every watt it's worth. But wait--we're not talking belting here. Yes, she's got a voice that can open wide. But it's measured here, for maximum emotional connection. At the end of "It's You I Like," the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ballad (done brilliantly), the follow-spot stays on Ms. Scott three or four beats after the music stops, while she sits with our emotions in her hands and her heart in ours--full of a sort of grace. Those are the moments that define a life in the theater, a devotion to the art form.

It is precisely for moments like that, that a kid from the suburbs took the bus into the city to get a seat for a matinee and sit and wait, sit and hope, one might come along. Ah, but when they did...

99 Miles to Philly

In the great CheesesteakWars of Philadelphia, I say there is no real winner. First, no one even allows that there are other combatants than Pat's and Geno's. And there are, there truly are.

Ok, here it is about Pat's and Geno's, gotta shoot it straight from the hip--they both sorta suck!

Okay, start the ranting, start the condemnation of Ron for saying what has been on the minds of the cognoscenti for eons. Even you Philly Guys gotta know, in your heart-of-hearts, that those places do not sell first-rate sandwiches. First, what is up with the pile of grey meat on the flat top?? It looks and tastes like a pile of grey meat. With an unfortunate amount of, ahem, grizzle. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but here it comes--it's gross. Listen, getting me to say that about street food, any street food (a guy who loves when a place is filthy, cause that seems somehow to enhance flavor) takes some doing. And putting your sacred Cheez Whiz on (cause only Cheez Whiz is allowed to adorn an honest-to-god-cheesesteak) doesn't raise the thing up very much. Hey, you can put lipstick on that pig, but you can't teach it to tango.

Thats why when a former manager from Carl's, a direct pile-the-grey-meat-high New York knockoff of the grand South Philly tradition started to ply his trade in New York I was not that excited.

I was wrong. This guy just rejected the long-held belief that their's was the "only true path." Oh yes, he honored the fundaments of the sandwich. The grilling together of the thin-slice ribeye with the onions--to achieve maximum heat-retention and combination of flavor. He melts a proper amount of cheese--on the roll side of the sandwich for maximum meltage and proper sandwich integrity. Most of all, he flies his bread in from Philly, from the properly revered Amoroso Bakery.

I always get a good sandwich at 99 Miles to Philly. And the place feels like a sort of NYU offshoot, located on 3rd Ave between 12/13 streets. Lots of students, lots of grad students, ordering the $10.99 special cheesesteak/fries/soda. Hey, 99 Miles to Philly doesn't reach the ecstatic heights of the very best cheesesteaks--when the ribeye retains more steakly integrity, and develops more natural au jus--but I always get a really good sandwich.

Crif Dogs

Here's the deal: the guy who runs Crif Dogs on St. Mark's Place is from Northern Jersey, so his hot dog papers are in order (read: he deep-fries the dogs). Holy cow, are they in order. Crif Dogs are making by far the meanest dogs this side of Rutt's Hut. In some quarters they are whispering the blasphemous (sshhhh) that, for instance (ssshhhh), the spicy redneck may even be better than a ripper at Rutt's .

Okay, the "Spicy Redneck." Let's discuss. First, this dog was voted as "Best Hot Dog in America" by the readers of Maxim magazine. I know, I know. The readers of Maxim might not be the definitive arbiters, but, boy, did they ever point things in the right direction. This dog is smokin'!! The spicy redneck is a bacon-wrapped dog with chili, jalapenos, and cole slaw. Without putting too fine a point on it--it is fucking delicious.

Crif's is located on St. Marks Place, between 1st Ave and Ave A. The place has a feel to it. First, it is downstairs, in a brick-walled cellar of a space. Second, the smell of dogs-a-fryin infuses the air. Third, there is a phone booth at Crif's that does double duty: as welcome atmosphere during the day, and as Superman-like transformational experience at night (the thing actually serves as entrance to the nightclub next door).

And the menu is chock-a-block with super-cool combinations for topping your fried dog. Take for example the "Jon Jon Deragon," a dog with a schmeer of cream cheese, scallions, and everything bagel seeds. Or the "Morning Jersey," a Taylor Ham wrapped dog with melted cheese and a fried egg (for those of you who have never strolled a Jersey boardwalk--Taylor Ham is the extremely disgusting, unfortunately delicious, lunch meat that they grill and put on sandwiches that are too unhealthy, too beyond the pale in general, to contemplate).

How delicious does the "Morning Jersey" sound? I, of course, have never tried it because I can't get past the "Spicy Redneck." My only decision is how many to have, or when to order my second (third?). I've tried the fries and the rings, but I don't think I will anymore cause they can't really compete for stomach space. I have split a chili burger with Barnaby, along with two SRs each, but that's about it.

It seems to me that Crif's has made it into the funky tour guides of the world. I'm always sitting next to some punk-attired German tourists, or a couple of funky gay kids from Sweden. They don't know that what they are eating stands in the great dog pantheon, that a newcomer only gets blessed once in a great while.

Do you get the drift? Crif Dogs has entered the firmament! Come one, come all. Enter.

Rutt's Hut

I grew up in Northern New Jersey. Aside perhaps from working the counter at The Varsity, in Atlanta, there is likely no better hot dog atmosphere in which you could grow.

Come, on. My parents went on a double-date to the fabled Rutt's Hut--I have rippers in my blood! (a ripper, for the uninitiated, in the Rutt's Hut lexicon, is a hot dog that has "ripped" open from languishing in the hot oil it is deep-fried in). Hot dogs are typically deep-fried in roadside stands in the northern part of Jersey, and to anyone who grew up on them--there is no dog that compares. A popular variant (as practiced at The Hot Grill), never at Rutt's though, is the "Texas Weiner," a deep-fried dog with mustard, onions, and a truly disgusting but delicious type of chili sauce. My brother, who lives in New Hampshire, is given to reporting to me, when he is in New Jersey, just how many rippers and "weiners" he has ingested. Sometimes I will interrupt my day, "Meet you at Rutts in half an hour," we'll say. It is our particular brand of brotherly bonding.

If you want to go to Rutt's, and everyone should, just take the Lincoln Tunnel, follow Route 3 West for 12 minutes or so, and take the Route 21 exit north, toward Passaic. Get off immediately on the right and double back around--you can't possibly miss Rutt's. Hey, when the people of Clifton heard the state planned to build Route 21, and that they had plans to demolish Rutt's, the fans, the devotees, protested so strongly and so effectively, that the state veered the road around Rutt's, so there it still stands. When you arrive, you will have the choice of standing at the counter in the front (visible through the very dirty glass that encloses it) or eating in the tavern around back. I have only once eaten in the tavern, and that was when a visitor from a foreign land insisted. I eat at the counter, as all Rutt's fanatics do. Don't worry, the dirty windows get you ready for how unruly and seedy the entire experience of the counter truly is.

But oh the hot dogs. I start to salivate on Rte. 21. These are the sine qua non of hot dogs, the north star, the still small dog in the distance. I know all about Ted's and Pink's and Super Duper Weenie--they're terrific (well, with the exception of Pink's which for me is grossly overrated). But these dogs outshine the sun. Quite simply, I do not think they can be improved upon. Listen, the dogs not only infuse the roll with some of the sloughed off oil they've recently been lounging in, and are actually crunchy, but you then face the solemn choice of adorning them with either Rutt's very special mustard, or their home-made relish. I am a purist. I stick solely with the mustard. But I understand, I do, my relish relishing brethren. You do not, however, want to order anything so crudely revealing, say, as a chili dog. Don't do it. Get fries, or the incomparably oily onion rings, or the utterly oily chili--sure. But stick to the experience.

If you love hot dogs, you owe it to yourself. If you have never been to Rutt's, you are missing a vital component of cocktail party trash speak. Go to the temple. Say a little prayer.

Bond 45

I like taking dates to the theater. I do. I feel at home, I have a lot to say (who can shut me up) and who knows--I may even appear charming. I think I even rush to find prospects "theater-date worthy." Ok, I know I do. Hey, I want to go to the theater, I want to be on dates (god knows)--so where do we eat?

Recently, Bond 45 has been my go-to spot for theater dates, even ones with my daughter, or my son and his fiancee. Bond 45 is Shelly Fireman's place (he of the solid, always a little better than you expect, places all over town: Fiorello's, Trattoria del Arte, Brooklyn Diner, Shelly's...), a wide-menu, grand cafe style, italian restaurant. Gael Greene used to kvell every time Shelly opened a new place.

The place occupies the old Bond Clothing Store (hence the name), with the famous Times Square sign, for those of a certain age--Men's Suits--2 Pair of Pants! It is one of those new restaurants that expertly feels like it's been there forever. I have always loved the old-New York, clubby kinds of places, and Bond 45 can transport you there with ease, especially if you get booth-lucky. On the main floor, upstairs, the lower ceiling and artfully chosen chandeliers envelop the booths in just that right clubby synergy.

But wait--the food is good. Really quite good. Now I am not partial to a creamy type of pesto on my pasta. I prefer the more traditional, olive oil and basil predominated pesto. But Bond 45 has made me a creamy-pesto believer. Danielle (my daughter) does like the creamy sort, so she prevailed upon me to sample hers--whoa, this is some real stuff! Obviously hearty, it is heavily pine nut inflected. Hold on, though--that doesn't always mean I abandon my beloved bolognese. I am on an almost constant search for solid, milanese-style bolognese. It is solid at Bond 45. It does not dazzle, neither does it achieve the full-textured nuttiness of a strictly, perhaps cream or bechamel-infused, traditional beef-veal-pork blend. But I like it. And the antipasto is killer. The artichokes al Giudea are delicious (the Jewish Way, a specialty in Rome that I first sampled on my first honeymoon (we can talk about that later)), as are the delicate asparagus, and pretty much everything I've sampled from the very impressive selections on view.

I eat more pasta as my main dish than anything else, but the veal here is no slouch either. Traditional costoletta, especially with arugula and tomato is just right. I will be trying (maybe I'll get back to you) more of their veal and beef entrees soon.

But I buried the lead. You see, on your way out, there are two baskets--one with light puff pastry dusted with powdered sugar, the other with break-apart chocolate toffee candies. They are there for you to glutton upon. Standing by those baskets on the way out is one of those things that I observe closely, in myself if not in others. How much to take? Is it important enough to offset my intense desire to indulge myself dearly--with the need to not appear a gluttonous trencherman? I'm not sure. I do go back after I eat my original handful--the question is simply will I go back more than once? I will leave that to your imagination.

Collected Stories

For the second time this season I had precisely the same feeling, provoked by precisely the same playwright. Donald Margulies has had two Broadway productions this season, Time Stands Still and Collected Stories, and at each I felt, right from the start, "Oh, I'm going to like it here tonight." Time Stands Still, all the better for the insightful direction of Daniel Sullivan, did, after all, have Laura Linney. I am, I admit, weak when it comes to Ms. Linney--in this case she held the center of a cohesive ensemble, irradiating the rest of the cast.

This time it is Lynn Meadow directing Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson. All I can say is it is nice to be in the hands of old pros. I must say I have never been a huge fan of Ms. Lavin's, but she is marvelous here as the cranky, wise, soft-after-all Jewish intellectual mentor to Ms. Paulson's eager, gifted graduate student. The play follows these two from their first tutorial as professor and student. If it wasn't on a smaller canvas, and so closely observed, the evening might have become a reworking of All About Eve. But it's not--it has finely turning nuance, and the power of unspoken envy and competition. Ms. Paulson's television work, for me especially wonderful on Studio 60, made us forget she has real stage chops. What a pair these two make.

The teacher has never married nor had children of her own, the student has fantasized and idealized the great writer she finally finds herself sitting in front of. Well, setup in place, we are in for that greatest thing: a comfortable, well-worn sweater of a play that keeps digging deeper than you thought it would. I am a sucker for crusty smart codgers cracking wise, and Ms. Lavin turns me into a real fan with her deft, sharpened whine. And the fierce aroma of ambition Ms. Paulson gives off within her dedicated devotion has the power to disarm.

Oh, let me not forget--the set by Santo Loquasto (set-designer extraordinaire for evoking a certain lived-in New York quality) is simply perfect.

I'm not saying that Donald Margulies is our new August Wilson, or even Tracy Letts--but he might be, I sort of imagine, what Woody Allen's plays may have been, with a lighter hand.

American Idiot

Ok, here it all is about American Idiot. First, full disclosure: I am a serious Green Day fan. Serious. Both American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown (from which a few songs are included) were perhaps 20-hour per week experiences when they came out. Certain songs still make it onto my daily playlists. I love these albums.

That's probably at least a little bit why I was disappointed with American Idiot, the musical. And that took a lot anyway. I was looking forward to this production. My daughter, who shares a ridiculous level of devotion to plays she likes, like her father, had seen the play four or five times when it was at Berkeley Rep, since she was at law school in San Francisco at the time.She told me to get ready to rock out in my seat for this one.

I even went with her (the world's single biggest John Gallagher, Jr. fan) specifically to see it on Broadway, in one of the last preview performances, to get the full synergy of our shared love. We were both disappointed.

I readily admit it--I was smiling and rocking through and after the first number. Ok, if the whole show were anywhere near as rousing as the opening eponymous anthem, it would have been easier to forgive the abject absence of a cohesive (dare I say coherent?) book. It would have been easier to allow that any moment ripe for full emotional wallop just seemed to wither within the confines of the soaring set. Easier still to allow that the sound, for all the advance heralding of it's ferocity and power, simply dies on the stage (did the producers think the thing was just too loud to get an older audience and tempered it mid-previews??). The power of the introduction of the bass or the full throttle drums are what signal the gear change in a Green Day song--what the heck happened to them here--someone just pulls all their punches!

Hey, I have to give all due props to John Gallagher, Jr. in the lead role. He has the market cornered on young, angry, confused men on the verge of individuation. And I think he is probably the most abundantly talented of our new stars. His lone rendering of the opening verses of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, alone on the stage with his acoustic guitar, evokes the sense of how poignant and heartbreaking things might have been.

And Tony Vincent's St. Jimmy is a welome burst of energy and phrasing. I will likely be at any production that either of these two guys are ever in. And I had a good time at American Idiot. It;s hard not to--after all it is the rock opera of the album--one of the best of all times. Introducing Green Day at the Grammy's in 2002, the year the album won album of the year, Quentin Tarantino declared that American Idiot had broken new ground, "All the songs are good!"

I don't know what happened to Mr Isherwood at the Times. I can only imagine that this may have been his introduction to the glories of Green Day and the incredible artistry of the American Idiot score. Who can blame him? The music is incredible. The show is not.

Family Week

Is there a sadder little play than Family Week by Beth Henley? I'm not sure there is. Here is a 75 minute play--75 minutes. I checked my watch at 45. I sat in A111, so I was in the first seat, first row, on the aisle--no true chance to contemplate leaving. And at the Lucille Lortel--I love that theater. And so many recent good memories.

The play follows family week at The Pastures rehabilitation center, set in a town of dude ranches (was Ms. Henley making sure we couldn't miss that she was referring to an actual family week, maybe, I don't know--at The Meadows, the actual rehabilitation center in the cowboy town of Wickenburg, Az.?). Even now that I've seen the whole play, I can't quite figure whether I was meant to see the rehab process as a giant joke, or whether it is meant to be a tender thing. That is sort of incredible, given that this is the stage directorial debut of Jonathan Demme. And I don't even know where to begin about the cast. I mean we're talking Kathleen Chalfant and Rosemarie deWitt. I love Ms. Chalfant. And who wouldn't, remembering her chilling performances (i.e. Wit). But more, I think Rosemarie deWitt is a thrillingly nuanced actress (and, to be fair, she is the best and most nuanced thing in the play) and thought she actually upstaged Anne Hathaway in Rachel's Getting Married, and gives an amazing turn in The United States of Tara. My question comes down to this--did a communal sort of fugue state descend on the creative team here? What are they all doing in this clunker? It's a shonda.