Thursday, December 28, 2006
Step out and into adventure- holiday trip to Roundabout
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On our way to the American Airlines Roundabout Theatre, on Times Square, we passed through the huge Union Square Holiday Market. The first booth at the East entrance had MTA Subway maps, on handbags, shirts, hats wrapping paper, caps, luggage tags, backpacks; t-shirts named for D, R, A and any other line, with terminal points identified. Wish I could tell; you how to order, but is only a fair and wholesale business, no card.
Nothing daunted, we moved on, to perfumed soaps, HeavenScent, baby wear and children's greeting and party cards, RubyZaar, a bazaar of exotic accessories in 100% natural fibers. If this lot does not keep you hot, WiredWarmer heat pads will, else get any of the thousands of ski caps, Scandinavian, Eskimo, with charming Heidi laces tied under your chin, Peruvian (how did they get into snow gear?), fur – real but mostly not so – cashmere, fuzzy angora, stocking style and peaked, soft-knit, I gave up counting. Luscious Paper had gorgeous bound note books, diaries, address books, appointment calendars, and, if you ask, they give you their card with a 2007 calendar that has all Buddhist holy days marked alongside the Fourth and Christmas. No real books, though – Pageant Print shop, the old Fourth Avenue expatriate that had wandered through 10th Street, Hudson and other venues to settle on East 4th, has discontinued them, selling prints and maps - good NYC ones are on hand.
This trip can be tiring, although the mournful brass band outside Whole food did their best to be cheering. I gave up stopping after seeing a hundred varieties of plastic figurines with tree hangers. The vendor looked suspiciously at me and had no business cards – a lot of that going around. Passing a vine accessories stand run by a cheery schoolteacher – the corks kept horizontal by sticking the bottles’ necks into C shaped harness - and turning north along the west side of the park, past squadrons of print and lithograph and political t-shirt vendors, we finally reached the BMT train station and thankfully submerged. The platform was full of young Asian women, eating bananas or drinking from Poland Spring water bottles. Some Mexican workers were squatting against the staircase wall – a position I could never copy – being entertained by a hyperactive coworker in fat pants and jacket, taking mock kicks against them. The train had more Asian girls, one of them offering me her seat, gratefully accepted.
The 42nd Street station, where all of us exited, was well guarded. Crossing Times Square, I spied a lit-up subway entrance sign with flashing middle letters. How advanced, I thought, then noticed that a middle letter was also missing. How New York!
We were early, to get a bite before the three-hour performance at the Roundabout’s American Airlines’ Theatre. There is a Pax Wholesome Foods right next door, where they offer premade sandwiches, and a salad bar, where you pick out a bowl of greens ($3) and have the server add ingredients (75 cents each), then toss them. Very hygienic.
The play was George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, of his later Socialist years, after the Six Pleasant and Unpleasant series. It thrashes all concepts – women who are forced to marry rich men, idealists who try to save them, women who want to marry for money, capitalism, executives who serve capitalists, with a deus ex machine that serves justice, ok, perceived justice, at the end. Venality is exposed, life in fantasy world defended, useless husbands tolerated, pretense and social climbing jeered at, unfaithfulness in marriage accepted - the mind reels as subjects, one after another, are brought up, accelerated to conflict, then overlaid by the next eventuality. Shaw surely was not sparing with ideas – this play alone could be strung out to serve a season of comic soap operas, in today’s terms. Visualize, an old sea wolf, bearded Captain Shotower (Philip Bosco), somewhat addled and living in another world, yet capable of single phrases that pierce and bring the house down . He lives with his sharp-witted redhead daughter Hesione Hushabye (Swoosie Kurtz) and her wastrel chaser husband Hector (Byron Jennings), as strangers and relatives troop through the old hause – pompous British Colonialist daughter Ariadne Utterword (Laila Robins), her devoted slave, brother-in-law Randall (Gareth Saxe), a seemingly innocent virgin Ellie (Lily Rage) and her seemingly unworldly inventor father Mazzini Dunn (John Christopher Jones), with the capitalist tool, Boss Mangan (Bill Camp) providing accents. Add a gabby ancient retainer, Nurse Guinness (Jenny Sterlin), and you have a compote of irresistible characters with improbable names making politically and socially incorrect declarations.
Back on the subway, around midnight, we noted that the Korean cellist who plays Ave Maria had moved from platform level to the large concourse plaza usually occupied by a demented drummer and his band., who seem to have taken time off. No wonder the Asians are getting to rule the world of commerce.
On our way to the American Airlines Roundabout Theatre, on Times Square, we passed through the huge Union Square Holiday Market. The first booth at the East entrance had MTA Subway maps, on handbags, shirts, hats wrapping paper, caps, luggage tags, backpacks; t-shirts named for D, R, A and any other line, with terminal points identified. Wish I could tell; you how to order, but is only a fair and wholesale business, no card.
Nothing daunted, we moved on, to perfumed soaps, HeavenScent, baby wear and children's greeting and party cards, RubyZaar, a bazaar of exotic accessories in 100% natural fibers. If this lot does not keep you hot, WiredWarmer heat pads will, else get any of the thousands of ski caps, Scandinavian, Eskimo, with charming Heidi laces tied under your chin, Peruvian (how did they get into snow gear?), fur – real but mostly not so – cashmere, fuzzy angora, stocking style and peaked, soft-knit, I gave up counting. Luscious Paper had gorgeous bound note books, diaries, address books, appointment calendars, and, if you ask, they give you their card with a 2007 calendar that has all Buddhist holy days marked alongside the Fourth and Christmas. No real books, though – Pageant Print shop, the old Fourth Avenue expatriate that had wandered through 10th Street, Hudson and other venues to settle on East 4th, has discontinued them, selling prints and maps - good NYC ones are on hand.
This trip can be tiring, although the mournful brass band outside Whole food did their best to be cheering. I gave up stopping after seeing a hundred varieties of plastic figurines with tree hangers. The vendor looked suspiciously at me and had no business cards – a lot of that going around. Passing a vine accessories stand run by a cheery schoolteacher – the corks kept horizontal by sticking the bottles’ necks into C shaped harness - and turning north along the west side of the park, past squadrons of print and lithograph and political t-shirt vendors, we finally reached the BMT train station and thankfully submerged. The platform was full of young Asian women, eating bananas or drinking from Poland Spring water bottles. Some Mexican workers were squatting against the staircase wall – a position I could never copy – being entertained by a hyperactive coworker in fat pants and jacket, taking mock kicks against them. The train had more Asian girls, one of them offering me her seat, gratefully accepted.
The 42nd Street station, where all of us exited, was well guarded. Crossing Times Square, I spied a lit-up subway entrance sign with flashing middle letters. How advanced, I thought, then noticed that a middle letter was also missing. How New York!
We were early, to get a bite before the three-hour performance at the Roundabout’s American Airlines’ Theatre. There is a Pax Wholesome Foods right next door, where they offer premade sandwiches, and a salad bar, where you pick out a bowl of greens ($3) and have the server add ingredients (75 cents each), then toss them. Very hygienic.
The play was George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, of his later Socialist years, after the Six Pleasant and Unpleasant series. It thrashes all concepts – women who are forced to marry rich men, idealists who try to save them, women who want to marry for money, capitalism, executives who serve capitalists, with a deus ex machine that serves justice, ok, perceived justice, at the end. Venality is exposed, life in fantasy world defended, useless husbands tolerated, pretense and social climbing jeered at, unfaithfulness in marriage accepted - the mind reels as subjects, one after another, are brought up, accelerated to conflict, then overlaid by the next eventuality. Shaw surely was not sparing with ideas – this play alone could be strung out to serve a season of comic soap operas, in today’s terms. Visualize, an old sea wolf, bearded Captain Shotower (Philip Bosco), somewhat addled and living in another world, yet capable of single phrases that pierce and bring the house down . He lives with his sharp-witted redhead daughter Hesione Hushabye (Swoosie Kurtz) and her wastrel chaser husband Hector (Byron Jennings), as strangers and relatives troop through the old hause – pompous British Colonialist daughter Ariadne Utterword (Laila Robins), her devoted slave, brother-in-law Randall (Gareth Saxe), a seemingly innocent virgin Ellie (Lily Rage) and her seemingly unworldly inventor father Mazzini Dunn (John Christopher Jones), with the capitalist tool, Boss Mangan (Bill Camp) providing accents. Add a gabby ancient retainer, Nurse Guinness (Jenny Sterlin), and you have a compote of irresistible characters with improbable names making politically and socially incorrect declarations.
Back on the subway, around midnight, we noted that the Korean cellist who plays Ave Maria had moved from platform level to the large concourse plaza usually occupied by a demented drummer and his band., who seem to have taken time off. No wonder the Asians are getting to rule the world of commerce.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 12:00 AM 
