LIVE THEATER—FARCE VS. FUN
This week we attended the last two performances of our Asolo subscription series. Noises Off at the Wednesday matinee and The Cake the next evening. I am not a particular fan of farce, but went to Noises Off with an open mind. I thought it started out slowly, but then picked up and became funnier. As usual, the set, the technical direction, and the timing were all impeccable. This is a play that can only be pulled off successfully by accomplished actors and these actors were. Nonetheless, it was not my cup of tea.
Much more enjoyable was the performance of The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter. Set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, it brings together Della, the owner of a cake shop, with Jen, the daughter of her late best friend, and with Macy, Jen’s fiancée. Della is religiously conservative and married to the owner of a small plumbing business while Jen and Macy live in Brooklyn. Macy is an ultra liberal black woman, and Jen is a conflicted transplant whose head and heart are divided between her new life in New York and her rooted upbringing in the South. How a request for a wedding cake, preparing to be a contestant on the Great American Baking Show, and a marriage that has gone stale, all collide is the stuff of humor and poignance. Cindy Gold as Della (shown in the header photo) is fabulous, and Brunstetter’s characters are sympathetic even if you don’t agree with their views. Provocative and definitely worth seeing! The Cake runs through April 28.
RECENT READING
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
A Canadian novelist whose parents were immigrants from Ghana, Esi Edugyan has written an exceptional novel about slavery and freedom. The title character and narrator, Washington Black, known as just “Wash,” is a slave and field hand on a plantation in Barbados when the story opens. He has no known relatives, and treatment there is harsh as fellow slaves are routinely tortured and put to death.
In a stroke of luck, Wash is taken under the wing of the plantation owner’s brother, Christopher Wilde, to assist in his creation of a hot air balloon. Christopher, called ”Titch,” is more humane than his brother and treats Wash kindly. He believes in human rights and freedom, but has chosen the child Wash solely for his small size and his potential usefulness on the balloon. Little does he know, initially, that Wash is not only smart with numbers, but has a rare talent for sketching. When Wash is the only one present at a notable death and a price is put on his head, Titch takes it upon himself to whisk Wash away in the dead of night. Wash is now both free and a fugitive.
The novel traces the journey these men, one still a young lad, the other a committed naturalist, take to America and then to the Arctic. When Titch abandons Wash there, Wash travels to Nova Scotia where he works part-time. He takes up drawing again, meets a young woman and her famous marine scientist father, and becomes involved in the founding of an aquarium in London. Through all these amazing adventures, he notes that to others he is a always first a black man and a disfigured one at that. And he wrestles with how free he really is and puzzles over Titch’s disappearance.
Wash and Titch are vivid characters set against the backdrop of the mid 19thcentury. I found this highly praised novel both thoughtful and gripping. For more about what prompted Edugyan to write this novel, I recommend this interview on Fresh Air. (~JWFarrington)
BOOK CLUB NOTES
In March, our book club read and discussed Transcription. Opinions were mixed and a number of members found it slight or didn’t like it much. I personally found it clever and thought the characterization of Juliet, all of eighteen, an apt mix of smarts and naivete.
This month, Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, was the chosen title, and we had one of the liveliest and best discussions ever. While a few people didn’t care for it: too painful to read, was it really all true, why did she stay with her family as long as she did, others found it very powerful. There was some agreement that, like an abused spouse who stays with her abuser, these were still her parents and she was dependent upon them emotionally and had been made to feel she was worthless. It wasn’t until her older brother who had left and gone to college, strongly suggested she could do likewise, that she made that a goal. We also wondered what career path Westover will follow now that she has a PhD.
