Fears' Confections

 When I went out to Venus in Fur last night, I received an ad for Fear's Confections.  I was intrigued.   We called today, and they were out on our side of Cleveland for a Dr. Who event.   We bought lots of their brownies to try the different flavors.  I can't wait to try these, especially the After School Snack.

Venus in Fur

I saw Venus in Fur tonight tonight at the Cleveland Playhouse.  It was absolutely amazing!   The play has just two characters, and is about casting for a play, specifically, Venus in Fur, whose author is where we get the term masochism from.  It was intellectual.  You really had to think about the exchanges between the characters, which can be extremely quick.

You have a playwright (Thomas), who is adapting Venus in Fur, and extremely frustrated searching for a lead actress for his production.  Enter Vanda, an actress who just happens to share the name of the character from the play.  There is a lot of shifting of balance in the show, between male and female, fantasy and reality, and power and submission. 

The play twists in and over itself so many times!   You have to go see this!    It's smart and sexy, with superb acting. 

Once

This afternoon, we saw Once.  I haven't seen the movie that it was based on, but I definitely will pick it up in the future.  This is a musical about creating music.   Simple story, a guy is a musician, but the girl in his life left, leaving a him with a case of writer's block.  Enter the new girl, who then becomes his muse, and they create great works together.   Now, the way that it's told is amazing.

There is no orchestra for this performance.  All of the actors on stage play the music.  There were probably only a dozen people on stage, playing everything from violin to drums.   The setting is an Irish pub, and the production creates intimacy with the audience by having it serve as a real bar before the show and during intermission.  I think they served whiskey and beer.  Most of the performers were on stage and playing Celtic music as audience members meandered around.

Once is the type of a new genre of musicals that scale things down, rather than the traditional humongous Broadway shows that have lots of flash and bang.  This production really does a wonderful job telling the story and demonstrating how the music really works with it.