'night, Mother

We just saw 'night, Mother at Beck Center for the Arts.   Amazingly powerful.   Steve and I both cried.   A woman, Jessie, portrayed by Laura Perrotta, is about to commit suicide.  She has set all of her affairs in order, and she tells her mother, Thelma, played by the extraordinary Dorothy Silver.  

The play is one continuous act performed without an intermission in 90 minutes.  The set was extremely realistic, a living room through dining room and kitchen with running water.

The family has troubles.  Jessie is a divorcee who has epilepsy and a wayward son.  She decided at Christmas that she would end her life, seeing that all she does is keep Thelma company.  You can feel the emotional scars ripping open fresh as the two women on stage talk to one another.   It should not be missed.  It's playing until May 4th at the Beck Studio Theater.

Titus: A Grand and Gory Rock Musical

 Last night Steve, Tom, and I went to see the penultimate performance of Cleveland Public Theater's Titus: A Grand and Gory Rock Musical.  It is the classic Shakespeare revenge drama, with gory special effects and the addition of rock music.   The music added a lot to the production.  It made the story line easier to grasp.   I had never seen a staging of Titus Andronicus before.  I really enjoyed it.

The costumes were amusing.  You have the Romans, who wear soldier and toga type garb over their jeans and leggings.  You also have the conquered Goths, who are in gothy bondage wear, including lots and lots of boots and black leather.   It was a fun play on words.

The play features a lot of death.   If you click on the link above, you can see charts of exactly how many people die and in what ways.   I got to thinking about Sweeney Todd because two characters actually get baked into pies and consumed by their mother and step father.

Actually, one of the most amusing parts of the show was when one of the characters had to die, but he was also portraying one of his assailants simultaneously.   He was wearing a half costume of both Roman and Goth wear.   He switched directions based on which character's lines he was speaking.  Then he punched himself and threw the Roman garb into the pit.   It was both brutal and comedic.

Overall, the show was sort of uneven in tone.   Despite the flaws, I really did enjoy the show.

Brent's Blondie at Main Street Cupcakes

I haven't been to Main Street Cupcakes in a while.   They had this cupcake today.  I really do like blondies better than brownies, so this confection was just up my alley.  The website describes it as "Vanilla brown sugar cake baked with white chocolate chips and heath bar pieces topped with white chocolate ganache with a caramel drizzle."

It's yummy, a kind of salty sweet.   I had already started eating my cupcake when I realized I hadn't taken a photo yet!  I ended up buying the last one in the case so I could post a picture here.  I have dessert for later!

Deathtrap

We watched the final performance of Deathtrap this afternoon!  I can see why this is the longest running play on Broadway.  It's very meta.  Lots of surprising twists and turns.   I was genuinely shocked multiple times throughout the show.  It's a play about a play about writing plays.  With murder.  I thought I knew where the plot was going, but I was wrong!  I was glad to be wrong too!  

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat

We just got back from seeing the new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I've actually seen this show twice recently.  The Beck Center had a production in 2010.  We also just saw our nephew in the children's choir of a production put on by my husband's high school.  I thought I would be really tired of the show by the time we got to see this production.   However, I find myself incredibly impressed by the technical aspects of the production.

This show featured extensive use of colored projectors.  Huge screens draped down from the stage and grew and shrank to indicate movement.  There were relatively few actual set pieces.  The projections made of for that.  They were so detailed!   The screens actually looked like they were stone, or gold, or whatever they needed at the time.  Also, this is the first production I've seen that doesn't feature a children's chorus.  It actually works really well without it!

Also, the most memorable part of the show was the song Canaan Days.   It's usually my least favorite musical number.   It's slow, and if it's done poorly, it can really drag down the energy of the show.   This US touring company really nailed it and made it extremely funny!    I liked the part where Joseph's brothers were dividing a rat to eat.  When the brother singing the song treats his siblings like a choir, hilarity ensues.

If you haven't seen Joseph before, definitely look into this production.   You'll have a lot of fun.

Churned Ice Cream

We recently started drinking milk from Hartzler Family Dairy.  It's yummy stuff, pasteurized but non-homogenized, so you need to shake it up in order to mix the cream in with the rest of the milk.   It comes in glass bottles that you return to the store for a deposit.   It's been neat because we can have two different types of milk because the containers are half gallon size.  Anyhow, I wander away from my point.  Through Hartzler's website, I found out about Churned Ice Cream in Cleveland, which just happens to use their milk.

I was really looking forward to the ice cream because the website lists a huge amount of exotic flavors.  I really wanted to try the rosemary garlic, but it was already gone for the season.  However, we ended up trying lots of other neat flavors.

My ice cream was pretty much breakfast in a cup.  The scoop on top is maple bacon with french toast.  It really does taste like french toast with bacon and maple syrup.  They even served it with little bacon bits on top!

The scoop on the left is peanut butter and jelly.   It's honey peanut butter with raspberry jam and some bread in there.   I ended up buying a pint to go home.  I was looking for a good peanut butter and jelly ice cream, and I haven't seen one since I lived on the east coast.  A local market is going to be carrying Churned's ice cream soon, so I'll have not problem obtaining it.

The scoop in front is Cap'n Crunch.  It has the cereal pieces in it and the ice cream is nicely milky, like would be in your bowl at breakfast time.

The last scoop (on the right) was my favorite, brown butter with lavender brittle.  Jeni's makes a similar flavor, but uses almond brittle instead.  The lavender doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the brown butter, which is sweet and salty at the same time.  The brittle pieces are actually soft and you get a lot of pieces per scoop of ice cream.

This was Steve's bowl.   The scoop on top is the peanut butter and jelly.  The bright orange one in front is tropical sorbet, with coconut, mango, banana, passion fruit, and pineapple.   The scoop to the left is the black forest with dark chocolate ice cream, almonds, and cherries.   The one to the right is the coconut brownie.  We didn't even realize it was vegan!

I can't wait to go back and try more flavors!

No. 1 Pho

Tonight we had dinner at No. 1 Pho.   Steve and I had been meaning to go, and Madge suggested that we meet up there.   No. 1 Pho is actually the first restaurant I've written about that doesn't have its own website.  The link above goes to a pdf of their menu on Asia Town Cleveland's website.  The menu in the restaurant has at least 2 more pages than this file.

Pictured above is my order, the stuffed crispy noodles.  It had onion, squid, shrimp, fish balls, broccoli, and I think chicken sauce.  The noodles are dry, and you basically mix everything up.   It's way too much food for one person.   I'm going to have at least 3 more servings from the leftovers I brought home.

I also had a strawberry bubble tea.

Steve had a salty lemon drink.  It's salty in a caramel or butterscotch way.   Normally, I like salty sweets, but lemon isn't exactly one of my favorites.  Steve liked it though.   It's very interesting and you should definitely try it just for the experience.

Steve had the spicy squid curry.  It wasn't as spicy as he was expecting, but he enjoyed it.  He also had leftovers, looks like about 2 to 3 servings for later.

Madge had the meat ball vermicelli, served with spicy sauce and the shrimp rolls.  The meat balls were more like wedges.   She also got to take some home for later.
The service was fast and the atmosphere was comfortable.   Next time we visit I'll actually order pho.