Dinner Theatre: Sort Of

My friend The Playgoer has been in town this weekend, and after spending a week or so perusing the listings at Theatre Bay Area and soliciting my recommendations, he settled on The Mystery Plays at SF Playhouse on Friday night, and the very first preview of the world premiere, Nero (Another Golden Rome) at Magic Theatre on Saturday.

I also hope he can manage to catch Master Builder at Aurora this evening.

Friday night we met The Playgoer at his Union Square hotel's top floor lounge and restaurant, which offered stunning views of the city and stunning prices to match. Ironically, for so many reasons, I had been stricken that day with losing my voice, so I was considering an Irish coffee or something similarly hot and coating. All coffee drinks were $12. So, I checked out the wine by the glass list, which averaged $12 for a $7 bottle. Well, if I was going to pay $12 for anything, it would be a top shelf drink, so I settled on a margarita on the rocks, which hurt my throat more than my wallet. We also shared and cheese plate and a smoked salmon pizza.

The Playgoer offers a SF Dispatch of the play, and from our conversation that evening, which was rather obviously one-sided, I gathered that spaces like SF Playhouse, Actors Theatre of SF and such were rather rare creatures back in New York. In any case, I had recommended SF Playhouse one, because of the playwright and two, because of the caliber of actors the company has attracted after only several seasons in business. Rod Gnapp and T. Edward Webster were very good, as was Christina Anselmo, in this noir-like play with a very sparse set. In the audience that night was Mark Jackson of Death of Meyerhold fame and Nick Sholley, who appeared in Trev's Tenders in the Fog, both of whom I was happy to introduce The Playgoer to.

Saturday night we braved the Chinese New Year Parade and settled at Hana Zen off Union Square before heading up to the Magic. The Playgoer had actually been in town last year, and liked Hana Zen enough to return. Of course, the sushi and yakitori restaurant is one of my regular restaurants, a bit pricey for dinner but always good.

Magic Theatre artistic director Chris Smith was a bit surprised to see me at a preview, especially the first preview, so I assured him that I was there totally unofficially, which means I won't comment on the play except to say it's a new play so you should go see it because we like to support new plays. Interestingly, Nero playwright Steve Sater and musician Duncan Sheik are also collaborating on a musical in New York--but Nero is "a play with music."

So, I suppose what's next is a Staged Readings dispatch from New York, which could happen if I could ever manage to get out there. If I did, I'd catch the new Richard Foreman (what, as opposed to the old Richard Foreman? jeez), the new Wallace Shawn, Spamalot....

But maybe The Playgoer will have to stick around until the blizzard clears up in New York and SFO stops cancelling flights.