Man and Superman

Another great production by the Irish Rep.

And another great cast of which I was only familiar with one, namely, Brian Murray.  The lead actor Max Gordon Moore is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Janie Brookshire is the female lead.  Both are exceptional.
The public in Victorian England opted for a light hearted  evening at the theater.  They are infamous for changing the ending of  'Romeo and Juliet' to something more uplifting.  The star crossed lovers live.  The artistic taste of empire is towards the sacchariferous.
So Shaw did not expect his plays to be performed and he wrote them as short stories.  To perform Man and Superman as written would take 5 hours.  This performance was 2 and a quarter hours.

Around the house:
I've painted the bedroom and hall and bought some new furniture and gotten rid of some of the old.
The heavy Danish modern pieces have been removed.  The living room looks so much bigger.

And the new for the  bedroom:

I've always liked Art deco and when I saw these it was love at first sight.
I call her Gypsy Rose Dee.

Can a cat explode?

At least now that he's off his diet I can sleep through the night without being scratched all over my legs.

Busy

I've had a request for a photo from my friend Chuck and have realized with all the photos I've been taking of the city I'm not in any of them.  I found one of Peter Thomas and me from Thanksgiving 2008 at his then home in Rhode Island.

I'm in the middle of redoing the apartment,and I've finally found the art-deco chifferobe I've been looking for.  So today we're painting.  This is what it looked like yesterday.

                                       Come back in a couple of months and it might be completed.

This week I went to the Shaw Symposium with Frank at The Players Club.  It was a 2 hour discussion with the actors,  producers, & the director of  'Man and Superman' which is now at the Irish Rep.  There was also a biographer of Shaw and a writer who has critiqued the plays from a Freudian view point.  It's been so long since I've heard someone take Freud's theories seriously that it was hard to keep a straight face.
[In the second act the feet sticking out of the car is a sexual symbol.  Who knew?]
My favorite came from a member of the audience, also a writer of Shaw.
Shaw to Cedric Hardwick 'Where's the horse'.
Cedric: 'What horse?'.
Shaw: 'The horse that isn't dead'.
Cedric: 'The live horse?'.
Shaw: 'Pronunciation!  The line is "the life force".'

The players club, exterior and interior is one of the most handsome of brownstones.  It was Edwin Booth's home on Gramercy Park.  Done very much in the Victorian style.

 The theater audience is aging as quickly as the 'Highlights In Jazz' audience.  That's Frank [in the second photo] enjoying the buffet.  [all free: snacks and talk].  Behind Frank are paintings and sketches of former and current members, you can see Peter O'Toole and Christopher Plummer.  I've blogged about  the club before when Carole, who is a member, took me to lunch. 

Back to the painting: 'Busy hands are happy hands'