Le Petit Auberge Est Fini

As reported by Lost City (link above), Le Petit Auberge is closing its doors on October 8th. The owners want to retire.
When I first moved to New York, I reconnected with my oldest friend, Annie Hunter. We'd been friends as children in Cleveland. She moved here to work in magazine publishing, and I came for the theatre. One night her mother was in town, and Mrs. Hunter took us out for dinner to Le Petit Auberge, where she had gone when she was right of of college and working in publishing. Mrs. Hunter died a few weeks ago, so I've been thinking about her and that dinner a lot lately.
When I was older, I went to Le Petit Auberge for birthdays, wedding anniversaries, a few Christmas Eves. I've been going there my entire adult life. And I've never been able to replicate their Sauce Bernaise.

The Search for Eileen Sullivan

Back in May, I won Second Prize in the Irish Diaspora One-Act Playwriting Contest. The prize came with a check for $250, which immediately went into the budget for "My Tiger, My Love," and was much appreciated. The rest of the prize is a reading of "The Search for Eileen Sullivan" which happens on Friday. Tim Hine will be reading George P. Bancroft and Laura Mitchell will be reading Eileen Sullivan, aka Maura Rafferty. The reading is on Fridaty, September 23 at 7:00 in the auditorium at the historic Atwater Library, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Westmount, Montreal, Quebec. There will be light refreshments, and a q. and a. with the author (that would be me). This entire thing- the prize, the evening, etc.- is produced by Byron Toben. So should you find yourself in Montreal, please come.

The Prisoner

A few months ago my boyfriend Tom was raving about what a great TV series Secret Agent Man was, and before I knew it, he had ordered DVDs of Secret Agent Man (including its initial episodes, known as Danger Man) and its sequel (well, kind of), The Prisoner. I vaguely remember watching The Prisoner when WNET used to run it late on Sunday nights in the '90s. That probably had more to do with the fact that it was late and I was tired.
Many hours later, we have watched the entire thing- all three series. And Secret Agent Man is fascinating in some ways. It's the beginning (ca. mid-1960s) of the spy genre, and you can watch the writers try things out, discard some and keep others. It also is a look into where England saw itself in its largely post-colonial days. They may have been technically out of Africa, but there are many episodes set somewhere that look a lot like Kenya and/or Nigeria, sending in John Drake (Patrick McGoohan), master spy, to help the former colonists.
There are things about The Prisoner that are confusing, silly, seemingly arbitrary. It takes place on this island (off the coast of Lithuania or Spain, depending upon the episode) where England has sent its untrustworthy former MI6 agents. One of these is Number Six, played by Patrick McGoohan. He is relentless in his efforts to escape, but at the end of each episode, he's still there. McGoohan developed the series himself, starred in each episode, and wrote and directed many of them.
Wednesday night we saw the penultimate episode, #16: Once Upon a Time. It is Patrick McGoohan, Leo McKern (playing Number Two) and Angelo Muscat playing the butler. McGoohan directed and wrote the episode. I loved it so much, I watched it a second time that night.
The unseen Number One tells McKern he has a week to break Number 6, in a procedure they call "degree absolute." McGoohan's script puts both of them in a bunker, most of which is set up to look like an abandoned nursery room: swing, seesaw blackboard, rocking horse. There are allusions in the score to nursery rhymes (Humpty Dumpty, Pop! Goes the Weasel, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). Jacques' "The seven ages of man" is quoted. And then comes the best hour of television acting and writing I have ever seen. It's truly amazing. I will bore all of my friends to death talking about it. McKern tries to get McGoohan to say why he resigned from MI6. That's the whole premise. At one point he tells him: "The lone wolf belongs to the wilderness. It is my duty to see that you a not a lone wolf. You must conform."
I must not be the only playwright who feels like the McGoohan character. I would write Mr. McGoohan a fan letter if he hadn't died a few years ago. It's certainly too bad that he didn't write more.

Habermann's Mill

Last week, I went to the movies during the day (something I rarely do) to see a Czech/German/Austrian production, Habermann's Mill, about the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Sudetanland after World War II. I think the subject is fascinating, and it's rarely written about. Unfortunately, the NY Times review was correct. The screenplay is all over the place in terms of story (not only in so far as who's story is it, but why is this story important). I had really hoped that it would be better. It's based on a novel of the same name by Czech writer Josef Urban (not to be confused with Josef Urban the set designer, whose archive is up at Columbia). This Josef Urban says that his novel is based on a true story. I have not been to find the novel in English.

The Second Son

Last year, my brother gave me Rosa and Shadow and Light for my birthday, two wonderful novels by Jonathan Rabb, set in Berlin between the wars. In one of multiple trips to the Strand last month (I'm spending too much time and money there, and I don't mean on the candy counter) I ran across the third book of the trilogy, The Second Son. The books are all about Nicolai Hoffner, an inspector on Berlin's police force. The Olympics are in town, but things cannot be good for a half-Jewish government employee. And they're not- they descend to hellish remarkably quickly, though not in a way you would expect. Hoffner loses his job, which is his life, only to go to Spain in the midst of the Civil War to try to find one of his sons who has disappeared there. I inhaled the book, and have since sent it to my brother so he can finish the trilogy.
It was sad saying good-bye to Nicolai. He's so lifelike on these pages, to close the last book made me feel as if I'd lost an uncle. I am hoping that perhaps the trilogy could grow to a quarter- it worked for Lawrence Durrell.
Link above to Rabb's page on Macmillan's site.

Playwriting Class Update

For the past month, I have been busy getting ready for my Fall class at Chelsea Repertory Lab, which begins Sunday, September 11th. I have finished my lesson plans and figured out which one-acts we'll be reading (Cheryl L. Davis, Alexander Pushkin and John Millington Synge, among other writers). We've already enrolled some new students, and I'm interviewing another on Thursday afternoon. There's a description of the class on this blog, and in the ad section on Playbill.com. If you are interested in learning more or signing up, email chelseareplab-at-yahoo.com.
The students from the Spring's Advanced class are showing their work this week in our Emerging Artists One-Act Play Festival at Shetler Studios, which runs Wednesday through Sunday. There are two bills of short plays being produced, and two bills of longer plays being read. Contact chelseareplab-at-yahoo.com for reservations.

The Coolest Video Ever

Gothamist had this video posted last week, which it picked up from Laughing Squid. I think I've overdosed on cute animal videos, but this is really something. Someone had their wedding at the Mystic Aquarium, and they hired Connecticut Mariachi to play it. After the wedding, they serenaded Juno the Beluga whale in her tank, and she (seriously) danced for them. Gothamist describes it as 1:45 of pure happiness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZS_6-IwMPjM
Link to Gothamist in title.