LATE THEATER, GOOD CHINESE
posted by James Reel
The Tucson Weekly has a brand new site design, and here’s your incentive to take a look at it: content provided by little old me.
Two items this week. First, an article on the boomlet of late-night theater:
Five years ago, it was an experiment by a single Tucson theater; this year, it's looking like a local theater trend: provocative performances for night owls. Live Theatre Workshop made the first sustained effort at late-night programming with its Etcetera series, launched at the beginning of 2004 (see "Live From the Eastside," Jan. 22, 2004). Since last fall, two other groups have begun series that cozy up to midnight: Beowulf Alley launched LNT @ The Alley, and the Rogue Theatre is hosting the young artists of the Now Theatre in a series called Rogue After Curfew. Generally, these efforts run on Fridays and Saturdays starting at 10:30 p.m., and finish by midnight. Rogue After Curfew this weekend concludes a run of Tennessee Williams' one-acts with _This Property Is Condemned_; this Friday, Etcetera will open Anne Thibault's _I Wrote This Play to Make You Love Me_; and on April 17, Beowulf Alley will open a two-weekend presentation of Brian Hanson's _I'm Sorry I Liked You_. Success is slow to build. Rogue/Now and Beowulf Alley, which just launched their initiatives a few months ago, are still drawing very small audiences, even though the late-night performances follow mainstage shows that come close to selling out. Beowulf Alley's manager, Beth Dell, reports that the average audience so far for LNT @ The Alley is only 22, and attendance at Now's opening nights has been no better than that. But keep in mind that in early 2004, Etcetera was lucky to get six people to show up for its openings; now, for many shows, it sells out its compact Live Theatre Workshop space and sometimes has to add performances.
You’ll find the full article here. Then put on your bib and accompany me on an excursion to a hidden-away Chinese restaurant:
Sometime in the mid-1990s, Mark Salzman came to town, and we needed to fill him with Chinese food. Salzman is best known for _Iron and Silk_, a memoir-turned-movie (in which he starred) about the time he spent in China teaching English and studying martial arts. I'd fallen in with a group charged with his care during his local appearance, and we thought a Chinese meal would remind him of the good old days. But this is Tucson, where Chinese restaurants abound, but quantity has somehow edged out quality. Where could we take Salzman for a Chinese meal that went significantly beyond adequate? Somebody made reservations at a nice place tucked away on a side street a bit west of Interstate 10, and the meal greatly pleased our guest—and the rest of us. A few years later, the owners sold the business, and the restaurant went into a steep decline; even the booth upholstery started to look shabby. The last meal I had there, early in this decade, was a severe disappointment. A couple of years ago, one of the original owners, Harry Gee, regained control of the restaurant. Recently, two of my neighbors (one of whom is an American of Chinese descent) urged us to give the place another try. We did (with those neighbors joining us)—and I'm pleased to report that the establishment is back in top form.
Get the details here.
