St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

The Conquest

Having watched Republican candidates through this never-ending primary campaign was the perfect preparation for looking at "The Conquest," a tale of Nicolas Sarkozy and his lengthy, vicious campaign to become president of France.

All politicians are nuts!

Watching Sarkozy destroy his rivals, ridicule his predecessors and supposed colleagues, leap from bed to bed and totally act as if power were everything, is an exercise in bad manners and worse taste. As I said, there are horrid overtones of the current primary race and the frightening assurance that these awful excesses will get worse during the run-up to the 2012 general election.

Denis Podalycles is amazing in his portrayal of Sarkozy; he looks and moves and talks exactly as I remember seeing the French politician in action, and Samuel Labarthe has the identical approach as the dapper, distinguished-looking Dominique de Villepin. Director Xavier Durringer, who collaborated on the screenplay with Patrick Rotman, has muddied the line between fiction and non-fiction, showing how political infighting in France, as in the U.S., is among the dirtiest of businesses.

Wives are involved, too, and Durringer shows the close-to-the-throne position taken by Bernadette Chirac (Michele Noretti). More peculiar, almost Gingrichy in its approach to fidelity and vows, is the relationship among the candidate and his wives (three for each). Carla Bruni, Sarkozy's current wife, does not appear, nor does his first wife, Marie-Dominique. But the second wife, Cecelia (Florence Pernel), is the brains behind his campaign, which she is running even though she's trying to leave him to run off with her lover. Somehow, Sarkozy keeps her close, though blackmail of some sort is hinted at. Finally, on election night, she's gone, in highly dramatic style.

A campaign that ends with an election in 2007 isn't highly dramatic, of course, but Durringer keeps the non-action moving rapidly. Sarkozy, his movements and expressions on the wild side, is fascinating (another comparison with today's Republicans), and Podalycles is remarkable in his resemblance. The surreal world of politics, in France as in our own nation, continues to be slightly beyond belief. And yet, we're as fixated as we would be on a massive auto crash

The Conquest opens today at the Tivoli

General Orders No. 9

"One last trip down the rabbit hole before it's paved over," is probably a description of his new film by Robert Persons, its author, producer, director and director of photography. It has a strange name, "General Orders No. 9," but it's not a military film. It's a documentary, a look at part of Georgia, and it has a recurring theme, "Deer trail becomes Indian trail becomes county road," delivered in almost a monotone by narrator William Davidson. Further development includes state highways, federal highways and interstates, which are the ultimate enemy.

The film opens today and plays through Sunday as part of the Webster University film series. Did I like it? Not really, but it was a film that engaged part of me intellectually, and at 72 minutes, it certainly did not waste a day, or an evening.

Persons has a poetic rhythm to his writing; it's sparse but not unpleasant.

On several occasions, we see a wooded area that becomes a house. A town square grows around it. The county courthouse inhabits the square, a weather vane on top like a cherry on a sundae. Four streets circumnavigate it. What begins with simplicity ends with Atlanta, with highways inserted as if they were heart valves or plastic blood vessels. Their arrival means that life continues in the city, but it also means that the city is built for automobiles, not for people .

There are no people in Persons' film. There are some charming scenes of player piano rolls in action, with other mechanical instruments as company. But to a greater extent, we see decay and abandonment, the detritus left by storms, grim warnings of steam emanating from atomic power plants. The Apocalypse is coming and there will not be enough left to provide the long-promised inheritance to the meek.

General Orders No. 9 will play tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus as part of the university's film series

-- Joe

Roberto's Trattoria

We wrote about Roberto's Trattoria, a popular favorite, for the print edition of St. Louis Magazine. You can read about that here.

San Jose Mexican Restorante

Far better than Martha Stewart's favorite accolade, it's a great thing that kids in the Crestwood-Affton area are learning that good Mexican food doesn't have to come from chain restaurants. We had dinner recently at San Jose Mexican Restaurante, in a new strip mall across Watson Road from the soon-to-be-revived-we-hope Crestwood mall. Banana yellow, mango orange and tomato red walls hold a number of fine Diego Rivera prints, all under an industrial-chic ceiling and above what looked to be half the young families in the area. The great thing? We had a dinner far better than we expected -- it's fresh, flavorful and lively. Not fiery, but definitely zippy, and if you want even more heat, add a jolt from the table's commercial options.

Not quite the usual menu, either, a little larger and with some un-cliched choices like shrimp and scallops with sauteed onions, bell peppers and tomatoes, and enchiladas with mushrooms or spinach. In fact, vegetarian choices have their own section of the menu. After some of the house salsa, thick and providing an introducing to the heat, we went for the tapatio dip. Think chile-cheeseburger with some pico de gallo on top. Despite the pinkish winter tomato, there were good notes of cilantro, the onion was crunchy, and the texture was right to scoop up with the chips.

Shrimp soup, caldo de camaron, was a clear broth with an array of vegetables, slices of avocado, coins of carrots, pieces of onions, broccoli, cauliflower and at least a half dozen large, perfectly cooked, tasty shrimp. The soup, served piping hot, was punched up with bits of minced jalapeno, and three warm, soft flour tortillas came alongside.

It's hard to resist sampling tacos at any intriguing Mexican restaurant, and San Jose was no exception. Small corn tortillas, single ones, not doubles, and without garnishes,are wrapped around their filling. The taco al pastor (shown here) was packed with crispy bits of pork, its pineapple notes more forward than most of its brethren around town. We're not much on hamburger taco fillings; other meat and other cuts are nearly always more interesting. But in the taco ranchero, the juicy seasoning of the ground beef made us happy, and it rose to real joy with the thick corn tortilla wrapped around it. It had been pan-fried to chewy crispness and was delicious. A fish taco, however, was a let-down. Chopped up fish, probably tilapia, had been fried to brownness, losing much of its fishy savor. It was too salty, and certainly had none of the trimmings we've come to expect from fish tacos like shredded cabbage or creamy sauce. Two hits and a miss.

Chilaquiles, strips of corn tortillas and pieces of chicken cooked briefly in either red or green salsa, and topped with cheese, charmed. We opted for both red and green sauce, and were particularly taken with the green, which displayed the definite citrus flavor of tomatillos. Unlike some versions, this one didn't use eggs or beans, but it certainly tasted good, sufficiently spicy that extra hot sauce wasn't called for, and with a clear indication of cumin beyond that tomatillo and pepper. Rice wasn't overcooked, but be prepared that the guacamole often used as a side is a fairly small serving, and guacamole fiends may want an order for a first course. Not enough here for us to do a complete analysis, but the dab was pretty good.

San Jose's sopapilla, too, is different, a nicely warmed flat flour tortilla, and syrup rather than honey for a drizzle. Plenty of cinnamon sugar and a scoop of vanilla ice cream added the traditional notes. Nice crisp-warm-cool-creamy contrast, but the syrup was a shock.

Great service, and plenty of high chairs. Don't get the idea this isn't adult friendly, though, margaritas come from a slushy server and there's beer; as the evening progressed, the crowd got older. But all the children, from lap-sized to a 21st birthday, seemed to enjoy the non-mass-produced Mexican food.

 

San Jose Mexican Restaurante

9579 Watson Rd., Crestwood

314-842-9090

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $8-$11

A Midsummer Night's Dream

There's a huge, happy Mardi Gras party going on at the Grandel Theatre, and it won't stop on Wednesday. The Black Rep's highly enjoyable production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which opened over the weekend, will run until March 4, giving lots of people the chance to enjoy it.

One of the great joys of Shakespeare is that they take happily to all sorts of changes in time and place. Leave the language alone, and keep the basic story line intact, and "Romeo and Juliet" can be set in Prohibition-era Chicago, or "Julius Caesar" will work in 1930s Italy.

The current "Midsummer" is set, the program states, in 1970s Athens, and while the music often matches, Dunsi Dai's set of live oaks dripping moss made me think of I-55 between Memphis and Jackson, Miss. Meanwhile, costume designer Sarita Fellows obviously collected all the glitter and most of the tasteless clothes from all over town. The glitter is everywhere.

Director Chris Anthony, a hometown talent who was a Black Rep intern not so long ago and now is the associate artistic director of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, gets most of the credit for the wide-open, high-flying, broadly staged and acted comedy. Physical comedy abounds, with pratfalls, fights, tumbling and other types of clowning around. At the same time, most of the actors do extremely well with Shakespeare's formal, often old-fashioned language.

Anthony. with help from choreographer Heather Beal, also brings a great deal of movement into the action. There's some dancing, of mostly modern styles, but mostly it's in humorous, engaging bits and pieces, a couple of steps here, a single actor's joyous jump there, a giddy and happy "swing your partner" somewhere else. It's all fun.

The story is simple, and simply confusing, with two loving couples who sometimes switch allegiances, if not partners, sometimes on their own, sometimes under a magic spell by Puck (a bouncy, delightful Daniel D. Hodges). There's a king and queen of the community and of the night-in-the-forest people, with Robert Mitchell a charmer with a twinkle in his eye and Monica Parks sliding from royalty to flirtatiousness and back again.

The four younger lovers are Lysander (Chauncey Thomas) and Hermia (Courtney Brown) in one corner, Demetrius (Anthony Peeples) and Helena (Patrese D. McClain) in the other. The first three sparkled from start to finish; McClain began slowly, then turned things up a few notches to rocket through the second act. Thomas and Brown engage in some rand physical comedy, and Brown is worth the price of admission when she storms about "the bounds of a maiden's passion." Chad Morris lit up the first scene as Hermia's father, showing just a hint of Tony Soprano. When he returned later, in shining drag as one of the Fairies, he showed another facet of his skills.

And then there was the subplot of the play-within-a-play, with the "mechanicals" performing "Pyramus and Thisbe," under the direction of Amy Loui as Peter Quince, just as harried as a real-life director. She's a delight, and her actors, a round-faced, wonderful Matthew Galbreath as Bottom/Pyramus; a tall, thin, splendid physical comedian, Ryan Cunningham as Flute/Thisbe; Candice Jeanine, a poker-faced and funny as the Wall and as Snout; Philip C. Dixon as Starveling/Moonshine; and Diamond Emelda Skinner as a remarkable, winning Lion.

The play is nonsense, but so much fun. Galbreath is a stitch as the actor who wants to play all the parts and re-write the script, too. Cunningham's horizontal-striped, purple-and-green socks were a highlight, too.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, opened Feb. 17 and will run through March 4 at the Grandel Theatre.

-- Joe

The Maids

Jean Genet's often-satiric, sometimes-salacious fantasy-play, "The Maids," opened last night at the Kranzberg Black Box Theatre. The Upstream Theatre production is interesting and involving, like everything Upstream does, but the play itself, which runs through March 4, falls short of being completely satisfying.

Whether because of Martin Crimp's 13-year-old translation, or the direction by Wieslaw Gorski, there's a feeling of sanitizing, of eliminating some of the overt sexuality and leaving the whip in the props closet, to name a couple of moments that softened the harsh effect that Genet seemed to relish. So did a program error that listed Madame as Mother, which asks an unfamiliar audience member to expect someone very different.

Solange (Emily Baker) and Claire (Brooke Edwards) are sisters, rivals and maids in an upper-class French home. When Madame (Elizabeth Ann Townsend) is away, they meet in her bedroom, play dress-up in her clothes and torment one another, with sexual overtones that are strong, though played down in Gorski's version. For example, Claire accuses Solange of having an affair with a "delivery boy." Genet's original version describes him as a milkman, which offers a different image. The milkman, even without his long vaudeville reputation, would be a more regular visitor, older and more able to cope with carrying on with both sisters, individually but simultaneously.

Claire, the older, takes the lead most of the time, and Edwards can be very strong, though her' many tattoos are a distraction. Solange, showing off her awful self-image, grovels happily.

Whether Madame is real, or just a visible illusion, is up for grabs, but Townsend handles the role nicely. Genet, the son of a Paris prostitute abandoned by his mother when he was a year old, obviously did not like women. A homosexual, male prostitute and thief who spent a lot of time in prison, his disdain for the gender shows early and often.

The acting is good, but the play could be a lot more powerful if the passions were more overt. Jason Coale's set looks like a very expensive bordello, which is just how it should look.

The Maids, a production of Upstream Theater, opened last night at the Kranzberg Arts Center and will run through March 4.

-- Joe

Love Letters

"Love Letters," the two-person play by A. R. Gurney that opened last night as -- perhaps -- the final production of the Avalon Theater Company, is about love and letters, only tangentially about Love Letters. With Larry Mabrey and his real-life wife, Erin Kelley, as the cast, it runs through the weekend at the Crestwood Mall. A week later, the mall will close and evict the various artistic and cultural communities who have brought joy and laughter to the shrunken halls of what once was known as "Crestwood Plaza, where the Big Stores Are."

"Love Letters," which has been around since the late 1980s, is a gimmick, but also a piece of theater that connects. Two actors, portraying Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner, sit at a table and read a half-century's worth of letters, cards, invitations and the like between a pair of wealthy New England WASPs who were, for lack of a better word, friends who warily circled one another, like moths around a flame, each too cautious to get too close.

It's a charming evening, directed simply and graciously by Joneal Joplin. Like a lot of wealthy, privileged children of the 20th century, they are both pushed together and pulled apart by parents, schools and teachers. They neck in parked cars and campus clothes closets, they go to dances and drink too much. They proceed earnestly in their pre-ordained directions, fueled by trust funds and taught to have social consciences, at least in public.

Andy and Melissa meet in second grade, stay in touch with letters. He likes to write them; she hates it. He goes private prep school and plays hockey, then on to Yale, to the Navy in World War II, to Harvard Law School, to a white-shoe New York law firm, to the New York legislature and the U. S. Senate. She is expelled from a variety of schools, she loves, as the saying goes, "not wisely but too well," and she drinks.

When they do see one another, at a Harvard-Yale football game or another similar occasion when expectations and nervousness are high, the date turns out to be a disaster on one or another level.

Mabrey and Kelley are excellent. He's stuffy and preachy; she's snarky and easily angered. Long pauses follow, but their feelings are too strong, and contact is re-made. Life is not easy for either of them, and even if it were easier, they are not prepared for it. Gurney understands the people he writes about, and he is a skilled enough writer that his plays transcend the upper classes of lower New England and speak to everyone.

And, as the Avalon Theatre Company goes on hiatus, Mabrey and Kelley will be associated with the new Grand Center Arts Academy where, perhaps, the Avalon banner will fly over Midtown some day. They gave St. Louis some very good theater in a variety of locations and I look forward to their return.

Love Letters by A. R. Gurney opened last night at the Art Space in the Crestwood Mall and will play through Sunday.

-- Joe

A Separation

Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi is a nominee for an Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay. His simple but heart-rending movie, "A Separation," is a candidate for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. Winning both would be a victory for the longest long shot in Oscar history, but neither would be undeserved.

The film, which opens here today, involves an Iranian family, Nader (Payman Maadi), his wife, Simin (Leila Hatami) and their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi, the director's off-screen daughter). Given the turmoil of the Middle East, Simin wants the family to move to the U.S. so that Termeh can grow up in a more peaceful, less restrictive environment. Nader supports the idea, but refuses to leave his aging father, who lives with them and who is suffering from Alzheimer's.

Difficult decision, right? "Of course right," as Tevye would say, right from the Russian shtetl of "Fiddler on the Roof?"

That's the heart of Farhadi's film, mostly drama with a large slice of how difficult it is to live in the theocracy that is Iran, a smaller slice of comedy of manners and morals in a restrictive society.

Simin decides to move out, to start working on her emigration, but Temeh decides to stay with her father. Nader, at Simin's suggestion, hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to spent days with his father, played so very well by Ali-Asghar Shahbazi. Razieh, young, pregnant and unlettered, is over her head. When the old man is incontinent, she checks to find out of she can clean him without committing a sin. And, piling another straw on her slender back, she has a young daughter as well as being pregnant. Her husband, the quick-to-anger Houjat (Shahab Hosseini), is furious that she is working a menial job, but he's happy to take her money.

Given all these wandering shards of plot, we have a major soap opera in action, but Farhadi gives all these people as much dignity as they can carry, maybe more, and the excellent cast responds beautifully. Simin and Temeh are especially good. The complex goings-on always are easy to follow, and Farhadi leads the cast through a Middle Eastern court that appears to be an Arabic version of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. A splendid film.

A Separation opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Young Goethe in Love

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author and philosopher, was a young man like many other young men of the late 18th century, when he lived, or of the early 21st, when we do. So "Young Goethe in Love," which opens today, is a charming coming-of-age movie about a charming, intelligent person who didn't quite fit in.

Alexander Fehling, handsome, ingenuous and visually appealing, portrays Goethe in a film directed by Philipp Stolzl, written by the director with Christoph Muller and Alexander Dydyna. Goethe is hit a figurative one-two punch, a left hook when he is denied his doctorate, a right cross when a publisher rejects his book. His father, well-played by Henry Hubchen, sends him to a small town to work as a clerk of the court while he gets his head together and prepares a second intellectual assault on the Establishment.

But Goethe is not quite ready and a pair of intrusions sidetrack him. A newfound buddy, Wilhelm Jerusalem (Volker Broch), is happy to go drinking with him, and a charming, busy, red-haired young woman, Lotte (Miriam Stein), is eagerly available to be courted. She's a hoot, in charge of a group of siblings being reared by her and her father (a delightful Burghart Klaussna) after the death, in childbirth by Lotte's mother.

Considering Goethe's often-ponderous prose, the movie would demonstrate how Goethe grew up to become Neil Simon, but such is not the case.

The young man's boss, Albert Kestner (the terrific Moritz Bleibtrau), tries to keep him on the straight and narrow, but ends up as a competitor.

It's an often-silly movie, but Fehling carries it off with great charm and insouciance, and Stein helps a great deal. A light-hearted movie on the ways of the world.

Young Goethe in Love opens today at the Tivoli

-- Joe

West Side Story

With glorious, exciting music by Leonard Bernstein, dashing lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and rollicking, memorable choreography and direction by Jerome Robbins, "West Side Story" brought something new and different to American musical theater when it opened on Broadway in 1957.

The production that opened at the Fox Theatre last night remains big and brawling (it should be brassy, too, but even though the pit orchestra was 19 musicians strong, it seemed a little light in that area). And it's slightly different in tone. Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book, directs the current production,which began in New York in 2009, and has made it darker. More of the dialogue is in Spanish, reflecting New York today. A couple of songs are sung in both English and Spanish, a good touch. Most important, none of the gang members are "cute." It starts with Riff (Drew Foster), who enters and stands at center stage -- and glares angrily at the audience. So do his buddies on the Jets, and the attitude remains throughout.

Of course, Bernstein and Robbins started that. No 1957 American musical ended its first act with two dead bodies on the stage.

"West Side Story" remains powerful. It's a dancers' show, with some splendid work by the entire cast. Joey McKneeley reproduced the Robbins choreography, all sudden moves and sharp edges. That leaves a few of the singers a little short, but I think that's because it was more important to cast dancers who could sing than vice versa.

Sometimes that distinction is very narrow. Michelle Aravena, as Anita, shows excellent range, soaring in her second-act duet ("A Boy Like that"/"I Have a Love") with Maria (Evy Ortiz), and she's a fiery delight in "America," where she and the Shark girls light up the house. Ortiz seemed more of a balladeer than a belter, but was charmng. Maria and Tony (Ross Lekites) are not the first theatrical couple to fall in love "across a crowded room," but I had a hard time believing Lekites' ardor and his acting as a New York gang kid. It was just all too neat and tidy. Maybe the fact that it was Valentine's Day made this cynic unable to suspend enough disbelief. And the story is based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

German Santiago was excellent as Bernardo, leader of the Sharks and brother to Anita, and three of the Jets also stood out, the aforementioned Foster as Riff, Jon Drake as Action, who wants to be a leader but who just can't reach higher than a post as a trouble-maker and agitator, and Alexandra Frohlinger, the cute little tomboy (yep, a word not heard in years, but it fits) who is desperate to become a gang member. She certainly does not play the role in a way to justify her disparaging nickname, but Action finally does something nice for someone when he tells her that as a reward for her courage, she can be a member. The Adults, including Doc, the drugstore owner (John O'Creagh), Officer Krupke (Wally Dunn) and Lt. Schrank (Mike Boland), barely reach two-dimensional but that's the way Laurent wrote them

James Youmans' set design works nicely, giving a dark feeling of being under what probably then was the West Side Highway and now has been gentrified as the Meat-Packing District and the High Line. There were a few missed cues, but that's an easily solved problem.

David C. Woolard's costumes worked nicely in character with the players and Howell Binkley's lights provided a proper emphasis.

West Side Story, a touring production, opened last night at the Fox Theatre to run through Feb. 26

--Joe

Boodles BBQ

Silly, we suppose, but we're always interested when we see the re-use of fast food spots. Boodles BBQ (CQ) is in what appears to be an old Wendy's. That means there's plenty of room to stand back, look up at the menu board and ponder the options. More room, too, for mobility assistance devices like wheelchairs.

Like an increasing number of 'que houses these days, there's turkey as well as chicken on the menu. Plenty of options, too, for combination plates and a somewhat wider range of sides. All that contributes to the pondering, but in the end, we stuck to the traditional stuff, ribs, brisket and pulled pork.

The pulled pork sandwich sat on a properly toasted bun, a touch of attentiveness we appreciate more on cold nights, when a dish meant to be served hot should be more than merely warmish. The pork was tender and moist but not piggish enough in its flavor. And it didn't seem very smoky, either. Slices of beef brisket had the desirable red edges, and their texture was just right, neither tough nor crumbly. Again, reasonably moist. and again, not smoky enough. Pork ribs certainly hit the pig notes the right way, with good flavor. We're not so keen on ribs whose meat falls off the bone; it hints at some kind of moist heat. These were moving in that direction, but stopped short, and they, too, were only mildly smoky.

Three sauces, a sweet tomato, a mildly spicy tomato and a mustardy Carolina-style. Nothing incendiary in the squeeze bottles, but there was a pleasing infusion of mustard to make the Carolina stand out.

Among the sides, we skipped the corn -- the charm of deep-fried corn has always escaped us, so we hit the baked beans, quite good, with a molasses note. Coleslaw wears a creamy dressing and was above average, although amazingly cold.

And then there were the picnic potatoes. Sometimes known as funeral potatoes, they're cubed cooked potatoes in a cheese sauce, and we certainly understand not putting "funeral potatoes" on a menu. But don't worry about the name. These are creamy, cheesy and utterly irresistible; one might describe them as pure Paula Deen, but they're hot and seductive.

Pleasant young employees in a spanking-clean setting earnestly inquired about our satisfaction and needs. If only they could have made the barbeque smokier....

 

Boodles BBQ

10024 Gravois Rd.

314-631-0000

www.boodlesbbq.com 

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $7-$21

 

New York City: Colicchio & Sons

 

While we normally post here about our restaurant experiences when we travel, St. Louis Magazine's food blog Relish decided they'd like them. We were really happy with Colicchio & Sons, and it's following the trend for offering less-pricey options. You can read about it here.

Valentine bubbles

Oh, so you also forgot what's going on tomorrow. . . .

Well, we have to move fast, because it's Valentine's Day, and if we don't have sparkling wine, or Bubbly, or Champagne for the holiday and for our wife-husband-boy friend-girl friend-lover-mistress-whoever, we're in big trouble.

Sparkling wine is a great drink. The bubbles add a touch of fascination as they rise through the glass. Look for small, busy ones as you prepare to drink. Bring your nose close as you inhale the aroma, feel the exploding bubbles tickle your nose. A delightful feeling. There should be fruit, or toastiness, as you sniff. The fruit aromas may vary, since sparkling wine can be made from so many different grapes. Classic French Champagne is usually a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, sometimes just Chardonnay. Champagne labeled "Blanc de Blancs" means it's all from white grapes. Moscato, the current hot grape, will sparkle. So will Sauvignon Blanc, even Catawba.

Dave Johnson, the excellent Stone Hill winemaker, has made superb sparklers from Catawba grapes, something I didn't think possible until I tasted his.

Several of the first-class French Champagne makers, like Taittinger, Moet et Chandon and Roederer, have built wineries in California, using the names Domaine Carneros, Domaine Chandon and Roederer Estates, respectively, and calling them Sparkling Wine. French law is that Champagne can be made only in the district that bears the name, with Reims and Ay the principal cities.

Blanquette de Limoux, from the area around Limoux, is the oldest of the sparklers, with the wine made several centuries before Dom Perignon "invented" it, as some claim. The 2006 vintage from Sainte Hilaire is a delightful drink, light and crisp and very fruity.

Taittinger's Domaine Carneros label has a splendid 2005 La Reve, and "Nocturne," from France. The label writer for the Nocturne may have sampled a bit too freely, with the wine described as "the refined Champagne for a successful evening," which covers a multitude of situations. Both are tasty drinks. The fact that the Nocturne does not have a vintage date is typical of many French bubblies, whose winemakers blend wines from several vintages to create the final product.

Billecart-Salmon is another producer of fine Sparklers, and its Brut Rose, a lovely pink color, has a hint of its red component in the finish. Delicious.

Sparklers range in price from the low single-digits ($5 of $6 in some stores) to the several hundreds of dollars per bottle. American producers like Schramsberg bring superior sparklers from the Napa Valley and Domaine Roederer, from the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County long has been a personal favorite. Freixenet, from Spain, also has a California presence.

And while French Champagne has a certain cachet, good sparklers come from every country. Australia makes a delicious sparkling Syrah, and while the Italians call it Prosecco, the Spanish call it Cava and the Germans call it Sekt, it's all sparkles, with upwards of 40 million bubbles to a bottle.

-Joe

Race

It's David Mamet, so we expect bad language. It's David Mamet, and the cast includes a woman, which predicts that the woman is going to throw a monkey wrench into the works, as she does in "Oleanna" and "Speed-the-Plow." It's David Mamet, which means we're in for an Indianapolis-type pace, sudden moves and some very tight turns.

Mamet's "Race," which opened last night at the Rep's Main Stage to run through March 4, raises questions, as his plays always do. Some are important and thought-provoking, even necessary in today's world, some are there just to cause some mental or emotional disturbance to the audience, as his plays always do. It seems to be a point of pride for him.

Mamet is a fine playwright, but he does often acts in a rather peculiar manner. For example, he recently moved politically from the Left to the Right and announced it. Who cares what his political feelings are; you're a playwright. Write us some good plays. With an interesting, thought-provoking play like "Race," which brought more black audience members than Rep opening nights usually do, Mamet has issued an edict that there cannot be post-performance discussions about the play. No reason has been given. I think that's dumb.

And a personal note: Sometime in the mid-to-late1970s, he wrote a play called "Lone Canoe," with its world premiere scheduled as the high point of the American Theater Critics Assn. annual conference in his home town of Chicago. After reading us a lengthy diatribe at a conference session, he told us it was off the record, a demand that most of us ignored. His play, poorly plotted and poorly written, sank like a stone in Lake Michigan. He rewrote much of it, retitled it "Lakeboat." It sank even more rapidly.

"Race," deals with a wealthy, powerful white man, Charles Strickland (a solid Mark Elliot Wilson), accused of rape by a young black woman. After dropping (or being dropped) by one law firm, he shows up in the office of another, a partnership between Jack Lawson, a white lawyer (a fierce, voluble, excitable, powerful Jeff Talbott) and Henry Brown, a black one (a wonderful balance by Morocco Omari, less mercurial but equally strong). They also have a young black woman lawyer (impressive Zoey Martinson), who's utilized as sort of a secretary and clerk who gets the coffee. Mamet shows immediately her lesser importance. He does not even give her a last name. Talbott's comes across like a machine gun; Omari is not noticeably louder, but his statements echo.

Strickland claims innocence, of course. Lawson persuades Omari that they should take the case, which has the opportunity to give them a larger presence. Besides, Strickland can afford a very hefty fee. But they founder on the topic of race, which leads into even deeper discussions of human behavior. Discussing race is not easy, even when people of various types, styles, colors -- what have you -- are educated, "modern" people. Old feelings die hard, and they're not dead yet. Mamet does not have the answers either, and a couple of odd plot twists weaken it a little.

Director Timothy Near has this racing team roaring at almost a fever pitch, the hot dialogue perfectly chilled by the ice cube tray cool of John Ezell's set, all glass partitions and modern furniture, lighted brightly enough by Brian Sidney Bembridge to permit surgery on the conference table. Myrna Colley-Lee's costume design is just right for the members of a white-shoe law firm.

Race, a production of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, opened last night at the Loretto-Hilton Center, to run through March 4

-- Joe

Pina

Perhaps good things do happen if you wait -- I finally saw a movie in 3-D where the process belonged, and actually made the movie more enjoyable. Of course, it's a spectacularly beautiful piece of work, a documentary about the great German choreographer and dancer, Pina Bausch, written and directed by Wim Wenders, a leader in the modern German film movement of the 1970s and still a brilliant writer and director. The movie is nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign-language feature.

"Pina" is one of the rare movies that you feel was not long enough. I wanted more -- more dance, more music, more interviews with the dancers talking about her.

And that's another strange part of the story. Bausch was 68 when she died of a particularly invasive cancer, only five days after she was diagnosed, and a mere two days before Wenders and his crew started shooting. The German city of Wuppental, the home base of her company, served as the location, under the monorail that rolls above the main street, alongside the river that rumbles by.

Under the guidance of Wenders, co-directors of photography Helene Louvart and Jorg Wiidmer, and editor Teri Froschhammer show remarkable talent. Wenders' work in the documentary field includes the wonderful "The Buena Vista Social Club," about a Cuban band.

And the 3-D helps. The process is used modestly. Not every leap is toward the audience. Movements are not made to shock, but to emphasize. The dancers may raise their voices a little, but they don't go into a move yelling, "Hey, look at me!"

There are 12-15 dancers, working in a huge studio, or on a street, or in a field alongside that river. There are props, of course, but they belong. They are part of Bausch's vision, and they are of all ages, all shapes, all sizes, many colors. A number of them are interviewed, and they seem to revere Bausch, whose reputation for humiliating and abusing them during rehearsals is legendary. But she loved them, and the feelings were mutual

There is no dance "program," as such, and no dialogue, but they dance parts of many pieces that were key sections of the programs they danced all over the world. They're lithe and limber and they do things the human body should not be able to do, and it's breath-taking and gloriously entertaining and everybody should see this great film while it's here.

Pina opens today at the Chase-Park Plaza Cinema

-- Joe

Oscar-Nominated Shorts

The Academy Awards are a very big deal to moviegoers and fans, as well as to the film community. The short subjects get very short shrift. I understand that short shrift is better than no shrift at all, but the 10 candidates for Best Short Subject -- five Live Action and five Animation -- go on screen today in a single collaboration that gives fans the opportunity to see everything at one time.

And as a group, they're terrific. . . .

Individually, my favorites were the Norwegian "Tuba Atlantic," which spoofs and admires Norwegians and their attitudes at the same time in a very funny 25 minutes, in the Live Action category, and a charming, loving view of books and literature in a 17-minute American film, "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," among the Animation entries.

Other nominees in the Animation division are "Morning Stroll," from England; "Sunday," from Canada; "Wildlife," also from Canada; and "La Luna," another from the U.S. Additional Live Action finalists are "Pentecost," from Ireland; "Raju," a German-Indian collaboration; "The Time Freak," from the U.S. and "The Shore," from Northern Ireland.

A 70-year-old Norwegian hermit, living in a fjord-side hut, is told he has six days to live and is sent Inger, a teen-age blonde from the Jesus Club. She's in training to be an Angel of Death, to help people board the boat over the River Styx in their final days, but her last two subjects survived. She's carrying Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) written in her school composition book, checking them off as Oskar moves along the path. But Oskar is not going quietly. He has a machine gun he uses against gulls, sticks of dynamite to blow up fish so they are better bait for the birds and the title instrument to contact his brother, who left for New Jersey 30 years earlier. Director Hallvar Witco has other tricks up his sleeve, too, all the way to a chorus of "Anchors Aweigh."

Morris Lessmore loves books, and directors William Joyce and Brandon Oldenberg have put together a beautiful little story about the other lives of books. The animation is delightful, the tale equally so.

The animated films also include the charming "La Luna," in which a small boy is exposed to a magical moon by two older men, perhaps a father and grandfather, or a father and uncle. "Morning Stroll" involves a man and a chicken whose paths cross. "Sunday" and "Wild Life," the Canadian films, are rather pessimistic in their outlook, though both are set many years in the past. The latter, set in 1909, deals with English sporting-life types in western Canada in 1909. The comparison with a comet comes from directors Amanda Forbes and Wendy Tilby, who liken the paths of the newcomers to a comet, whose erratic path narrows until it falls into the sun. "Sunday" displays how dull Sunday must have been for a small boy living in the country with only church and the passing trains to intersect with apparent excruciating boredom.

On the live action side, "Pentecost," which opens over the familiar strains of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," is a funny little tale of an Irish boy whose father insists he be an altar boy while the son wants to be a soccer (football) fan. The priests, who want the Mass to look good because a higher-ranking priest will be visiting, provide pep talks as if then boys were about to play a game rather than be involved in a church service. "Go out and have the Mass of your life!" says one to the assembled lads, and Peter McDonald's film is special.

"The Shore," from Northern Ireland's Terry George, is another tragedy, with lovers and

and families carrying on feuds because of misunderstandings, and "Raju," a co-production between India and Germany, looks at what might very well be an adoption scam. The world twists differently in "Time Freak," a U.S. film where someone invents a time machine that does not go very far. It's clever and enjoyable.

The great thing about shorts, in my opinion, is that a single movie-going experience can touch so many different styles and subject matters, all of them interesting and well-made. And if one is not to my liking, well, like streetcars, there will be another one along in a few minues.

Oscar-Nominated Shorts opens today at the Tivoli.

-- Joe

Brunch: LuLu Seafood

Time for dim sum on Saturday or Sunday? We dropped by LuLu a while back and wrote about it for Relish, the St. Louis Magazine blog. You can read about it here.

Black Thorn Pub & Pizza

 

Why is a dive bar just off South Grand one of St. Louis' pizza-insider secrets?

Because the pizza is very good, and St. Louisans may be particularly quirky about their pizza. We can't think of another city where the cheese is the subject of so much controversy, for instance. We're fond of Imo's, and we don't know of another local chain with so many outlets and fans, but there are those who become near-hysterical over their dislike for that sort of extra-thin rendition.

Black Thorn Pub & Pizza looks as if it's been there for generations. The inside is darkish, simple to the point of rusticity, its primary decoration a series of dollar bills tacked to the ceiling, a jukebox, a couple of pinball machines and a bar-style shuffleboard. Before the city's smoking ban, the air was thick, but they've done a good job of removing most of the residual odor. Beer appears to be the preferred drink. The crowd is mostly young, and some nights it's a meeting place for girl-friend get-togethers. Crowded on weekends.

Menu cards are on tables, a larger one over the bar. The bartender takes food orders, makes drinks and does about everything except cook the pizzas. A loudspeaker announces each order; sometimes the bartender brings it to the table, and sometimes it's a do-it-yourself. Be warned: the pizza oven is small, and the wait can be more than an hour during busy times. We hear stories that even the salads can arrive on a, uh, rather leisurely basis.

So what's to eat? Three kinds of pizza, a couple of salads and some garlic bread. That's it, and the toppings list is rather brief, too. No pineapple, no pesto, no barbecued chicken. Not even any anchovies, but we soldiered on, despite that shortcoming.

The Caesar salad is better than one might imagine, romaine that is crisp, with a tasty dressing and fresh croutons. The cheese, of course, isn't Parmigiano, but generous shreds of mozzarella. Two sizes, but only the large for carryout.

Deep dish, thick crust, and thin crust are the big quandary. How thin? What's the difference between thick crust and deep dish? How deep is deep? We tried all three, and were very happy with two. Thick crust, shown here, is close to an inch thick, chewy and just a little yeasty. The sauce itself has a little heat, with a cooked-tomato taste and a nice layer of oregano. Ours wore bacon, mushrooms and onion, the latter still with some body and bacon losing only part of its crunch with the moisture, but still a good combination. Black Thorn uses mozzarella cheese, in all its stretchy-stringy glory. While we generally prefer a thinner crust, this was a more-than worthwhile substitute.

The deep dish crust itself isn't a whole lot thicker mid-pie than the thick crust version. It's at the edges that we found significant difference. The crust is folded inward on itself, enclosing some of the toppings to produce a stuffed-crust effect. The same spicy sauce, seemingly a more generous hand with the cheese, this one topped with fresh mushrooms and a double hit of pepperoni, a topping we're greeting with increasing fondness. Here's a picture of the deep dish; those plastic triangles are inserted in the carry-out deep dish to keep the cheese and the pizza box top apart, and do their job:

The thin crust came as something of a shock. After the irregularity of the thicker offerings, its symmetrical roundness was striking, and the texture was completely unremarkable, neither crisp nor particularly chewy. Flipping it over, we noted the small indentations that led us to think it may have been pre-made. Same sauce, a reasonable amount of cheese, and this time jalapenos that were spicy enough to have escaped from one of the Cherokee Street Mexican markets. That's it by the address and info.

Black Thorn is successful enough to operate on its own terms; we discovered, for instance, a firm policy on ordering takeout: Don't call until the official opening time (5 o'clock), and certainly don't order today to pick up tomorrow. But it's okay to order by phone while driving through Tower Grove Park, which can reduce the waiting time. Or go on a weeknight, and you'll have a fine pizza experience.

 

Black Thorn Pub & Pizza

3735 Wyoming St. (at Spring)

314-776-0534

Pizza nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Tight but passable

Smoking: No

Pizzas: $7-$18

Playland

Athol Fugard, the great South African playwright and anti-apartheid crusader, used to be seen regularly on St. Louis stages. He's been away for a while, driven by nothing more than coincidence, but is back at the Mustard Seed Theatre. A solid production of his 20-year-old "Playland," with passionate performances by Erik Kilpatrick and Charlie Barron, opened at the Fontbonne University Theatre last night. It runs through Feb. 12.

Unfortunately, it's not one of Fugard's best. It's New Year's Eve, 1989, with apartheid crumbling and Nelson Mandela about to be released from prison. A sad, tawdry amusement park has set up temporary quarters, and Courtney Sanazaro's set depicts it well. Kilpatrick, as Martinus Zoelue, black handyman and watchman, is puttering in his workshop. Barron, as Gideon Le Roux, is a white veteran of the 13-year border war between South Africa and the rebels of SWAPO, who represented radical elements in South West Africa and who succeeded in gaining independence in 1990 for the country now known as Namibia. He's a man in severe

pain, obviously suffering from war-related PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). But Barron, using an unfamiliar (to the audience) accent and often speaking too rapidly, is difficult to understand through most of the first act.

Missing much of the first act is not a great loss. Fugard fills it with exposition, some of it fascinating, more of it unnecessary. And Act II, with Barron slowing a little and the accent becoming more familiar, provides gripping entertainment as Barron battles his conscience and his racist past while Kirkpatrick struggles with his personal problems and the fact that he has committed a crime of passion. Two heavyweights go toe to toe in the most brutal battle since the Rumble in the Jungle pitted Muhammad Ali against George Foreman.

Insults fly. Manhood is challenged. Kirkpatrick does not understand why Barron is so desperate to instigate combat. Barron doesn't either, but he is expiating sins that were committed in battle. Lots of parables play out.

Under the perceptive direction of Deanna Jent, the men battle, mostly verbally, but Jent and the actors are passionate, and their heat envelops the theater. As in life, there may be a handshake at the end, but the struggle continues. Neither man completely understands either himself or his opponent. Nor does the audience. Kirkpatrick is brilliant throughout, Barron bats .500, which would lead any major league, any year. Bess Moynihan's lights and Jane Sullivan's costumes fit right in and Meg Brinkley found a couple of props that perfectly illustrate the area of a carnival that the audience doesn't see. And speaking of not seeing, Richard Lewis provides the disembodied voice of the carnival's barker and public address announcer, known as "Barking Barney."

Playland, a production of the Mustard Seed Theatre, opened last night at the Fontbonne University Theatre, to run through Feb. 12

-- Joe

Urinetown: The Musical

Political theater stands tallest, hand-in-hand with satire, which continues to laugh, take curtain calls and ignore George S. Kaufman's remark that it's what closes on Saturday night. They're the leading players in "Urinetown: the Musical," which opened at the Tower Grove Abbey last night in a wild and woolly, foolish and frantic, perfectly delightful production by the Stray Dog Theatre. It will run through Feb. 28.

Justin Been and Gary F. Bell directed at breakneck speed and with perfect control of a 16-person cast in a small space. It's dazzling. J. T. Ricroft contributed charming choreography and also drew laughter with a misbehaving hairpiece and a sycophantic portrayal of Mr. McQueen, hand-maiden and toady to the villain.

The story? Well, Caldwell B. Cladwell, a nifty interpretation by Christopher R. Brenner, owns Urine Good Company, which controls the city's water supply. Greg Kotis, who wrote the book and collaborated with Mark Hollmann on the lyrics (Hollmann wrote the music, passable and a good vehicle to carry the words), uses many pronunciation techniques for "urine," making it sound like "you're in," in the title song that opens the show with Officer Lockstock (a powerful Keith Thompson) leading the way. He also serves as narrator, and explains about musicals and what they mean.

Kotis' book, like all theater of this type, is broad and bawdy, with word lplays, puns, double-entendres, even a verbiage lesson from Little Sally (a sparkling Berklea Going). Someone notes that something was "an unexpected surprise," and Sally, not usually the sharpest knife in the drawer, responds, "Is there another kind?" with perfect timing.

Cladwell installs pay toilets for everyone, and puts Penelope Pennywise (the charming Deborah Sharn, playing tough as nails) in charge.

Honors of the evening, however, go to Jennifer M. Theby as Hope Cladwell, daughter of Caldwell and heiress apparent to UGC. She's a brilliant comic in the role, displaying perfect timing, an ability to adapt and to perform under duress, including tap-dancing while bound to a chair and, after a brief blackout, returning to the stage in the same chair, still bound but wearing a different costume. Ah, the magic of the theater.

Antonio Rodriguez is strong. Of course he is, he's playing Bobby Strong, though the adjective would be "strongly." He's the leader of the revolt, he loves Hope and he sings a splendid duet with her, "Follow Your Heart." He's also in outstanding form as the revival-style, spiritual-style, folk song-style "Run, Freedom, Run," which blazes across the stage.

A real vocal show-stopper is "Don't Be the Bunny," in which Brenner, as Cladwell, sings of the virtues of strength and spells out then difference between those who eat and those who are eaten. Michael Brightman, as a politician who is a bought-and-paid-for friend, joins in happily. Officer Lockstock and his sidekick, Officer Barrel (Josh Douglas) -- I love the "lock, stock and barrel" use by the authors -- are a hoot in "The Cop Song," Sharn gets things off to a fine start with "It's a Privilege to Pee," and Theby and the cast roll up the evening with "I See a River," which salutes, and mocks, more musical-comedy conclusions than one can count.

The evening calls up so many memories. A waving flag is direct from "Les Miz," today's headlines are called to mind when a revolutionary waves a sign saying, "We are the 99 Percent." Everything is old and new at the same time; all references are topical

Anything goes in a musical, which Thompson reminds us early and often, and the theatrical action honors "Awake and Sing," "West Side Story," "Oliver," "The Cradle Will Rock" and many others. Justin Barisonek's multi-level set is just right, as are Alexandra Scibetta Quigley's costumes and Tyler Duenow's lights.

Urinetown, the Musical, a production of Stray Dog Theatre, opened last night at the Tower Grove Abbey, to run through Feb. 28

-- Joe

El Bulli

You can imagine we were particularly interested in El Bulli, the film about the now-closed restaurant in Spain that was a pioneer in the so-called molecular gastronomy. Joe wrote about it here for St. Louis Magazine's blog Relish.

An Unfortunate Episode

Watch those credit cards. While most errors are innocent, they can still lead you into a trail of confusion and irritation. This is from the St. Louis Magazine blog Relish.

Frontenac Grill

And so a restaurant that began as a Coco's, that mid-price, polite version of Denny's, has gone through a few name changes, like a Las Vegas grass widow, and now it's come full circle to be the Frontenac Grill. The project was mostly completed by the late Mike Faille, whose more-or-less full story appeared in St. Louis Magazine last year; he was the man who brought us Talayna's Pizza, stained glass and overwrought statuary. Lawyers for the Sinatra estate, and the very aura of Frontenac eliminated much of that heritage, showing its ancestry in many, emphasis many, large photographs of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals. We're great admirers of Francis Albert Sinatra's singing, but this is not (yet) a spot for the cabaret tunes of the swingin' life he exemplified.

Lights are romantically low, and there are two bar areas, with tables between. Prices are on the high side, but note the location and the name, which define high rent district.

However, primarily -- and happily -- the Frontenac Grill is about the food. Restaurants that are an excuse for something else are, well, poor excuses for restaurants. “Steaks Pasta Pizza” says the sign on Lindbergh Boulevard, and that mostly covers things. And yet there are plenty of details that make sure this isn't taken for just another old-fashioned St. Louis Italian restaurant. And in the kitchen is the executive chef David Timney, who has been successfully feeding St. Louisans more than 20 years

At the top of the appetizer list, for instance, is calamari, and right next to it are crab beignets. The calamari's breading is crunchy and extremely well drained. Alongside are a warm tomato sauce, a little chunky and garlicky, not surprising but pleasant, and aioli, garlic mayonnaise that had been spiked with sriracha, the Southeast Asian hot sauce. Good stuff. In the dimly lit dining room, we thought perhaps it was a remoulade, but whatever the name, it was terrific.

Crab beignets? Ping pong-ball-sized orbs, crumbed on the outside before a trip through the fryer, and inside a gooey center, probably the fontina cheese the menu mentions, with the crab meat and a dab of crab seasoning ala Old Bay. A real winner, making the accompanying sauce superfluous.

Given the restaurant's heritage, pizza was a must as an appetizer to share. Four kinds, St. Louis thin crust, Chicago deep-dish, New York, described as thick bread dough, and Boston, a new one to us. Ann ate a fair amount of pizza in western Massachusetts many years ago, but there was little to distinguish from its counterparts elsewhere. Today's Frontenac version is partially baked and finished on a grill. We found it extremely tasty. Thick by St. Louis standards, it wore a chunky tomato sauce, a light hand with mozzarella and “other cheeses,” and our addition, some salami. Salami is under-appreciated as a pizza topping; it adds the same saltiness as anchovies, plus a little more chew. Cut into julienne, it almost disappeared into the chunky sauce, but showed in the flavor. This was a first-rate pie, one we'd happily order again and again. Just don't let us hear anyone moaning because it's different. Grandma's apple pie and the one made by the cousin who lived in Virginia apple country were different from each other, too.

Most enjoyable among our entrees was the pork chop. Brining is the best thing to happen to pork since the barbecue pit, virtually guaranteeing a juicy, tender piece of pig. This guy was perfectly cooked – the kitchen prefers to do it medium, which is quite acceptable – and topped with a salad of shredded arugula, tart and slightly bitter. The other ingredient was slivers of something slightly crisp, a little sweet, and a faded red color. Too dark for us to distinguish with accuracy, the light of day on the leftovers proved Joe right; it was tomatoes. The sweetness was a good contrast to the greens, which wilted slightly from the chop's heat, and worked well with the meat. We chose an alfredo sauce to go with the pasta side, and it was mild, benefiting from salt and black pepper.

Veal piccata, one of those St. Louis classics by which Italian restaurants should be judged, brought tender slices of veal, hammered thin and sprinkled with the traditional capers. The pan sauce, thickened with flour from the meat's preparation, could have shown a little more lemon, but that's a matter of personal preference. Tutto mare pasta can be sauced with a cream sauce or olive oil. Mussels and clams, plus good shrimp but a minimal amount of crab topped the pasta, but the olive oil option was just not flavorful enough. The ribbons of pasta were reasonably close to al dente, but overall this dish was a miss. Given Timney's prowess. we think that the unassertive seasoning will eventually shape up.

On the dessert front, an apple tart with streusel topping worked well, displaying an excellent crust and nicely tart apples with a little nutmeg to offset the sweet streusel, all topped with cinnamon ice cream. A light, tender bread pudding was scooped into three small balls and drizzled with raspberry and chocolate. Both tasty.

Weekend nights, the Grill offers live music, and as the tables in front of the musicians empty, the tables are removed to make way for dancers. During our visit, a trio began with Al Jarreau and Al Green, and morphed into nostalgic music of the '60's and '70's. Plenty of dancing from a crowd whose dress varied from sparkly tops to pressed jeans and cowboy boots. Our server was pleasant to deal with but slightly disorganized; we guess he was pretty new to the game.

 

Frontenac Grill

731 S. Lindbergh Blvd., Frontenac314-569-4115

www.frontenacgrill.com

Lunch Mon.-Sat., Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $13-$37

Way to Heaven

The theater is an excellent place to look at what is real and what is false, and whether what is occurring on stage actually happened, and why, or if the playwright is taking us along on a leap of fantasy directly from his, or her, imagination. "Way to Heaven," which opened last night as a New Jewish Theatre production at the Jewish Community Center, is another view of an extremely strange event that took place during World War II, written by Juan Mayorga, a Spanish playwright.

In the middle of the war, reports of the Holocaust, of concentration camps and furnaces and extermination of large numbers of people, began to leak out into the American press. The International Red Cross heard the reports, too, and decided to send investigators to see if civilian prisoners were treated as well as military prisoners, to see if the Nazis were following the rules of the Geneva Convention. When the Germans heard this, they developed a scenario. The camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia (Terezin is the Czech word), became a small village, with a soccer field, a town hall, houses, even a synagogue. Inmates were given roles, and scripts, and direction, and when the inspectors arrived, in June, 1944, they saw a play, went home and wrote reports that all was well. The "actors" were shipped to Auschwitz or Dachau and murdered.

Mayorga's play bounces here and there in a non-sequential, non-linear fashion, but it's very strong, and Doug Finlayson directs without flair or furbelow, but with real style. The three main characters are excellent. Jerry Vogel is the Red Cross investigator, Jason Cannon the German commandant of the camp and Terry Meddows the unofficial leader of the prisoners, given the task of being what amounts to the "director" of the play created by Cannon. And there is a chilling, heart-rending performance by Elizabeth Teeter as a little girl who tries to teach her doll to swim in a small stream that crosses the stage, and who sings, too.

The play is divided into five sections: Vogel's lengthy monologue opens things. It's years later as he talks about what he saw and how he responded, and how he was a victim of an awesome snow-job by the commander, who quoted Spinoza and Shakespeare and showed off his library. Vogel remembers how Cannon told him about the town clock, more than 400 years old, and how Meddows accompanied them as they strolled through tow n.

We then jump backward in time to a scene by the townspeople. Boys play with a top; one asks his friend what his sister looks like when she takes her clothes off. A young couple (Scott McMaster and Julie Layton) talk about their future, bicker about their present. Young Teeter is very patient with her doll-student, reminding her to breathe, to use her arms and legs. The boys are played by Braden Phillips. Parker Donovan, Matthew Howard, Leo Ramsey and Drew Redington, and Shaina Schrooten portrays another young woman.

Cannon takes the stage next for a long monologue, displaying his knowledge, quoting various philosophers, discussing the "Jewish problem," and, whenever he fails to understand something, falling back on, "It must be Jewish humor." He's physically perfect for the role and, like Vogel and Meddows, makes a vivid impression.

The fourth section involves Cannon and Meddows, selecting the cast, discussing problems. Cannon forces Meddows to reject some actors, though both know the rejects will either be on a train to a death camp or on "the way to heaven" (himmelweg in German), the name sardonically given a ramp from the railroad station to a building that the Commandant describes as an infirmary but which is a gas chamber that the Red Cross representative does not enter. And when Meddows resists, Cannon has a simple, irrefutable statement, "If they're working here, they're not on the train."

Along the way, Meddows asks Cannon why the Jews have been given shoes without laces, and Cannon does not answer. He doesn't refuse; he just goes off in another direction. Did he drop a line? Did the author lose his train of thought? My answers: It's difficult to run (away) when your shoes are flopping around your feet, and I wouldn't put potential weapons in the hands of my prisoners. Or maybe it's to prevent them hanging themselves.

And in the final section, Meddows talks to his cast, cajoling and supporting and teaching and praising. Knowing the results, it's heart-breaking.

It's a terrific evening of theater, sensitive, well-acted and powerful, and it will run through Feb. 12. Tech work is strong, with John Stark's twisted forest backdrop looking as if it had come from the Brothers Grimm and Michele Friedman's costumes looking quite proper for the time and place. And a quibble: With all discussion of the trains, and even though we're told that they arrive at 6 a.m., it would have added to the effect to hear a little more whistle now and then.

Way to Heaven opened last night (January 26) as a production of the New Jewish Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, to run through Feb. 12

-- Joe

Albert Nobbs

With Glenn Close and Janet McTeer providing dazzling performances, the sad, intimate, always-reaching-but-never-touching story that is "Albert Nobbs," falls short of excellence, a conclusion I intensely disliked having to reach. But the movie, which opens here today, fails to strike the necessary chord. Perhaps the brilliant Close is just too tightly wrapped, disappearing into herself too often.

It's a project that Close, such a the wonderful actor, has worked on ever since 1982, when she did an off-Broadway production of the play, written by Simone Benmussa and based on George Moore's 1918 story. Close also served as one of the producers, co-wrote the screenplay with Gabriella Prokop and John Banville, and contributed lyrics to Brian Byrne's original music.

St. Louis theater buffs may recall a production by Theatre Project Company, starring Fontaine Syer, in the 1980s, performed at the old Gatesworth on Union boulevard.

Close, tight-lipped and almost silent, poses as a man to be the title character, working as a waiter at Morrison's Hotel in Dublin. There is a strict pecking order among the staff, and there is an aura of politeness and tact. They speak formally to one another in strict adherence to late 19th-century manners and morals. Close, living in constant fear of being found out, seems to almost disappear into the wallpaper. She hides her savings under a floorboard in the depressing room, checking their safety at least once a day. And then Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) shows up. Tall and taking long, shambling strides, he's a house painter -- and also a woman. McTeer absorbs the role in glorious fashion, and in my opinion, both she and Close deserve the Academy Awards for which they have been nominated. They are so alike, and so different, that it's amazing, and to see Hubert try to teach Albert is a warm and wonderful thing. Their outing on the beach at Brighton is a sheer delight.

Pauline Collins is Mrs. Baker, who runs the hotel, flirts with the (male) customers, winks at any immoral thoughts by them, and has a splendid run-in with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who's a high-style guest. Brendan Gleeson, as a physician with richly developed carnal desires, is another acting highlight, as is Mia Wasikowska as Helen, a young waitress.

Mr. Nobbs, who probably has never had a sexual experience, perhaps only a handful of sexual thought, has a goal for that under-the-floorboard stash, and "walks out" with Helen, adopting a protective air. Meanwhile, of course, she has no idea of what Helen is like and where her allegiance lies. For all her made-up life, for all her duplicity, she's an innocent.

Unfortunately, and despite a full complement of outstanding acting, and stylish direction from Rodrigo Garcia, there just is not enough story, not enough interaction among the characters, to fill a feature-length film.

Albert Nobbs opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Man on a Ledge

We're not very far into "Man on a Ledge," when we realize that Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) is no more going to jump off the Roosevelt Hotel window ledge than you and I. But what's he doing out there?

That comes clear a little while later as this hodge-podge of a movie combines dozens of cops-and-robbers cliches in an often-turgid, occasionally lively tale, written by Pablo F. Fenjes , whose claim to fame is that he was the ghost-writer of the book in which O. J. Simpson "imagined" he was the perpetrator of the crime for which he was found not guilty.

Cassidy is a former New York policeman and a criminal who has served time, now taking the fall for David Englander (a wasted Ed Harris), a richer and smarter criminal. But Cassidy has figured a way to get back at Englander and enrich himself at the same time. So while he stands on the ledge and talks with the police psychologist (Elizabeth Banks), his kid brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and his cute, brash, sexy-tough girl friend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are doing a little work patterned after any (or every) episode of "Mission: Impossible." They're crawling through building pipes while taking instruction from the elder brother.

Director Asger Lath gets some extra mileage by shooting the crowd down below and getting some good work from Kyra Sedgwick as Suzie Morales, a brash TV reporter.

The acting is fine, and the pacing is good. The writing is just so sloppy that there's very little worthwhile entertainment going on, either on the ledge or the street corner -- or in the building's innards.

Man on a Ledge opens today (January 27) at several theaters.

-- Joe

Saffron

We wrote about Saffron for the print edition of St. Louis Magazine. You can read that review here.

Lester's Sports Bar & Grill

What does it take to make a sports bar? Many television sets, of course, all tuned to an all-sports station that features either games or loud conversations by groups of former athletes forever interrupting one another or questioning someone's manhood -- maybe both at the same time. And what about a sports bar and grill, like Lester's in the Central West End, just east of the intersection of Euclid and Maryland? Does the addition of "grill" mean better meals, or just more toasted ravioli, burgers and chicken wings?

Lester's certainly has the television sets, and a large U-shaped bar. And a dining room to the east of the bar, with plenty of television but a lower ambient noise level. And a patio and a rooftop terrace, in a neighborhood where dining and/or drinking outside is The Thing To Do, or will be when the weather warms a little. Lester's also has a key ingredient for success in St. Louis restaurants -- parking, right next door. Sadly, at least to us, the kitchen closes at 10 p.m., though it stretches to 11 on Fridays and Saturdays. We think that post-event (theatrical, musical or sporting) activities should lead with a drink and a snack, and a 10 o'clock close cuts everything too fine.

But Lester's offers a wider-ranging menu, like salads, barbecue and delicatessen sandwiches on rye bread it says is baked in house, in addition to toasted ravioli and chicken wings.

A conclusion: Yes, Lester's Sports Bar & Grill is a sports bar, and a grill, too, which seems to draw a slightly older, more mixed audience.

Lester Miller's aim, going back to his Clayton Road digs, apparently was for a delicatessen of the style of the Stage or the Carnegie, or the Second Avenue, in New York, or maybe Canter's, in L. A., but not enough St. Louisans are up for it. The compromise comes close to working, but the sports theme obviously was a necessity.

It's easy, if you'll excuse the phrase, to chicken-out on appetizers. Chicken soup with a matzo ball was a winner, deep-flavored chicken broth with a few vegetables, some pieces of chicken and a fat, baseball-sized matzo ball in the middle. The ball was of the floater school, matzo balls traditionally being divided into floaters and sinkers, and it was light, even fluffy, and tender, a good example of that traditional dumpling. And the wings are available three ways, a dry rub, Buffalo-style or tossed with garlic, lemon and pepper. An order of dry-rubbed brought a good-sized serving of fat, juicy wings, nicely seasoned with subtle things beyond and pepper, very worthwhile.

If we want to continue the puns, we can talk about beefing up other appetizers. Quesadillas, something we've always thought of as an adult version of a grilled cheese sandwich, work well with Lester's smoked brisket added to the cheddar and pepper jack cheeses and grilled onions. The salsa was chunky and mild, and the guacamole was inoffensive. But the brisket's contribution was significant, raising these guys to first-rate. The same brisket appears in the house chili, another mildly spiced dish, very tasty but heavy on the vegetables and chunks of tomato, and therefore a little sweet.

On the sandwich side (there are no entrees, just sandwiches and some ribs), the menu features the deli offerings, sandwiches of smoked brisket, pastrami, corned beef or smoked turkey breast. Alas, the pastrami fails, too lightly seasoned and too lean by far. Diet-friendly, perhaps, but not what many of us prefer. The pulled pork sandwich was properly smoky, and reasonably moist, if not deeply pig-flavored. The barbecue sauce was pretty mild, tomato-based and sweet.

Fat half-pound hamburgers can be topped with grilled onions, bacon or cheese for an extra dollar; ours, with the grilled onions, turned out to be close to the as-ordered rare, and very juicy, better than many of its kin in similar establishments. But the so-called award winning grilled all-beef hot dog showed exactly one grill mark, and its internal temperature reflected that lack of acquaintance with the heat source. The bun, too, was cold (unlike the hamburger's). Uninspiring.

Except for the french fries, all the sides (potato salad, slaw and baked beans) were quite sweet. The potato salad, so cold it was close to frozen, lacked zip, and so did the slaw. Beans sported a bit of meat, but lacked acidity to offset the overdose of brown sugar.

Dessert goes a couple of steps up from some of the sports-bar cliches. A chocolate layer cake, cold but moist and rich, was dark and nicely moderate in its sweetness. We'd order it again. Cheesecake keeps to the deli theme. It arrived drizzled with some sort of red berry puree, almost but not quite raspberry, and thickened to nearly a gel. The inside of the cake was the texture of cream cheese, which Joe liked and Ann didn't. Closer to the edges (and thus the heat source), it was cake-ier, less gooey and with more of the classic cheesecake texture. Overall, it was satisfactory, with its graham cracker crust, but the puree subtracted a few points.

Good service, both early in the evening and later, though we fear the noise level would be almost lethal on certain game days. But that's a sports bar.

 

Lester's Sports Bar & Grill

4651 Maryland Ave.

314-932-6040

www.lestersrestaurant.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Sandwiches: $7-$15

Oleanna

Clarence Thomas has been a U.S. Supreme Court Justice since 1991, approved by the Senate in a 52-48 vote, the narrowest confirmation margin ever, amid a lot of sexual harassment discussion involving Anita Hill. A year later, "ripped from the headlines" in "Law & Order" style, "Oleanna" opened on Broadway as David Mamet's take on the hearings and the confirmation.

The searing drama opened last night as the first play of Hot City Theatre's 2012 season, and regardless of gender, it will make your skin crawl with pain and your toes curl in terror. Annamaria Pileggi's never-a-pause direction, and solid performances by John Pierson and Rachel Fenton make the 90-minute-no-intermission play speed by like the City of New Orleans through the Mississippi countryside.

The Broadway production, directed by the playwright, starred William Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife). The 1994 movie, also directed by Mamet, starred Macy and Debra Eisenstadt.

John's office, a small room with a desk piled with paper and the blue books even I used in college exams. He's seated at the desk. Carol, a rather plain co-ed, brown hair tied back, glasses on her nose, stands nearby. She doesn't understand, she says. What don't you understand, he asks. Everything, she says.

Turns out she claims not to understand anything from John's class, or John's book, or John's lectures. She says she's stupid. He insists she's not. They talk past one another. Neither appears to listen properly.

A phone interrupts often, mostly when tension is highest, or when an important statement is begun, a key question asked. From John's end, we learn that he and his wife are about to buy a fancy house, betting on the come that the college's tenure committee, meeting that day, will recommend him for tenure and a big raise. John, of course, is distracted. He tries to comfort Carol, but he's pompous and condescending, making foolish statements. She gets more and more frustrated; as she appears to lose it, he holds her arms, trying awkwardly to comfort her, but still keeping her at arms' length.

Confusion reigns. Disagreement? Certainly. Misunderstandings? Every phrase. Harassment? Damned if I know.

A blackout sends us into Act II. Or Scene II. It's a few days or a few weeks later (the program doesn't bother with a time line), and we're back in John's office. The tenor has changed. Carol, part of a group that sounds like one of Chairman Mao's truth squads, has protested to the university and to the tenure committee that John's behavior has been a clear case of harassment, ranging on the sexual. John is aghast. Stupid? Of course. Patronizing? Probably. Harassment? As I said earlier, Damned if I know.

Carol and her "group," their blood at a galloping boil, want John's scalp, and the rest of his skin, too. He's twisting in the wind, seeing his tenure gone, his house with it, maybe his job as well. Another blackout. John now is coming apart; his separation letter in his hands, Carol again in his office, gloating a little, but offering a deal. . . .

The acting is very good. Pierson, supercilious and pontificating in the early going, becomes a shadow. Fenton, whose star rises as his sinks, keeps everything simple, as befitting a college student, but power goes to her head as it did to his. Pileggi's direction is stripped clean of nonsense. Like a U-boat torpedo, it is on target and merciless. An excellent drama, not nearly as dated as I feared it would be. Mamet's dialogue crackles as sharply today as it did 20 years ago, and we'll get a chance to compare 1992 with 2009 when his drama, "Race," whose title makes the subject matter perfectly clear, opens at the Rep. on Feb. 10.

Oleanna, by David Mamet, produced by the Hot Ciy Theatre Company, opened Jan. 20 at the Kranzberg Theatre, to run through Feb 4

--Joe

A Steady Rain

The Chicago School of drama, led by such as David Mamet, Nelson Algren and Tracy Letts, involves pain, profanity and polarization, in almost-equal parts. It's well-represented in newcomer Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain," which opened last night in the Rep's Studio Theatre and will run through Feb. 5.

It's tough theater, directed in proper style by Steven Woolf, with powerful acting from Joey Collins as Denny and Michael James Reed as Joey. It plays out in a gloomy police precinct interrogation room, though the actors' conversations leads us to living rooms and other places, but the location is unimportant. We have two characters in a love-hate relationship, like so many two-handers, but it certainly holds our focus, or did mine until a softball ending left me squirming.

Denny and Joey are lifelong friends; Italian-American Denny and Irish-American Joey went to "kinnergarten" together. As grown-ups, at least physically, they're beat cops, passed over for promotion because they don't deserve it. Joey drinks, Denny is on the take from streetwalkers and pimps, which he defends as preserving the capitalistic system and protecting the girls from violence. And his almost-constant profanity, much of it close to being racially tinged, makes others uncomfortable, which is the mildest possible description.

As Denny says, "You got a problem with the bottle, I got a problem with my mouth. We're helping each other out, right?"

Joey, who has been the victim of Denny's sadistic bullying since childhood, says nothing. He lives alone, with a bottle as a companion. Denny, honestly trying to keep his buddy sober, invites him for dinner a lot. Denny has a house and a family; he is so protective of them that he's willing to demonstrate to his wife, two children and a dog named Heinz what he is protecting them from. A classic controlling bully and abuser.

Denny also is having a feud with a pimp, partly over a girl named Rhonda, whom Denny also likes, invites to dinner, offers to Joey. A real buddy, right? And when the two policemen carelessly make a terrible mistake, the balloon goes up.

Both Collins and Reed offer strong performances; Collins' ice-blue eyes make some of his anger even more frightening, and Woolf's direction turns both men into fierce creatures. Robert Mark Morgan's set is magnificently drab, with window blinds that occasionally open to show a city out there, and Dorothy Marshall Englis' costumes are a perfect match. Peter Sargent's lighting helps create an impressive mood. It's a worthy production, but a shame that Huff didn't finish as strongly as he began.

A Steady Rain, a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis Studio Theatre production, opened Jan. 20 and will run through Feb. 5

--Joe

A Dangerous Method

Michael Fassbender has been on movie screens everywhere, it seems, playing a variety of characters and handling all of them very well. "A Dangerous Method," in which he portrays Carl Jung, "Haywire," an action flick, and "Shame," in which he's a cold sex addict, all open here today. ("Shame" will be the next review.) They bring to five the number of 2011 films in which he was prominent, including starring roles in "X-Men: First Class," and "Jane Eyre."

His breakout role came three years ago in "Inglorious Basterds," and he got a lot of very good notices when he portrayed Bobby Sands, the Irish revolutionary who starved himself to death, in "Hunger," in 2008. The 34-year-old actor was born in Germany to an Irish mother and a German father, grew up in Ireland and currently works out of London.

With Fassbender as Jung, Viggo Mortensen as a marvelous, very human Freud, and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, as complex and sexual a woman as the screen can show, "A Dangerous Method" highlights two things -- talking and making love -- that humans can do exceptionally well, and David Cronenberg's direction keeps ears and eyes riveted to the screen.

The first scene sets a strong tone as Spielrein, riding in a carriage to a mental hospital in Switzerland in the first decade of the 20th century, has a world-class temper tantrum. It's staggeringly powerful, and it sets up the young woman as a power to be reckoned with. She's to be treated by Jung, and she travels from patient to lover to peer in a series of brilliant scenes that show both Knightley and Fassbender as fierce performers on the screen.

And it's interesting that Fassbender, who plays sex addict (bad term, but it works) in "Shame," is involved with far more sensuality and the fanning of sexual appetites as he and Knightley go at it in "A Dangerous Method." Spielrein, a real person whose intellectual interaction with Freud is as powerful as her physical one with Jung, became a psychoanalyst in her native Russia and was murdered by German soldiers in the early days of World War II.

Cronenberg's direction is powerful, too, working from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, adapted from his play, "The Talking Cure," based on a novel by John Kerr. Outstanding writing and direction make this a natural for fine actors, and Mortensen gleams like a rare gem as Freud, bringing him a delightful sense of humor. Jung treats Spielrein, who sits on a couch as one of the first people to undergo "psychanalysis," as Jung calls it. Freud convinces him to add an 'o,' turning it into the "psychoanalysis" we call it today.

The two men, Freud as the mentor, have a wonderful relationship, and hearing them talk as they walk in a series of beautifully-manicured gardens, is exciting. There's also fine acting from Sarah Gadon as Jung's wife, Emma, but exciting work from Fassbender, who is having Spielrein on the side, as it were, and Mortensen, as the man who may have been the 20th century's most famous -- certainly its most quoted -- physician.

A Dangerous Method opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Shame

Adolescent boys have little on their minds except sex. Brandon Sullivan is no longer a teenager, but he has nothing on his mind except sex. Something is quite wrong with the man, and that's the story of "Shame," another Michael Fassbender-Steve McQueen collaboration that opens today and leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Fassbender is a fine actor, and it's easy to see the difference in his portrayals of a man enjoying sex and some of its variations with Keira Knightley in "A Dangerous Method," reviewed above, and his interaction with lots of faceless, nameless, speechless women in "Shame."

As a seducer, he's excellent. He's in a bar with his boss (a very good James Badge Dale) one night, and Dale is in hot pursuit. He's a little too brash, a little too pushy. He breaks the mood and Fassbender is right there to pick up the pieces -- and th egirl. There's another, early on, when Fassbender sees a girl (Lucy Waters) on a subway, traveling through Brooklyn. Lots of interaction by eye, without a word, and we're sure he is scoring agian, but he cannot find her in the station. Maybe it's an accident, maybe she changes her mind, but it's a fine scene.

There are lots of excellent moments along the way, but the subject matter is so depressing that it's difficult to like the movie. Fassbender and McQueen worked together a few years ago in "Hunger," when Fassbender played Irish revolutionist Bobby Sands. McQueen and Abi Morgan co-wrote the screenplay; she, by the way, also wrote the screenplay for "The Iron Lady."

Sullivan's life goes farther awry when his sister comes to visit and talks about an indefinite stay, which causes considerable panic. Carey Mulligan offers a good performance, but his problems keep getting in the way of a good, coherent story.

Shame opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Nuremberg

At the end of World War II, coming up on 66 years ago, Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, charged with a variety of war crimes. The U. S. government commissioned Stuart Schulberg, a screenwriter and brother of Budd Schulberg, to shoot a documentary film of the trial, called, simply, ":Nuremberg." A few years later, director Stanley Kramer did a feature called "Judgment at Nuremberg" with an all-star cast.

It's still a very good movie, but now the original is being re-released, put together by Josh Waletsky and Stuart Schulberg's daughter, Susan. It opens today, with Liev Schrieber offering newly written narration.

Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, served as the chief prosecutor, and in the dock were such as Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer, all prominent members of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. With newsreel footage from then 1930s to back the rather dry courtroom action, this is a fascinating and gripping film, a perfect view of the banality of evil, spiced with particularly scary examples of man's inhumanity to man.

Very much worth seeing, and thinking about.

Nuremberg opes today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Count on post-viewing arguments after watching "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," a tear-jerker that counts on reactions to 9/11 as a starting place, with one's feelings toward amazingly precocious children serving as kindling.

We have Thomas Horn as 9-year-old Oskar Schell, only child of Thomas (Tom Hanks) and Linda (Sandra Bullock). Thomas dies on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center and we're at the cemetery where Oskar sits in the limousine while Linda buries an empty coffin. The boy idolized his dad, who made up silly games, like a huge fantasy about a missing "sixth borough" of New York, maybe a northern relative of Atlantis. The relationship was a good one, and the pain is obvious.

And then then boy finds a key in a small envelope with the word "Black" written on it. He takes the key to a neighborhood locksmith, played by a long-ago Rep company member, Stephen McKinley Henderson, wearing a yarmulke. They decide it may be a name, and Oskar decides he'll visit all the Blacks in the five boroughs. He borrows phone books from the doorman (John Goodman in a neat cameo), finds several hundred, and starts his journey around the city, made improbably long by the fact that he won't ride on subways or in buses. He carries a tambourine, his old ploy to help nervousness. Please don't ask why. The movie says so, and so did Jonathan Safran Foer's novel and Erioc Roth's screenplay.

At home, Oskar's love for fantasy and game shows in his use of a walkie-talkie to contact his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell), who lives across the airshaft in the next building. A strange old man (Max von Sydow) shows up there from time to time, and begins to follow Oskar. He does not speak, using a note pad, plus tattoos with "yes" on his right hand, "no" on his left.

Of course, Oskar meets mostly warm and loving people, like Abby Black (Viola Davis),

who welcomes him and cries over his story while her husband (Jeffrey Wright) is preparing to

leave her.

The use of 9/11 footage can either emphasize Oskar's tale or be seen as a cheap and

tawdry device. The horror of the day, and director Stephen Daldry's use of it can fit almost any

interpretation. I found it just another device, and not overdone. Others will despise it. Young

Horn is quite good, and I found him quirky and likable, with moments when I saw myself and

some of the equally quirky things I did as a kid growing up in the city.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close opens at several theaters

-- Joe

Pariah

As if high school years weren't difficult without any extra baggage, Alike (Adepero Oduye) is trying to deal with her growing knowledge that she is a lesbian. That's the premise of "Pariah," the well-made little film that is Dee Rees' debut as a writer and director. The taut movie opens today.

Oduye, who was born in Nigeria but grew up in Brooklyn, seems just right in the part. She's confused, unsure of herself and her feelings, uncomfortable with friends and family. Her parents, played by Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans, are no better off than she is and the family is in turmoil. They are no more comfortable with the situation than their daughter.

When Alike tries an evening at a gay/lesbian club in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood, where she lives, that does not work out either, and an attempted relationship with a friend, Laura (Perrnell Walker), doesn't make either of them particularly happy.

Rees, who says the movie reflects some of the difficulties of her own life, writes with a good touch. She obviously understands the problems of her characters, and her direction is warm and in good touch with young people on the edge, the way Alike is. A sensitive story that works well with difficult subject matter.

Pariah opens today at the Tivoli

-- Joe

Red Tails

It's a comic strip, but that isn't all bad. George Lucas is involved, and Lucas loves the aerial warfare of World War II, when P-41s and P-47s and P-51s did battle with Stukas and Messerschmitts and Zeros, and our fliers outflew their fliers and shot them out of the sky in flaming crashes and huge explosions. He paid homage to them in all the "Star Wars" films, and his animation-aided dogfights made other aerial combat movies look like the Wright Brothers in action over the North Carolina sand dunes.

"Red Tails," which opens today, is a tribute to the Tuskegee Institute-trained African-American pilots ("call us Negroes," they tell white pilots) who fought American racism and red tape to be allowed to fly real escort missions over Italy in 1944.

But its screenplay is hopelessly awful. Everyone is a cliche, speaking in cliches and acting in cliches. Interestingly, director Anthony Hemingway and screenplay writers John Ridley and Aaron (remember Boondocks?) McGruder all are African-American, and that may be part of the problem, along with their age. Ridley is 45, McGruder is 37, and the black soldiers of World War II were very different.

The Tuskegee airmen were sent to Italy, kept isolated at a small airport, given old equipment and sent off to attack isolated trains and trucks. No combat, no duty flying as escorts for the Flying Fortresses. Their commanders, played by such as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, are career officers, used to their subservient roles.

The four young pilots are daredevils whose planes are extensions of their libido, are Easy (Nate Parker), the group leader; Lightning (David Oyelowo); Smoky (Ne-Yo); and Joker (Elijah Kelley). All are handsome and charming, and unused to discipline or following orders. Lightning is the best pilot and the worst offender; he also spots an Italian girl on her roof while he's flying back to base. He finds her house, and while she speaks no English and he no Italian, it isn't long before they're discussing marriage, using up any left-over cliches. Of course they get around to sex, but in a rare switch of either movie or wartime priorities, that comes later.

With good acting and terrific special effects, audiences deserve a better movie.

Red Tails opens today at several theaters

--Joe

Bond. James Bond.

Three Sean Connerys and one Roger Moore -- that's the 007 lineup for a four-night extravaganza of James Bond movies running Jan. 19-22 as part of the Webster Film Series.

They all begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus. "Dr. No" (1962) opens on Thursday, with "Goldfinger" (1964), "Thunderball" (1965) and "Live and Let Die" following Friday-Sunday, respectively.

Connery was only 32 when he won the starring role for "Dr. No," the first of the series, with Terence Young directing and Ursula Andress as Honeychile (Honey) Ryder. Guy Hamilton directed "Goldfinger," with Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Bond's love/sex interest.

Young was again the director for "Thunderball," with Claudine Auger as Domino, and Hamilton introduced Moore in 1973, with many stylistic differences in "Live and Let Die," with a 22-year-old Jane Seymour as Solitaire.

All fine examples of a particular style, the early Bond films are highly entertaining.

-end-

Faraci Pizza

The heyday of the pizza parlor is long past, but sometimes nostalgia rears its handsomely graying head. The Faraci family has been serving pizza to St. Louisans since 1968, first in Ferguson and now in Ellisville. (The original location has been sold but remains in operation.) While we're sure the take-out business is good, there's a dining room just made for large casual groups or families with children. Yes, high chairs; no, no children's menu. Places like this were feeding children long before adults decided kids couldn't eat the same things they did.

By the way, we've heard complaints about the lack of children's menus at restaurants ranging from here to Galatoire's in New Orleans. Galatoires?!

Yes, pasta and sandwiches are on the menu, but that's not what Faraci is known for and it wasn't what we were after. This was a pizza mission, pure and simple.

But to hold us until the pizza was done, how about a salad? Just a small dinner salad, we said. This is not a spot for fancy salads. But the iceberg and a little romaine were fresh and crisp and cold. And the housemade Italian dressing seems to be pretty much vinegar and oil, no sugar. Bits of romano cheese had been added, along with some slivers of onion, crisp and not fiery, along with a single small tomato. It was amazingly good, not wearing an excess of dressing, an example of simple things being done just right. Somehow, though, as we were ordering the salad, the phrase “Could we have just one meatball, please, at the same time as the salad?” fell out of someone's mouth. The meatball, roughly the size of a tennis ball, was very tender indeed, in a slightly sweet tomato sauce. A nicely tasty appetizer.

This is indeed St. Louis pizza. It arrives on a rectangular aluminum tray, either 12 or 14 inches long. (a 7-inch is available at lunch.) Crust? Thin. Very thin, and crisp to the point of crackling at the edges. The Faraci brothers say they take three days to be sure the dough has the proper number of rises. The sauce, slightly chunky and a little garlicky, gives more to the whole flavor than does the cheese. Yes, provel, although not in an overwhelming ratio to the sauce. At some points, the two mingle to produce streaks of a Cheddar-colored orange, but the melt is too smooth to be Cheddar.

We like a variety of flavors to our pizza, so we ordered the Faraci special -- pepperoni, bacon, Italian sausage, mushrooms and onion. The bacon was nice and crisp, certainly, but it was the sausage that caught our attention. A light hand with the fennel seed, just a little hit of red pepper, enough to add a slight glow to things, and un-greasy but still moist, it's also made in-house, or so we found out later. The combination worked well, the toppings complementing one another so that no single topping overwhelmed another. Of the toppings on the menu, the only things slightly out of the ordinary are the shrimp and the Genoa salami; this isn't the sort of place to find sashimi tuna or sate sauce.

Don't let the carryout counter fool you; the dining room is beyond that. Friendly, courteous, prompt service.

Nothing wrong with old-school pizza at an old-school parlor.

 

Faraci Pizza

15430 Manchester Rd., Ellisville

636-230-0000

www.faracispizza.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Tricky

Smoking: No

Pizza and entrees: $10-$18

Space Junk

Human beings certainly have a single, and single-minded, excellence at one thing ,

They certainly can screw things up in terms of how they live. They have practically despoiled their home planet -- water and air are polluted, and getting worse. Crops are loaded with chemicals; fish and animals are being destroyed. And now we're busy ruining our last frontier. Humans have traveled outside their atmosphere for less than a half-century, and they are busy filling the skies with waste, circling the earth at some 17,000 miles an hour. .

"Space Junk," a film that looks at the debris that is pouring into our skies, is having its world premiere run at the St. Louis Science Center. It's fascinating, and it's scary. Coincidentally, and providing a link between the movie and real life, a chunk of space waste is threatening the International Space Station this very weekend, forcing it to take evasive action to avoid a possible collision.

Only 38 minutes long, "Space Junk" looks at the dead satellites called zombies, meteorites that were there first, pieces broken off a variety of rockets and other things that have fallen off existing satellites. Thousands are up there in low earth orbit, and the odds of a collision are shortening every day.

Director Melissa Butts, a Minneapolis filmmaker, worked with Don Kessler, retired as the head of NASA's Orbital Debris Office, using interviews, photography from outer space and animation of various types to create a fascinating and potentially very scary tale. There have already been a few collisions, and a few aging satellites have been destroyed, ironically creating that much more junk, but in smaller pieces. The cinematography is delightful, and the result is frightening. Even bits of matter as tiny as a paint chip, traveling at those supersonic speeds, can do mighty damage.

Tom Wilkinson narrates, and Kessler talks about his career as the "Father of Space Junk," trying to keep up with a sky rapidly filling with challengers to the stars. They begin with a helicopter journey to Meteor Crater, near Flagstaff, Ariz.. where a meteorite slammed into the Earth some 50,000 years ago. The crater, about 4000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep,is an awe-inspiring site, clear evidence of a collision from outer space. I visited it about 30 years ago in conjunction with a junket for "Meteor," an awful film starring Sean Connery, but flying via helicopter into the crater and walking around on the bottom was a gripping experience. Being so close-up and personal to something like that is unusual and memorable.

"Space Junk" is a frightening tale of what we are doing to our universe, and the IMAX pictures and animation are exciting. If Kessler's predictions are accurate, and if Butts' film looks at all like what might happen, the results will be less exciting, but far more frightening.

Space Junk opens today at the St. Louis Science Center

-- Joe

The Iron Lady

If there's a sure thing in the Academy Awards competition, it's Meryl Streep as Best Actress for "The Iron Lady," a biographical tale of Margaret Thatcher, long-time conservative prime minister of England. Once again, Streep depicts a real person, as she did with Julia Child in "Julia and Julia," and once again she simply nails the performance.

If only the movie was as good. . . .

The movie is all right, a well-made tale of Thatcher overcoming a childhood that saw her teased and bullied as the daughter of a butcher, definitely a lower-middle class position, but we see her as an older woman, fading into dementia, and not enough of her as a driving, powerful politician who ruled England with an iron hand. For example, considering her status as a girl, we don't see good reasons for Thatcher's staunch conservatism, her anti-union activism.

Ali Morgan's screenplay is acceptable, but falls short. Phyllida Lloyd, who directed Streep in the wildly funny "Mamma Mia," does solid work again, but when you think of Streep in two wildly different characterizations, her performance stands out that much more. The woman can adopt so many personas that it's difficult to understand such talent. Just sitting back and enjoying it may be the best way to go.

As in all her roles, 13 of them earning Oscar nominations as Best Actress, Streep is the ultimately prepared performer. She probably is more like Thatcher than Thatcher was, her posture and speech amazing. Her look is good, too, but a lot of makeup helps. The voice, the poise, the walk are all Streep, delivered in magical style.

Jim Broadbent, a consummate actor himself, stands out as her husband, Denis, who put his own ambitions aside to be the ultimate mate and helper to a woman whose ambition would not be denied.

Alexandra Roach and Harry Lloyd portray the young couple and are strong, but as soon as Streep appears in the frame, it's all over.

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. A good film, not a great one, but a great actress, delivering a great performance.

The Iron Lady opens today

-- Joe

Battledrum

Leave it to the Metro Theater Company to find a new and intelligent -- and still entertaining -- approach to a very sticky subject.

"Battledrum," which opened a January run yesterday at the Missouri History Museum, is about drummer boys during the Civil War, and it's strongly anti-war, even if it's set within one of the bloodiest. And it does not take sides, although many other Americans still seem to. "Battledrum" is about war, but as a partly remembered bumper sticker said, it's more about the fact that war is bad for every living thing. The hour-long play, with music by Lee Ahlin, book and lyrics by Doug Cooney, supports neither the North nor the South.

Three of the young cast members are drummer boys, but they're also frightened children, part of the Union army but not really knowing why. Rufus (Patrick Mullen) was left alone on his Kentucky farm when soldiers burned it. His father went to war, fighting for the Confederacy, and his mother has disappeared. A offer of food makes him a Union drummer boy, though not a soldier. Jackson (Mark Holzum) is a soldier, a young one, a real drummer boy whose drum is named Obadiah, after a Biblical prophet. He lords it over Rufus,but still tries to protect him and to teach him how to survive. He also reads (or pretends to read) from a letter found in an abandoned overcoat, and it's funny to hear the boy gushing to "My precious only darling. . . ."

They soon meet George Washington (Robert Moore), an escaped slave. He came north on the Underground Railroad, which piques Rufus' interest because he wants a ride, too. George has something neither Rufus nor Jackson have -- he can read, having learned from listening to the teacher of his young master. He reads from the letter, too, but it's totally different.

All three young men are fresh and spirited, with energy that makes up for other shortcomings. The cast is rounded out by Nicholas Kryah, the long-time Metro resident artist and veteran of more than 5000 performances. He's the corporal, the man among boys, and he teaches the facts of life in gruff but kindly style. He also designed the simple, effective set. Susan Elaine Rasch plays four or five other characters, of both genders, handling the switches in excellent style as she goes from a mother to a runaway girl to several soldiers.

Cooney and Ahlin intersperse a variety of songs into a play aimed a young audience, but which does not talk down to it. An opening scene when Rufus' farm is torched is quite strong, and while "Battledrum" is more about people in wartime than war itself, it's a solid piece of entertainment that will both teach and amuse.

Battledrum, a production of Metro Theater Company, opened yesterday (Jan. 10) and will run through Jan. 29 at the Missouri History Museum

-- Joe

Brunch: Brasserie by Niche

Brunch at Brasserie by Niche seems to be the hottest Sunday ticket in town. We didn't realize that until we arrived the other day -- with reservation -- to discover the joint jumping, every table in use and hungry diners waiting. We always advise people to make reservations; it feels funny when there are only three other tables occupied, but it's a lot funnier to arrive with out-of-town visitors and discover a full restaurant.

So reserve or hope for a lucky break. Interestingly, we've discovered that as the day advances, the crowd gets younger. More social activity the previous night, we assume. Or perhaps the newly painted exterior, a brighter red than ever, causes severe pain in the morning sunlight. Once a table has secured, and perhaps some hair of the dog ordered, the next challenge is deciding what to eat.

This is a first-rate, intelligent menu, hovering precisely in the spot between breakfast and lunch. A burger and housemade granola can appear, or onion soup and a hazelnut waffle. Our single quibble is that the grapefruit brulee really shouldn't be considered a side dish. It's a segmented half red grapefruit showered with sugar and run under a broiler to harden and then brown, and it cannot be properly enjoyed when it arrives simultaneously with the quiche or eggs Benedict. It's a first course. The kitchen was very busy ("slammed" is the technical term) and we were not surprised it took a while for our order to arrive. But bring that grapefruit first, please.

Eggs “en cocotte” says the menu; what arrives is a small, hot skillet containing creamy spinach seasoned with tasty lardons of good bacon, eggs broken over that base and quickly baked, and a couple of new potatoes that had been crushed slightly and then fried to crispness The combination of flavors was swell, the eggs perfectly cooked and the crunch of the potatoes a fine contrast to the creaminess of the spinach and eggs.

Brioche french toast turns out to be thick slices of what's basically a dense bread pudding. A generous serving of marvelous lemon curd crowns them, making the small container of (real) maple syrup almost unnecessary. An excellent combination, to be sure, and some completely crisp thick bacon alongside is a fine escort.

Mimosas and bloody Marys up front, of course, but also a drink called a corpse reviver. This was all over drink menus on our recent trip to New York, and we sampled the gin/Lillet Blanc, Cointreau and lemon juice drink. Serious alcohol, beautifully cold, slightly bitter, it was indeed a drink to get the attention of the hung over. We noted several of them here and there around the dining room.

And some dessert. Chocolate mousse pairs up with a couple of hazelnut shortbread cookies, the mousse leaning toward milk chocolate in color, but darker in flavor. A scoop of brandy ice cream charms, but might be even more enchanting topped with a shot of espresso to create a French affogato.

And then there is the isle flotante, or floating island. The English name always sounds a little stodgy, but never fear; this was originally a French dessert, and the Brasserie's is beautifully delicate. A cloud of meringue sits on a puddle of custard sauce flecked with vanilla bean seeds. The whole is lightly drizzled with a little caramel, just a thin, glittering thread here and there. Very light, a first-rate choice after a heavy meal.

We spent close to two hours at brunch. As we noted, the kitchen was very busy. But good brunch is designed as a leisurely meal and should be handled that way. Good coffee, a drink, a chance to chat and to relax, building strength for the week ahead. Besides, there always will be another football game. A fine meal with attentive service, and first-rate people watching, including several tables of other restaurateurs and their families enjoying the role of customers for a change.

 

Brasserie by Niche

4580 Laclede Ave.

314-454-0600

www brasseriebyniche com

Brunch Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Brunch Entrees: $6-$14

On Golden Pond

Ernest Thompson's splendid play, "On Golden Pond," is a perfect vehicle for Ron Himes and Linda Kennedy, the Black Rep's two standouts for lo, these many years, and both actors deliver in a rich, compelling style in the company's new production, which opened over the weekend and will run through Feb. 5 at the Grandel Theatre.

Tom Aldredge and Frances Sternhagen, who won a Tony for it, were the original Norman and Ethel Thayer in their summer house in Maine. Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn were the movie couple, with Fonda's daughter, Jane, as their child, and Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews followed in a live TV production. James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams starred in a 2005 revival, with Thompson making some minor adjustments for an African-American cast. That script is used by Himes and Kennedy, who perform together as if they've been doing it for years - which they have.

Lorna Littleway's calm, unhurried direction is proper, and James Burwinkel's superb set, which looks as if it just stepped out of a copy of Better Homes and Gardens, adds to the effect. The result is a totally delightful production.

Norman and Ethel have been married for many years; he's about to turn 80 and is a former English professor, retired from the University of Pennsylvania. He's crochety and curmudgeonly, quick with the sarcastically simplistic response, outwardly seeking no affection while inwardly demanding it. Ethel, of course, understands him perfectly and loves him without restraint, but he seems to take pride in being difficult.

He's estranged from their daughter, Chelsea (a satisfactory performance by Kathi Bentley), and each resents the other. He wanted a son to fish with and to understand him; she wanted a father who would display affection and apparently has spent her adult life (she's 42 in 1978, when the play is set) seeking same. They have not seen one another for eight years, and Ethel is saddened, though she's just not strong enough to do battle with Norman.

Now Chelsea is about to visit Maine, a stop between California and Europe, with a new boy friend, Bill (good work from Chauncy Thomas), and the boy friend's 13-year-old son. Billy (a proper performance from Chris Cross, who needs to slow down a little). Of course, Norman and Billy hit it off to perfection, and Billy, obviously his father's son, is willing to stand up to Norman, at least for a while. The cast also includes Aaron Orion Baker as Charlie, the postman, Chelsea's one-time beau, a relationship obviously ended about as soon as she heard him laugh the second or third time.

Watching and listening to Himes and Kennedy is a joy. Like the characters they play, they understand one another perfectly, and they are such superior performers that their timing is absolutely delicious. I was often reminded of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, the finest acting "couple" I've ever seen. It was a great pleasure.

On Golden Pond, a production of the Black Rep, will run at the Grandel Theatre through Feb. 5

-- Joe

Sunday in the Park With George

In one of those strange and wonderful coincidences that often make theater scheduling more than the sum of its parts, St. Louis is home right now to two classic musicals, "Sunday in the Park With George," which opened at the Rep last night, and "La Cage aux Folles," which is running at the Fox. This provides us all with the opportunity to see two splendid shows and to re-create 1983 on Broadway, when they were the most decorated.

"La Cage" won six Tonys to two for "Sunday," but the latter won the more prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the following year.

'Sunday," with Stephen Sondheim offering magical music and lyrics, is brilliantly staged by Rob Ruggiero, who is hereby redeemed for last season's "High." As a show that re-creates a painting, Ruggiero, with help from scenic designer Adrian W. Jones, costume designer Alejo Vietti and lighting designer John Lasiter, puts everything together just the way artist Georges Seurat would have wanted it. Ron Bohmer, in a glorious performance as the artist, handles the ultra-complex Sondheim lyrics perfectly to put the stamp of completion on it. And as usual, Sondheim does things with the English language that no one else can or could, like a throwaway line about puddles from poodles who piddle. The cast responds with power, and even a sense of glee at their success.

Ruggiero also has made a 19-person company into a perfectly cohesive unit, an ensemble performance that is one of the best in the 40 seasons I've been writing about the Rep. Choreographer Ralph Perkins, music director F. Wade Russo and sound designer Michael Hooker also deserve high praise for this facet of the diamond-sharp production.

On the other hand (and, unfortunately, there has to be one), I still have problems with James Lapine's book, though fewer than I used to have. I still think that Act I is glorious, though I've never believed it was a complete story. I've said that just the first acts of "Sunday" and "Into the Woods" would be a perfect evening of Sondheim entertainment, but they would not comprise a show. But the second act's George's crass commercialism and cheapening of the art form of the original Georges is a straw man for a cheap shot, and the concept of moving everything to America does not work. The final-scene change of heart doesn't save the Lapine-Sondheim creation.

Why did I have fewer problems last night? Maybe the passage of nearly 30 years has tempered my impatience. . . .

The cast, as noted, is wonderful. The last time we saw Bohmer he was in the Studio, a physician busy titillating women out of hysteria and into highly stimulated enjoyment with his vibrator. He's equally successful as a painter, and Bohmer sings and acts with real style. It's a long and difficult part, and Bohmer, a Webster alum who earned a B.F.A. in the early 1980s and learned to be a Central Park carriage driver while breaking into a fine theatrical career as a singer and actor, scores high. His intensity as George is considerable. By the way, George at the Rep bears no resemblance to the real Georges Seurat. This is a totally fictional character, both in the19th and 20th centuries, except for the creation of "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

Erin Davie is a delightful Dot, fighting to keep the relationship alive, considering herself "unfinished," while Georges is "complete." But eventually she realizes that while paint may be beautiful, bread is vital, and she runs off with Louie the baker, which does not seem to bother George at all. Her second act performance as her own grand-daughter is weaker, mainly because she is forced to sing and talk at an extremely uncomfortable level. I chortled, hower, as she ran offstage after the final curtain call grabbing at a bustle that obviously was coming loose.

But there's lovely work from Zoe Vonder Haar as the querulous elderly mother, and some other people, with Kari Ely as her maid, and even if Whit Reichert does very little, he lights a stage for me. Some Webster students like Nyssa Duchow, Charlie Ingram, Jacob Lacopo, Audrey Rae McHale and Jordan Parente get a chance for a major production and carry it off nicely. Deanne Lorette, as Yvonne and Naomi, was a fine presence, as were Chris Hietikko as Jules, Steve French as the limping, bad-tempered Boatman, Sean Montgomery as one of the Soldiers (his buddy was rather flat), Maggie Cansler, Mark Emerson, Jamie LaVerdiere and Rebecca Watson.

And then there was little Abbey Friedmann, the youngest in the cast and a delightfully irritating child.

"Sunday in the Park With George" is a happy new year greeting from the Rep, a highly entertaining production that will run through Jan. 29.

Sunday in the Park With George, a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis production, opened Jan. 6 at the Loretto-Hilton Center and will run through Jan. 29

--Joe

La Cage aux Folles

Smart guy, that Harvey Fierstein. Facing the playwright's perennial problem of getting the show over smoothly and in one piece, Fierstein solves it admirably in "La Cage aux Folles," which opened a two-week run last night at the Fox. With a stage cluttered with careening characters and no sensible solution in sight, George Hamilton, as Georges, calls a halt to the action.

"Time for the finale," he says, and the show sweeps into a noble one, with Lynne Page's fabulous choreography and reprises of four delicious songs by Jerry Herman bringing everything to a tuneful and happy conclusion.

Loose ends? Leave 'em backstage, sweep 'em out in the morning.

With Herman's score and Fierstein's brittle, zingy dialogue leading the way, "La Cage" is a delightful play with a lot of charm and a gay-rights anthem, "I Am What I Am," sung beautifully and with great power by Christopher Sieber. He's Albin, the flamboyant drag-queen entertainer at a gay night club on the French Riviera. It's a stunning first-act finale. Sieber is superb as a man who has struggled all his life and now feels betrayed by his long-time partner (Hamilton). By the way, he played Georges opposite Feinstein in the 2010 Broadway revival, to very good notices.

And then, Fierstein lightens the tone. "La Cage" does not become a political polemic, but returns to its light-comedy status, though retaining its stance as a plea for human rights and ridiculing a homophobic politician who might have taken a night off from the Republican caucuses in Iowa.

Herman, whose musicals include "Mame" and Tony winners "Hello, Dolly" and "La Cage," is at the top of his form here. The original production was in 1983, starring George Hearn and Gene Barry. It was a Tony winner as Best Musical, and also won the same honor in the revival category in 2004 and 2010.

Terry Johnson directs the current version, with Page's choreography and costume design by Christopher Wright. All are exciting, and nicely updated from the original work by Arthur Laurent, Scott Salmon and Theoni V. Aldredge, respectively. The fabulous Cagelles, danced by Matt Anctil (Angelique), Logan Keslar (Bitelle), Donald C. Shorter Jr. (Chantal), Mark Roland (Hanna), Terry Lavell (Mercedes) and Trevor Downey (Phaedra) are exactly that -- fabulous -- and Jeigh Madjus mostly charms as Jacob, hired as a butler but much preferring to be the maid.

Billy Harrigan Tighe is a proper ingenue as Jean-Michel, son to Georges, and Allison Blair McDowell is a visual treat as Anne, his girl friend and the object of a sweet love song, "With Anne on My Arm." Georges' winsome "Look Over There" and Albin's powerful, "A Little More Mascara," and "I Am What I Am," ("and what I am is an illusion") are better songs, but there's a personal appeal as Jean-Michel sings of the girl he loves.

Hamilton works hard under his fashion-magazine tan. There were a couple of flat spots, but his singing was generally acceptable and he was ideally costumed and cast as a nightclub master of ceremonies. Not for "Cabaret," of course, but just right for the charming, fast-moving, highly entertaining production provided by "La Cage."

La Cage aux Folles, a touring company, opened at the Fox Theatre Jan.3 and continues through Jan. 15

J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood

Yes, it's part of a chain, but its lineage is so good we had to try J. Gilbert's. There may be a few folks around who remember Gilbert-Robinson, the folks who gave us Fedora in Union Station, one of the first Modern American menus in St. Louis, and brought us Bill Cardwell as well. J. is for Joe, as in Joe Gilbert; he and Paul Robinson built the excellent, Kansas City-based operation that also created Bristol, Houlihan's, Annie's Santa Fe and others.

It's a steakhouse; the full name is J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood and it follows in the finest footsteps of G-R. Dark-ish inside, although sufficiently lit to allow reading menus sans flashlight, and there's a good-sized bar, of course. The dining room noise levels were not unreasonable on a fairly busy night. (Although if the bar crowd gets excited, all bets are off.)

This is not, of course, your father's steakhouse. Onion rings are pretzel-crusted, pork chops are from Berkshire pigs. Crab cakes? Well, sure. But these fat guys are the best we've had in years, big guys full of lump crab, scarcely enough filler to hold them together, lightly seasoned and totally satisfying. Not cheap, $17 for two as an appetizer, but they arrive with a scoop of tropical salsa, pineapple and mango with cilantro and a little heat, particularly tasty. The mustard aioli alongside is superfluous. The cakes also are available as an entree, three plus sides for $30.

 

Keeping to the crab theme, a bowl of crab bisque, considerably crabbier in flavor than most of its ilk, very creamy and – oh, thank you – served hot enough. It charmed, especially on a cold, windy night.

Having taken care of some seafood, it was on to the steaks. The 16-ounce, bone-in rib eye is referred to as a cowboy cut, the reference being to cowboys using the bone as a handle. A knife and fork is easier, considering the size of this handsome hunk, which arrived perfectly rare, tender and absolutely delicious. The most marbled of all the usual steak cuts, it may require a little knife work to remove the larger fat streaks, but it's worth it. The smaller strip steak was also first-rate, deftly seasoned and cooked, with the same smokiness, even more apparent in the leftovers the next day. We happily argued over whose steak tasted better. The strip, ordered medium-rare, showed its difference from the rare rib eye, rating a compliment to the kitchen.

On the side, poblano gratin potatoes carried just a little heat, but plenty of garlic, very tasty, although the center layer of potatoes was not quite done. Wild mushroom risotto excelled, creamy and full-flavored from the mushrooms. Spinach, quickly sauteed and not overcooked, was exceedingly tasty and lent an air of virtue to an evening of comparative indulgence. Only the broccolini failed, stringy and unredeemed by chips of fried garlic that looked like sliced almonds.

Apple croustade equals, more or less, an apple tart. The pastry was flaky, and the apples particularly apple-flavored, not necessarily an easy thing to find. There could have been a great deal more cinnamon flavor in the cinnamon ice cream, but the croustade itself was worth the purchase. Chocolate is represented on the menu by a triple chocolate cake, moist but firm layers that were almost bittersweet, a milk chocolate mousse filling and mirror-shiny chocolate glaze atop the towering piece. Raspberry ice cream a lovely pink resting alongside, not so tart as a sorbet would be, but good taken on its own merits. Both good choices, but no arguing over which was best.

The wine list was mostly in a medium-price range, through it could have used a few more hearty reds to accompany the beef. The by-the-glass selection was above adequate and offered some good choices.

Service was attentive and chatty, which we also noted at other tables. However, our view is that it is unnecessary, bordering on patronizing, for servers to repeatedly endorse our choices, happily complimenting our wisdom. A smile and a simple "thank you" would be a better response, in our opinion.

Located on the west side of West County Mall, with an outside entrance (and valet parking for a fee), J. Gilbert's does not serve lunch.

 

J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood

17A West County Center, Des Peres

314-965-4600

www.jgilberts.com 

Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $16-$39

The Best and Worst of 2100

 

Well, here we are again -- the final week of another year. No movies opening to provide fodder for this space. What to do? Sigh!

I know. I'll write about the movies I saw during 2011. I'll make a list of the best -- no, even my ego won't allow "best." Besides, what is best? What criteria do use? How about a list of movies that I saw, enjoyed and would happily see again? And that, of course, creates other problems in terms of movies that have not opened in St. Louis yet, and some movies that I did not see, for one reason or another.

All right. Herewith, an arbitrary decision. My favorites, and least-favorites, that opened and were discussed in this space during 2011. The list includes 12 that I liked a lot and 10 that I cordially despised. Standards? I see a lot of movies and have throughout my life, especially in the 40 years I've been writing about them professionally. Regular readers will understand that my tastes are quirky. I have a peculiar sense of humor. I like some movies that other critics, and movie-goers despise, and vice versa. I was one of the rare critics to dislike "The Way We Were," way back when. I'll probably offend some people, though I'd rather pique their curiosity and, perhaps, engage in a discussion.

Well, enough about you. Here's my list, and it's in chronological order so that you can more easily find the original article from this very blog file.

Casino Jack (Jan. 7): St. Louisan George Hickenlooper saved his best work for last. His direction of a bitter tale based on the life and works of Jack Abramoff, con man and lobbyist and friend to our senators and representatives was brilliant, and Kevin Spacey delivered a matchless performance in the title role. Hickenlooper died in October, 2010, at the age of 47.

Rabbit Hole (Jan. 14): Nicole Kidman never has been more powerful, or given herself up to a role more completely, than in a movie that explores the after-effects of the death of a child. It's based on David Lindsay-Abaire's play that ran in the Rep's studio a few years ago, and he also wrote the screenplay. John Cameron Mitchell, also a playwright, directed with style. Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are the parents of a boy who ran out of his yard and was hit by a car driven by a high school student, Dianne Wiest portrays Kidman's mother.

Cedar Rapids (Feb. 18): I described this movie as being rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar. Also very funny. Phil Johnston's story of a weekend convention of Midwestern insurance salesmen is hilarious, more so if you like rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar, and funny performances by John C. Reilly, Ed Helms, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche and Alia Shawkat. There are times when gross is good, and this is a giant sale from the gross-ery store.

Of Gods and Men (March 25): A strange juxtaposition of films, but coincidence is stranger than fiction, and this story, based on fact, took place in 1996, when a group of Algerian rebels threatened a monastery. A group of French Cistercian Trappist monks faced almost certain death but would not leave their home, where they produced honey and did good to the poor people of the village. Michel Lonsdale and Lambert Wilson lead a wonderful cast in a heart-rending tale directed by Xavier Beauvois. Lonsdale quotes Blaise Pascal, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."

Winter in Wartime (April 29): A Dutch film, set during World War II, that is a coming-of-age tale and one about fathers and sons. A teen-aged Dutch boy, son of the mayor of his village, helps an English pilot evade capture and eventually escape. At the same time, the rigors of war in winter are shown in a perfect representation of an event only 66 years ago, but largely forgotten.

Midnight in Paris (June 10): The longest St. Louis run of a film in many years (more than six months), and a return to joyous form by Woody Allen. A fantasy of Paris in its glory years of the 1920s and its even more plush times as the 19th century turned into the 20th. Owen Wilson delights as an American honeymooner who meets a list of classic characters from Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, including Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Paul Gaugin and Salvador Dali. A wonderful fantasy.

Sarah's Key (July 29): A multi-generational tale of a little Jewish girl and her brother, set among the Nazi occupation of France, with Melusine Mayance showing much skill as the title character. Many years later, Kristen Scott Thomas as an American writer with a French architect husband, moves into the apartment. Gilles Paquet-Brenner directs intelligently from the novel by Tatiana de Rosney.

The Descendants (Nov. 23): The ubiquitous George Clooney, perhaps the most relaxed and understated movie actor since Cary Grant, looks as good in Hawaii as he does everywhere else, as he deals with becoming a widower and the single father to two daughters while mysteries and real-estate deals keep him occupied. Alexander Payne's direction is relaxed and on target, and young Shailene Woodley is remarkable as Cooney's teen-aged daughter. So is Nick Krause as Sid, her boy friend.

Into the Abyss (Nov. 23): German director Werner Herzog is a genius, and shows his skill in a documentary about a man just eight days before his execution for murder. Michael Perry and Jason Burkett killed three people just to steal a car, and Perry is about to die. Herzog is a low-key interviewer, talking to Perry, his father(also in prison) and others who were involved. The aura of "In Cold Blood" hangs in the air and Herzog's movie stays in one's mind for a long, long time.

My Week With Marilyn (Nov. 25): Michelle Williams doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe but she has the moves, the moods, the aura, in a lovely homage based on an absolutely other-worldly experience by Colin Clark. Kenneth Branagh sparkles as Laurence Olivier, who cannot cope with Monroe's antics; she cannot cope with being an actor. Delightful comedy, perfect date movie.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec. 20): Rooney Mara is only an eyelash behind Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the toughest cookie in Stockholm, in a fine adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel by Steven Zaillian. David Fincher directs the long, tense, powerful tale, and Daniel Craig is a slightly different, but equally strong, Mikael Blomkvist. Long, but exciting and tension without pause.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Dec. 23): With Gary Oldman in a marvelous portrayal of George Smiley, the great spy novel by John Le Carre comes to the big screen. Tomas Afredson directs a long but fast-moving story of English spies and those who spy on them. A large, impressive cast that includes Colin Firth, John Hurt and a who's who of English actors and a taut, plot line. Mystery fans will be very happy; so will movie buffs

And toting the push brooms behind the circus parade: These films have one common thread. They're dumb, and the filmmakers treat the audience as being dumb, too, No imagination, no spark, neither grace, nor charm, nor humor. And the losers are: Somewhere (Jan. 14), The Eagle (Feb.11), The Battle of Los Angeles (March 11), Ka-Boom (March 25), Heartbeats (April 29), White Irish Drinkers (May 6), Hesher (May 13), Meek's Cutoff (May 13), The Future (Aug. 19), Machine Gun Preacher (Oct. 7).

 And a Happy, movie-filled 2012. . . .

-- Joe

Bailey's Range

David Bailey, who has given St. Louis Rooster and Bailey's Chocolate Bar, among other places to eat and drink, went into the downtown burger business at Bailey's Range during the time the Cardinals were winning the World Series. We can only begin to imagine the crush on those nights. While the Range looks small, there's an upstairs, and it seats about 120. That's a lot of hamburger-seekers to fall upon a new spot. But Bailey quickly got the ducks in a row, and is cranking out satisfaction day and night. Night, especially, when it's open until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday (or Saturday and Sunday, depending on how you look at the middle of the night).

Regular readers know that for us, it's nearly all about the food. But we'd like to point out before we get swept away in burgerness that the décor is pretty amusing. A looooong communal table (seats 40? Yep.) and a semi-partition made of old windows, a good view of the immense kitchen, and a fair view of the passing street scene all make for fun, as do the old milk cans used as light fixtures.

Don't think that because we're talking burgers, fries and shakes, this is a diner menu. Not at all. Yes, chili cheese fries as a first course, but also chicken liver mousse. That mousse, silky and rich, is as good as it would be in a restaurant with entrees priced three times as much. “Regulars like it,” reports Bailey, although he admits newcomers are occasionally taken aback by its presence on the menu. And cheese curds, sourced from Marcoot Creamery in Illinois, are creamy, just a little squeaky, the way cheeseheads say they should be. Several thin slices of Granny Smith apple are a reasonable garnish.

Not all the Range burgers are beef. There's bison, chicken, duck, lamb, pork and vegetarian (oddly, neither deer nor antelope), and if you like one set of toppings but prefer another meat, well, that can be done, too. We headed for the Ozark, a rustic-sounding name but a sophisticated approach with sauteed crimini mushrooms, caramelized onions and a blob of black pepper goat cheese, with lettuce and tomato alongside. This is a kitchen that understands "medium-rare;" the burger arrived dark pink inside, extremely juicy, the goat cheese and vegetables all dancing in perfect synchronicity. We've just returned from New York, and visited the home base of a small-but-growing group called Five Napkin Burger, a name that, while surely trademarked, certainly applied here on Olive Street.

A duck burger? Yes, especially one named Smoking Duck. And it was excellent, cooked a bit longer to leave just a bit of pink, nicely smoked, topped with some first-rate and notably crisp slaw and a barbecue sauce that had a hit of cassis, the black currant liqueur. It was the sort of dish that causes one to grunt with pleasure with the first bite. Delicious, and juicy, but more complex than its cousin on the next plate.

Fries were pleasant but not outstanding, although the idea of 10 choices of dipping sauces is a winner. The "crazy ketchup" had both sriracha, the South Asian hot sauce, and perhaps Tabasco, providing enough heat to be overkill to some. We liked it but would have preferred some mellow notes to round things out properly. And yes, there are salads.

Desserts are ice cream and their offspring, though there are no ice cream sodas, drat the luck. We tried two shakes, one with liquor. The non-booze featured chocolate and salted caramel, and we can attest to enjoying some very rich ice cream. Additionally, Bailey knows the difference between caramel and butterscotch, and the salt is a splendid balance to the sweet. The boozy one was an adaptation of the mojito shake, which involves cachaca, mint leaves and lime sorbet. We asked for it without the mint leaves, placing it somewhere between a caipirinha and a daquiri. Tart and refreshing, neither too thick nor too thin, it was dangerously good.

We sat at the bar, with fine service, save for a food runner who did the “Who gets the . . . .?” routine, a question that is never acceptable at a table for two. Good people-watching, and good food, with a sound level enough to cover a discouraging word.

 

Bailey's Range

920 Olive St.

314-241-8121

www.baileysrange.com

Lunch and Dinner Wed.-Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Burgers: $6-$12

Stotties

Christmas week, when things are almost as quiet as August: Fewer meetings, more folks at home, and a good time to offer something a little special. I found this recipe in a recent ad supplement, and adjusted it a little to reflect what I had on hand.

Stottie is not a word often heard in this part of the world. They're traditional breads from the north of England, and they're not usually made in this sweet-ish style. Rather they're bread-like, split and used for sandwiches like ham and pease pudding (I'm not making this up...) or sausage, bacon and egg. Sounds like just the thing on the way home from the pub after closing time, their answer to what we fill with White Castles.

This one, though, is dense and moist, slightly sweet, the sort of thing I can see Grandmum cutting slabs of for a winter afternoon pot of tea. I don't think butter or jam is necessary, although it's good toasted. Not a handsome loaf at all, to be sure, but very easy to put together, no kneading and just one rise. You could even call it relatively healthy with all the fruit and nuts and oats. And I think it would be fine to substitute whole wheat flour for part of the white flour.

 

1 c. old-fashioned oats

1/2 c. honey

1/4 c. butter

1 Tbs. salt

1 1/2 c. water

1 c. applesauce

5 1/2 c. all-purpose flour, divided

2 envelopes Rapid-Rise Yeast

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

(or may substitute 2 tsp. “pumpkin pie spice”)

2 eggs, room temperature

1 6-oz. package dried cranberries (about 1 1/2 c.)

1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

 

Grease two 8- or 9-inch round pans. I used 8-inch springform pans, which have higher sides than my regular cake pans that diameter, and they worked well.

Place oats, honey, butter and salt in a large mixer bowl. Heat water and applesauce until boiling. Add to bowl and stir well. Cool mixture until it's just fairly warm (120 to 130 degrees). The length of time to cool will depend on your mixer bowl; my Kitchen Aid has a heavy base and doesn't cool off very quickly. A sink half-full of cold water helps cool such bowls down.

Add 2 cups flour, yeast, spices and eggs. Beat 30 seconds on low to combine, then raise speed to high and beat for 3 minutes.

Stir in cranberries. Add remaining flour and walnuts to make a stiff batter. Spoon batter into the pans. It will probably be too stiff to spread with a spatula, just dampen your hands and pat it down so it's all about the same height. These are supposed to look rustic. Cover the pans and let rise in a warm place until batter has about doubled in size, perhaps an hour depending on ambient temperature. While they're warming, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and make sure there's a rack in the middle of the oven.

Bake for 50-55 minutes. They should sound hollow when thumped. Remove from pans and cool on a rack.

Gives 2 loaves.

 

-Ann

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

They called it the Circus, partly because it was located in a warren of offices near Cambridge Circus in London, partly because of its various legal, illegal, immoral and vital activities as the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service of England. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," a powerful, intelligent, gripping movie based on one of John Le Carre's classic spy novels, opens today as a highlight of the holiday movie season.

This is not to be confused with the TV series of 1979, when Alec Guinness portrayed George Smiley in the six-hour mini-series. Director Tomas Alfredson and the brilliant Gary Oldman bring this one to ground in a little over two hours of taut, tingling tension. The story is unchanged: Smiley, a year into a forced retirement, is brought back to find a double agent who is a player in the Circus.

Le Carre, born David John Moore Cornwell, was himself a spy, working for British intelligence before being exposed by Kim Philby, himself a famed double-agent who disappeared into Russia in 1963. Philby and four colleagues, including Guy Burgess, came through Cambridge University in the 1930s, became Russian agents and, to put it mildly, caused major problems to Allied intelligence during World War II and its aftermath.

The movie features some of England's top actors as Smiley's colleagues, working under a man known as Control, the leader of the Circus and Smiley's boss, as well as his good friend. John Hurt, a matchless actor, is a joy to watch. The other insiders include Colin Firth, Toby Jones, David Dencik and Ciarin Hinds, and none of them misses a beat. Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan wrote the screenplay and Hoyte van Hoytema was the director of photography.

There certainly is some violence, but "TTSS" is primarily a tale of character, of men who live on the edge of a constantly shifting ledge. It's a wonderful book, with Le Carre at his best and the various spies living under constant pressure, depicted almost lovingly in the book. Alfredson, born in Sweden, revels in the increasing tension, and audiences will applaud him for keeping them so involved.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opens today at several theaters.

--Joe