pt at large

21 Nichols Grille and Tap

21 Nichols Grille and Tap, 21 Nichols Avenue, Watertown, MA
March 14, 2005

Like other taverns in the area, 21 Nichols Grille and Tap is gearing up for St. Patrick’s Day. Plenty ‘o green is in evidence as my lunch companion and I enter for lunch on a sun splashed mid March afternoon. The green lights and Guiness streamers are festooned around the oak bar lining one side of the deep, narrow pub and the tables and benches to the right. 21 Nichols has pushed back their opening schedule from 3 PM to 11:30 AM. Every Monday through Friday from opening till 3 PM, 21 Nichols is offering $4 and $5 lunch specials and a beer and a burger for $7. This certainly gets the attention of this Adventurer, who thinks the idea will be a good catch for local lunch goers intent on good grub at great prices.

Today’s specials include a, a BLT wrap for $4, a pesto chicken wrap, and a mussels, scallops and pasta dish for $5. We opt for the pesto chicken and mussels specials. While waiting for our order, we comment about the welcome sunlight streaming into the place through the greenhouse-like sloped glass ceiling. Glancing through the plate glass windows that line one side of the bar, we see a real Pullman railroad car that’s been sidetracked ten feet away and is part of the restaurant. The bartender informs us that it’s been made into a lounge and invites us to take a look. Sure enough, a short walk through a breezeway brings us into the car, in which couches, easy chairs and tables have been set about, surrounded by green velvet drapes that give it a cozy feeling. A walk to the far end of the car reveals the establishment’s kitchen, where we chat with the cooks who will engineer our lunch selections.

We decide on the chicken wrap and the pasta special and admire what my companion calls “the warm atmosphere”, the exposed brick and glass interior, and the 5 plasma TVs that show us men in uniforms running on impossibly green lawns after a small white ball. Spring is near.

Our orders arrive with our food arranged artfully on blue platters. The scallops and mussels are a bit too drenched in red sauce but tender, moist, and tasty nevertheless. The pasta is al dente but somehow one patch is cool while the rest is piping hot. Much too hungry to send back to those engineers, I mix it together for a better average temperature. When I admit this fact to the waiter who’s asked about the meal, he tells me how he thought it had been prepared to ensure proper temperature and says he’ll speak to the cook. The garlic bread, served in wedges, is perfect. Crusty on the bottom, tasty with garlic, butter, and cheese on top, it disappears long before the rest of the meal is consumed. The wrap brings compliments from my food-wise companion. She gives me a blow by blow description of the tender and tasty bite sized chicken breast pieces that are mixed with fresh mozzarella cheese, basil loaded pesto sauce, and crunchy, sundried tomatoes in a warm, soft white flour tortilla. The wrap is accompanied by deep-fried thick onion rings that taste good even after the batter has cooled.

Just as spring training means the the baseball season will soon be underway, it seems that these inexpensive lunch specials are harbingers of a good lunch season for 21 Nichols. This Adventurer is sure to return for extra innings.

The Sea Horse

The Sea Horse
A play by Edward J. Moore staged by the Nora Theater Company at the Boston Playwright’s Theater, 941 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
March 13, 2005

The Sea Horse is a powerful two-act play in which a man and a woman try to navigate the treacherous waters between vulnerability and love. Harry has just returned to a northeast coastal town after weeks at sea on a bucket of a boat in the local fishing fleet. He’s taken all day to return to his girlfriend, the proprietor of the Sea Horse, a seedy bar near the piers, and she is steamed. She takes his tardiness as a lack of respect, a quality she’s in short supply of herself. As it turns out, Harry, a man of certifiable mechanical skill but lubberly emotional intelligence, has had an epiphany while at sea. He wants to begin life again, start a boat business, and has realized that what he feels for Gertrude is love. Gertrude is not a believer in men’s dreams and long ago gave hers up for auction. “You don’t have a head for business,” she says to him as he’s explaining his plans to her. When Harry has enough Jack Daniels to say it, he confesses his love for Gertrude and asks her to partner up with him in business and marriage. Gertrude, showing the armor associated with the aquatic sea horse, turns on him fiercely. She has no interest in intimacy, let alone love.

From here, both characters are in uncharted emotional waters. After hearing each declaration of Harry’s love, Gert digs in. Through her angry rejections, we become aware of the self-loathing she’s developed after an abusive first marriage and a traumatic experience with her father, from whom she inherited The Sea Horse. Every time she lashes out at his “sentimental crap”, Gertrude betrays her feelings for him with a gesture of conciliation. Both characters make the most of body language. When she can’t verbalize, Gertrude’s brown eyes can shout fear, vulnerability, or unassuming affection. Harry’s clumsy attempt at dancing is endearing and an exotic romp with his duffle bag is hilarious.

For the past year, Gert, for whom men have satisfied a physical but not an emotional need, has invited only Harry to her bedroom upstairs over the bar. And Harry’s reciprocated by using his mechanical skill to keep her worn down bar intact, and a way to express words he hasn’t been able to form. In her struggle to acknowledge her feelings for Harry, she admits that he’s the only man she invited to her room after meeting him for the first time. Even if they cant admit it, their dialogue shows that lust has only been part of the reason these two castaways have stuck it out for the past year. Their shaky grammar and plain clothing are right at home in the play’s setting, a small barroom with worn down stools and tables. You can almost smell the sour odor of spilled whiskey and beer on the floor.

Harry shows us the soul of an uncomplicated man, who can describe his appreciation for the beauty of the sea in one breath, and his ability to fix a greasy water pump in the next. We can see his character, a loser for most of his life, become ennobled by acknowledging his love. Thinking he can convince Gert with the same persistence he uses in repairing boat engines, Harry won’t give up on her or his dream, the only dream for which he’s willing to risk it all. The two come across as genuine people, rough around the edges but with a dignity that’s nearly buried beneath the armor they’ve adopted as a shield for the hard knocks they’ve absorbed. Gert is overweight and plain, but far from the fat and ugly self-portrait she’s adopted to shield her from rejection. And Harry’s a simple man, but full of sincerity and impish humor.

The resolution of their situation may not be resolved by the play’s ending, but they’ve managed to connect. If they can allow themselves to trust each other, they’ll be able to weigh anchor and find a new home port.

Nobody Don’t Like Yogi

Nobody Don’t Like Yogi, Ben Gazzara as baseball legend Yogi Berra
A One Act Play at The Wilbur Theater, Tremont Street, Boston, MA
March 10, 2005

‘Nobody Don’t Like Yogi’ is a fat pitch of a play that settles into your heart as easily as Whitey Ford’s pitches were pocketed into Yogi Berra’s catcher’s mitt. Ben Gazzara plays the humble and plain speaking Yogi in a way that brings dignity to this legendary ball player and manager, known to many only by the way he mangles the English language.

The play is set in the New York Yankee clubhouse on the day of Berra’s first return to the Stadium in 1999, after 14 years of self-exile, which began when owner George Steinbrenner fired him as Yankee manager in 1985. Berra's recreated one-way conversations with Steinbrenner, and with others, from family to famous ballplayers, are the revelatory underpinnings of the play.

The show’s pacing could be compared to the way a catcher calls the game for the pitcher, mixing the pitches to keep the hitter guessing. As he nervously fumbles with the papers that contain notes for the speech he’s about to give to thousands of fans at the Stadium, Berra takes us into his confidence and reminisces about his immigrant parents, meeting his wife to be, and bringing up his own children. His story is simple, disarmingly direct, and occasionally confessional, but never saccharine. Every time the story pulls at your heartstrings, it’s leavened by one of Yogi’s trademark quotes (“Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”)

In the hands of a lesser actor, Yogi’s humility could be sappy or self-serving, but Gazzara inhabits Yogi like a big leaguer. He’s got Yogi’s shuffle, his self-deprecating humor, and his halting speech. Yogi becomes a man who knows himself, and can take pride in what he’s accomplished with the help of his own mentors and heroes, all of whom he talks about with gratitude and respect. You don’t have to be baseball fan to appreciate the universal appeal of his homespun wisdom and ability to tell a story. This play’s a good catch.

Blue/Orange

Blue/Orange, written by Joe Penhall, directed by David Miller
Produced by Zeitgeist Stage Company at the BCA Plaza Black Box Theater, Tremont Street
March 3, 2005

When is an orange blue? And does it make a difference whether a psychiatric patient seeing the color is black or white? Two white doctors and a black patient use their skills and own predisposing cultural underpinnings to find a diagnosis for the patient’s insistence that the orange is blue.

The real questions raised are how does race color a doctor’s diagnosis and how is power wielded in an institutional setting. An aspiring psychiatric intern tries to make a humane connection with a black patient who appears to have ‘borderline personality disorder”. The agitated patient Christopher has been hospitalized for one month and his time is up. Dr. Flaherty wants him to remain. Egged on by his patient’s allusions to the racism he’s encountered, Flaherty sheds his professional stance to connect more informally with his patient. Flaherty’s own racial attitudes come to the surface.

Flaherty’s supervisor and mentor Dr. Smith enters and immediately undermines Flaherty’s discipline by giving Christopher a cigarette and a coke, and saying that the patient can be turned loose again. Rooms at the institution are scarce and in the mind of Smith that’s a compelling a reason to release Christopher. “Borderline” disorders are just that, says Smith, who falls into the same trap of becoming too familiar with Christopher and exposing his own racist attitudes.

A considerable amount of psychological mumbo jumbo ensues as the two men argue Christopher’s future. With the guile of a madman, Christopher takes advantage of both men’s racial stereotyping, compromising each of them by spinning the words they’ve used with him in ways they didn’t intend. One is left admiring the guile of a madman while at the same time witnessing the disorder that got him placed under observation in the first place.

As Christopher’s fate is being determined, so is Flaherty’s. His rising star plummets to earth when he argues with his mentor Smith about the diagnosis and treatment for Christopher. Smith overtly suggests that Flaherty’s professional career rests on his complying with his diagnosis. Without mincing words, Smith advises him to go along to get along, or get out.

At the end of the play, Christopher still maintains that the orange is blue and is released nevertheless. The sadder realization is that the doctors who’ve been entrusted to treat patients like him don’t know realize the color of their own judgments.