It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about the new revival of Aspects of Love at London’s Southwark Playhouse, on until February 9. Run, don’t walk, to miss it.

Certain demons down at Bad Place headquarters are waiting for the creators of “Aspects of Love” – Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, and Don Black – to join them in their circus of torture, and have been ever since the show was written in 1989 (based on a novella by David Garnett. They will move into the neighborhood where Jared from Subway is heading, along with the guy who created Girls Gone Wild. They’ll all fit together nicely. And into their little torture neighborhood, we will add whoever though it was a good idea to revive this monstrosity of a show at the Southwark Playhouse this season. A rare miss from a theatre whose work we usually adore, “Aspects of Love” is an affront to decent humans. Sure, we are realizing with each passing day that there are fewer and fewer decent humans among us in this brave new world of ours, but that doesn’t excuse this portrayal of domestic abuse, misogyny, incest and more as normal, or worse, as anything remotely resembling love. 
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It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Doctor Faustus, playing at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until February 2. 

​I find it quite amusing that the current production of Christopher Marlowe’s classic Doctor Faustus is playing at Shakespeare’s Globe, because I like to imagine the misters M and S (not to be confused with M&S) as terrible rivals who spat whenever they heard the other one’s name, reviled at the very thought of him. So Marlowe would be like WTF give me my own theatre for my plays; they’re just as important! Spoiler: they aren’t. I’m sorry and I really feel for Rupert Everett in Saving Private Shakespeare but Chris’s works do not have the everlasting genius or impact that Billy’s have. His Doctor Faustus was written in the late 1500s right before he died, and it seems more like a last-ditch effort to show the gods that he agrees that hell is bad oh please don’t send me there, instead of it being interesting dramatically. There’s no emotional journey or impact or sense of consequences – even though it’s about being doomed to hell. It’s pretty surprising that literally the biggest stakes imaginable appear so humdrum. This production has attempted to liven things up by employing the hottest production ploy of the season – switching the gender of the lead role – but it adds nothing.
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It’s officially my favorite season – awards season! This evening, January 6, brings us another round of the favorite game of the world’s most inane entertainment reporters: The Golden Globes. It’s that thing where the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominates their favorite celebrities (or celeb spouses, banking on the other half showing up to their party) that happen to be in movies or television this year for whatever awards they can squeeze them into and then they sit back and laugh as the categories and often winners make no real sense and you’re like excuse me what but no one actually cares at all because even though it’s nonsense the Globes are the most enjoyable awards show of the season and everyone is drunk and laughing the whole time so there’s no real harm done, except to the sanctity of awards for famous people which, like, isn’t that important to sanctify in the scheme of things, you know? 
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It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Part 2 of The Inheritance, playing along with Part 1 until January 19 at London’s Noel Coward Theatre.

Before I saw Part 1 of The Inheritance, I had been putting off seeing the show for a very long time because I couldn’t imagine that it was worth the serious time investment: two separate theatre visits of 3 ½ hours each. I said stupid things like ‘if I’m going to see a superlong two-part show it’s going to be Angels in America’ and ‘but they’re not even singing!’ As we learned a few weeks ago, I was hella wrong, because I found Part 1 to be one of the most gripping, moving, full-blooded shows I’ve ever seen. In the few weeks I had between seeing Part 1 and Part 2, I again wished I could put off seeing the second half, but now for incredibly different reasons: I didn’t want to be finished with this story or have to say goodbye to these characters. Spending so much time with this play, the story became part of my mind the way a book does, the way dedicating so much personal time to a book results in it becoming a part of you. I didn’t want it to end. And I was simultaneously scared of how it would end, because this play isn’t exactly a romp. But even though Part 2 is not as great - after the glorious perfection that was Part 1, no second half could really ever measure up – it’s still riveting and emotional and, ultimately and most importantly, satisfying.
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​It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Antony & Cleopatra, at London’s National Theatre until January 19.

​Does anyone else always forget that Billy Shakes wrote plays about historical figures that weren’t kings of England? Well, I honestly forgot that Shakespeare wrote a play about Mark Antony and Cleopatra and their weird manipulative love that drove Rome to war and them to their deaths. I was too busy reading the fun ones. But despite my ignorance of this play, and despite the fact that this production of Antony & Cleopatra clocks in at 3 ½ hours with only one intermission (whereas The Inheritance Part 1 ​is (10 minutes) shorter and has two), we had to see the big f-ing thing because it stars RALPH FIENNES! That’s pronounced ‘rafe’, to rhyme with ‘the English paaaaaaaaatient’, which if you are like me you hear Billy Crystal singing every time anyone mentions Ralph Fiennes. Seeing him onstage for hours, let’s just say I sang this Oscar opening number (in my head) a whole heck of a lot. Anyway, with Ralph playing Mark Antony, and with Tony-winner Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra, this production seemed like a must-see. Turns out, it’s more of a ‘see if you have the time but don’t run or risk injury getting there’ kinda thing. 
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​It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Inheritance, Part 1, which has transferred from the Young Vic to the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre, playing there until January 19.

​I have put off seeing The Inheritance for actual years now. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but Matthew Lopez’s two-part, sweeping look at today’s culture of gay men, and how they grapple with their position in life compared to the generation that came before them and paved the way, is…long. It’s really long. And it’s in two parts, so you have to go back to the theatre another night to finish the story. And I got things to do! So I put it off. If I’m going to sit through two plays at nearly four hours each, I said to myself, about gay men and AIDs and stuff, I’m going to see Angels in America. (It might sound pretty narrow-minded to compare to the two works, like ‘oh they’re both about gay men so you’re going to compare them, you bigot’ but please, tell me of another eight-hour play in two parts, I’ll wait.) Also, the hype was ludicrous. I assumed there was no way this is ‘the best play of the year, and of next year too, probably’, to quote a mainstream critic (one of those). But I finally decided to bite the bullet and start this epic journey into hours and hours of theatre, and you know what? It’s probably the best play of the year, and of next year too.
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I know, I'm going super big and bold with that title but you know what? It is 8 sleeps till Christmas and as 'Love, Actually' told us, "it's Christmas, and at Christmas, you tell the truth" (there's a lot of weird shit in that movie but that's probably the strangest statement passed off as universal knowledge). And that's the truth, babies! Club Mexicana, formerly at the Dalston bar Pamela and now at the Spread Eagle Pub in Hackney, is serving up the best vegan food of any restaurant in the city. That's an incredible feat, considering it's Mexican (or "Mexican-inspired") food, a cuisine London just cannot do well (it's understandable given how far we are from Mexico but still). But for Club Mexicana, every single dish is a stellar achievement. Everything we tried absolutely wowed us, and even though we were so full we wanted to shout for another round of everything. If this new location were closer to me (it's a PITA) I'd be there every week.
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It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are taking a second look at the West End revival of Sondheim’s Company, which has extended its much-celebrated run and is eyeing Broadway.

​Theatre followers will know that the current revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company is the most celebrated show in London right now, at least. It might be the most celebrated show in the world, given how reviewers are positively falling over themselves to exalt it more than everyone else, trying to get closer to it so some of its glory can rub off on them OR SOMETHING. I don’t know why they’re doing it, because I am literally the only reviewer not joining the overhype club. As we saw a few months ago, I thought this gender-switched revival of Company was…fine. Not life-changing, and certainly not revolutionary in the musical theatre realm as so many are claiming, as they’re distracted by the main character now being female and overlooking that, even with the switch, it remains an out-dated, old-fashioned, kind of sexist show. So why did I see it again?
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When I last lived in Philadelphia, I lived in the Rittenhouse Square area, right near the big (only?) Barnes and Noble on the corner of 18th and Walnut. Literally the day after I ended my lease, HipCityVeg, a super cool vegan 'healthy but fun food' joint, opened across the street from my old apartment. They had burgers, wraps, fries, shakes, all really fantastic too. (Of course their management is questionable at best but this isn't a post about them.) So of course, of COURSE, I have to tell you that I used to live on Commercial Street, right outside Spitalfields market, right across the street from As Nature Intended, the organic shoppe. And lo, what has opened up right on that block recently? A super cool vegan 'healthy but fun food' joint, what else? Let me know if you're looking to open up a similar place and I'll tell you when I move from my current house, since I guess that's the game the universe has chosen for me. Genesis, this newest addition to London's vegan, organic, swanky, instagram-friendly restaurant scene, is a great addition to the neighborhood, but it's a good thing I don't live as close to it anymore, because it's way too expensive. 
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It’s Theatre Thursday! And it’s Thanksgiving, so today we are talking about a show I’m thankful for, quite  possibly my favorite show in London right now, Hadestown.

Like with our recently reviewed Twelfth Night, I’ve been waiting a while to see what everyone in New York has been raving about regarding this modernish musical retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. People last season said that if Hadestown had opened on Broadway then, it would have beaten The Band’s Visit for the Tony, and I was like ‘Umm Kulthum is that possible?’ I’m a huge mythology buff, and I still remember the words to the title song from our fifth grade mythology play “It’s All Greek To Me” (forking excellent title, right?). My favorite line was “Zeus was their king and Hera was their queen/sometimes they were wonderful sometimes they were mean.” So true guys. And one of my many roles (I was a child star) in that play was Persephone’s best friend, so her myth has always been special for me (and probably is responsible in part for my longstanding hatred of men who want to control women). Combining mythology with an original score, Hadestown is kind of brilliant on paper, and luckily it’s extremely brilliant in real life. It’s the only musical in London producing such thrilling theatrical magic onstage that feels incredibly new and fresh, all while being not only an interesting take on a classic romance but also an allegory of capitalism vs. socialism. I KNOW. 
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