Midmod Musings

Happiness walks in on tiptoe... then falls on its ass

Tonight, I saw for the first time the musical Flora, the Red Menace. By Kander and Ebb, the team who wrote Cabaret and Chicago, the original 1965 production earned Liza Minnelli her first Tony Award. I was excited to see this rarely produced show. The production, by Lyric Stage in Irving, TX, had received glowing reviews.

All I thought I knew about the show was its connection to Liza and the one gorgeous ballad, "A Quiet Thing." I've heard many a cabaret artist tackle this gem of a song, not to mention Barbra Streisand, and it is truly one of my favorite Broadway ballads. The lyrics are among the most beautiful show lyrics I know, expressing surprise at finding one's dream come true...

"When it all comes true
Just the way you planned
It's funny, but the bells don't ring.
It's a quiet thing.
When you hold the world
In your trembling hand
You think you'd hear a choir sing.
It's a quiet thing..."

I watched the first two thirds of the first act with eager anticipation, waiting to see how the drama unfolded, how the romance bloomed, leading us to this sweet, glorious expression of hushed awe when "happiness walks in on tiptoe." I was ready to swoon, even if our heroine had fallen for a stammering Commie organizer-slash-muralist.

Imagine my surprise to discover that the song is about getting a job at a department store.

Granted, the play is set in the Depression, and landing a job was important, and it was a good job...who wouldn't want to become a fashion illustrator moments after joining the Communist party to impress a boy?

But wow. Just... wow. You have no idea how depressed I am to have learned that it's a song about gainful employment. The story in my head all these years not knowing the show was so much...better.

At long last, love

In 1997, I think it was, I was cast in a dinner theater production of "Same Time, Next Year" at a resort in Green Lake, Wisconsin, called the Heidel House ("Your Little Heidel Away from Home"). Let's ignore for the moment the question of whether I was credible as a charmingly adulterous heterosexual, and that I was cast opposite an honest-to-goodness crazy person in a two-person play. (I learned to pray in the moments before the lights came up on us.) Let's talk instead about antiquing in rural Wisconsin. Nothing beats it!

The trip from the Twin Cities to the Heidel House took about 4-1/2 hours, depending on how much temptation I felt to press my luck with the notoriously well-enforced Wisconsin speed limits. At approximately the halfway point was Tomah. This small town "where the I divides" (the I being I-94 and I-90) is probably best known for Humbird Cheese, with its killer 5-year cheddar and its giant mouse mascot. Right next to the Humbird shop is the Tomah Antique Mall. 

On my first trip out to Green Lake, I stopped there (surprise!) and looked around. I instantly coveted three items: a chartreuse 1950s Fiesta ware ashtray, a chartreuse American Modern covered pitcher, and a curious little Red Wing ashtray shaped like a tepee. Bright orange, with a drippy glaze that screamed "1960s!!", it did not fit in with what was then my 1930s-40s-50s aesthetic. But I "got" it instantly. You stuck your cigarette in one of the little rests and the smoke would funnel up the chimney and out the top. Cool, right? I wanted to smoke just to try it out. (At the time, I occasionally did smoke. I was an actor. It was a thing.) I vowed that I would buy it once I got my first paycheck from the show.

Sadly, when I went back, all three items had sold. In the intervening years, I gave up my Fiesta ware collection and I found myself a covered water pitcher, but I never came upon another Red Wing tepee like that. I saw a few in a hideous gloppy green glaze, which I couldn't stomach. I did find one orange one once, but two of the little cigarette rests had been broken off. (That would never do.) I never stopped wanting one, even though I more or less gave up smoking and it still didn't fit in with my predominant aesthetic.

And today, I found one! In, of all places, Frisco, Texas. In an antique mall that sold primarily rusted metal Texas Lone Star yard art, ladies leopard-print garments, soy candles and potpourri. One dealer had two shelves of Red Wing and Rum Rill pottery. I couldn't believe it. The dealer must have been a Midwest transplant. Priced $30 less than the one I saw 14 years ago (yes, of course I remember the price) and with a 20% discount offered by the dealer, I could not resist it. In mint condition, it even maintained its original foil sticker. And now it sits proudly atop my Heywood Wakefield china cabinet.

And no, I didn't start smoking again. I've repurposed the ashtray as a tealight holder.

Sprucing up the house

Dallas winter doldrums had set in. The chill. The gloom. The precipitation that's neither snow, nor sleet, nor rain, nor ice but manages to be very slippery and turns a dog walk into a death march. I needed something new. Something perky. Something to get me through it all.

I should have been content with having my one-act play, "Ghost Dog Whisperer," earn a slot in the TeCo Theatrical Productions New Play Competition. (It's running at Bishop Arts Theater through February 27.) But no. That didn't do it.

In January, after six months of looking at enormous cardboard moving boxes, Paul and I finally unpacked my larger artworks and hung them on the wall. "Leda," a lithograph by Italian-born French artist Rene Gruau, now enlivens the huge blank wall of our rental home. It's like having an old friend back again. Her sultry, come-hither glance, her gloved arm with bare shoulder slung seductively over the couch, her casually draped ermine stole... Is she naked on the other side of that dazzling red couch? Or is she wearing a fabulous Dior gown? If she stood up, would we notice anything besides her ridiculously oversized swan hat anyway?

Alas, not even Leda's wiles could overcome my winter blahs.

I patrolled local thrift and antique shops. Nothing. There was a brief flicker of excitement when I stumbled upon a set of restyled ice blue Casual China by Russel Wright at the consignment shop on Forest Lane, but none of the interesting pieces (a gumbo bowl, a soup bowl, a 2-qt. casserole) were priced. As soon as I showed interest, the Nice Lady came by with a price gun and marked them at antique store prices. I walked away. "Do you know what these are?" asked the Nice Lady, clearly shocked that my interest had vanished. "Oh yes," I replied. What I didn't say: "So I know that I can get them cheaper on eBay, you opportunistic harridan."

Fortunately, two things resulted from my quest: I found a lovely gift for Paul for our third anniversary (crystal and glass, according to the modern method of celebrating such things). Paul loves Iittala glass from Finland. Having grown up with a set Tapio Wirkkala "Ultima Thule" glassware, I have an appreciation for it as well. (I remember Dad drinking his orange juice out of the slender, icicle-like juice glasses growing up, and, in later years, Mom sipping Chivas out of a lowball.) I stumbled on a dealer at Forestwood Antique Mall who had a bevy of vintage Iittala. I felt instinctively that Paul would enjoy a Timo Sarpaneva "Festivo" candlestick. The rough molded glass looks like it was hewn from a block of ice, except for the top, which is smooth and clear like the surface of a frozen lake. It has terrific presence, and the wintry look of the glass contrasts beautifully with the promised warmth of a taper.

For myself, I had to resort to the Interwebs. I managed to source two spectacular pieces of Red Wing "Spruce" dinnerware: an oversize 12" salad bowl and a stick-handled covered casserole.

Designed by Charles Murphy, "Spruce" is an elusive line. With serving pieces that rise off the table on little tripod feet, they evoke a certain late 1950s swank that some call "Sputnik Modern." The pattern - a handpainted series of abstract, eye-like shapes on a blue speckled ground - is unlike any other Red Wing pattern. A while back, I had the chance to buy a Spruce water pitcher from my friend Todd, but passed, thinking it would only make me want to collect the whole line. He thought that was silly of me -- why not just buy a representative piece or two for display? That thought haunted me ever since: A), because it was a way I hadn't viewed the world before ("You don't have to have a service for eight to collect a thing?") and B) because I really really wanted me some Spruce. Finding these two items at a great price, I could not let the opportunity pass again. They are striking!