Kabuki Macbeth

Tonight we went to see a performance of "Kabuki Macbeth" at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater Upstairs on navy Pier. The review in the Chicago Sun-Times was enthusiastic and accurate -- but I felt that the performances trod dangerously close to parody of the kabuki style, and at times crossed the line and became almost campy.

The evening stood in marked contrast to the rest of my day, which was spent on such mundane activities as paying bills, renewing car licenses, tidying my desk, etc, etc, etc.

Theatre of late

In the past few weeks we have seen three good/excellent plays.

"To The Green Fields Beyond" by Nick Whitby was far and away the best of the bunch. It is an eloquent and moving anti-war attack set in the context of the tank warfare of World War I.

"The Story" by Tracey Scott Wilson is well produced acted, but the story did not capture my attention in the same way as the other two plays. It was a tad slick and glib. It raised issues, but skirted around them.

"The Subject Was Roses" by Frank Gilroy is a powerful family drama that brought to my mind the English "kitchen sink drama" movement that emerged when I was in my teens (see -- I have not yet lost my memory). Strong stuff. The venue - the Writer's Theatre at the back of the bookstore "Books on Vernon" in Glencoe - is tiny. Only three rows of seats. Made us feel we were actually in the kitchen.

The quality of theatre in Chicago continues to surprise me. On Tuesday night we are off the see "Kabuki Lady Macbeth". Report to follow.

The Tagine was great and other thoughts

OK, so now I can post again.

I had a call yesterday from an old college friend who now lives in Israel. He was trying out a form of Telephony over the Internet known as Voice over IP (VoIP). The sound quality was terrible!

But at least the chicken was good. The recipe I used was from Cooks's Illustrated. It is not on the net, but here is a close approximation:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_16461,00.html

My recipe was similar, but involved browning the chicken in the spice rub. Do not believe the 15min prep time. It took me ages to prepare and saute the chicken -- which is probably why they skipped that step!

I have been remiss

I stopped posting for a while -- but I am back now.I wish I could say it was by popular demand, but the demand is not great :-)
At least, I am trying to be back! Google's system is not posting. I cannot update this Blog. Of course, if you read this, the problem is fixed :-)

The news for today (friday March 25) is that I cooked a Moroccan chicken dish called a Chicken Tagine.

I will keep posting - if I can :-(