Month: July 2008

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Iron Man

Like most effective art, Mark Nowell’s Open Container, a massive metal structure that once dominated the southwest corner of Union and McLean, stirred up strong feelings. People either loved it or hated it with very few fence-riders. It’s gone now, but Nowell’s distinctive and not always controversial work can be spotted all over town. The silvery, neo-nouveau fence he built for the Maria Montessori School on Mud Island snakes elegantly toward the harbor, and the twisted metal flame he installed in the Edge brought that neighborhood a distinctive arts-district flavor. He’s constructed dangerous-looking office furniture for Memphis businesses and put warped metal and marble pedestals in homes. His artfully imagined security doors, which can be spotted in and around the downtown area, are as clever as they are formidable. He’ll soon be unveiling two more large outdoor works created in conjunction with the UrbanArt Commission at the Hickory Hill Police Precinct and the Katie Saxton Community Center.

Not all of Nowell’s work is intimidating and gigantically imagined. Some of it is small, meditative, and personal. “Boondoggler,” an exhibit opening on July 4th and running through July 31st at Material gallery, will feature smaller sculptures and drawings, showcasing the artist’s gentler if not necessarily softer side.

Opening reception for Mark Nowell’s “Boondoggler,” Friday, July 4th, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Material, 2553 Broad. For additional Information call 219-1943.

Categories
Music Music Features

May-December Sounds

In theory, a duet album between a notorious heavy-metal bad boy (Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant) and a prim bluegrass angel (Appalachian crossover queen Alison Krauss) might be an odd coupling. But Raising Sand, the long-in-the-planning, late-2007 collaboration between these two singular voices and mutual admirers works something fierce.

There was always a trad quality, after all, beneath Zeppelin’s bombast — a mix of British folk and American blues whose collision isn’t far from Krauss’ native white American mountain music.

In his adventurous post-Zep career, Plant has dabbled in all sorts of roots forms — Delta blues alongside old cohort Jimmy Page, old-time rock-and-roll in the Honey-drippers, and traditional Middle Eastern music on his own.

As for Krauss, the bluegrass prodigy who was introduced to the wider world on the terrific 1995 compilation Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection has taken to celebrity, morphing into a saucier, sexier model of her old self in time for her close-up on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. And Krauss’ ostensible modesty has belied a prolific drive.

So, Raising Sand wasn’t really much of a stretch for these two after all. For Plant, this low-key roots record is probably more of a natural fit at age 59 than a Led Zeppelin reunion. And for Krauss, the pairing fits neatly into a pattern of artistic ambition that has driven her for the past decade or so. Nobody here is seeking a rehab job, just a rewarding one-off, which is what they achieve.

Both Plant and Krauss, within their native worlds, represent purity of a sort — a brand of vocal authenticity. But both singers tone down their signature sounds here. Plant’s high-pitched hyena-in-heat wail is eschewed for a softer, deeper sound. Krauss’ bell-like voice pierces through occasionally, but mostly she works on entwining it with Plant.

Raising Sand was produced by T-Bone Burnett, who had helmed the O Brother juggernaut, and he’s definitely back in producer-as-curator mold for his Nashville recorded super-session. He assembles an ace band and, with them, concocts an atmospheric sound whose off-kilter grooves come across like a more middlebrow, more accessible version of roots experimentalists Latin Playboys (a side project of Los Lobos, whom Burnett has produced). The featured hired hands here are Marc Ribot, with his tasteful downtown skronk guitar, and Norman Blake, with his backwoods acoustics.

Burnett puts this crew to work on fresh arrangements of semi-obscure material — buried chestnuts from the Everly Brothers and Gene Clark, deep cuts from Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt. Stuff like that.

The opening “Rich Woman” sets a tone, with distant percussion and Ribot’s quivery guitar setting a slinky groove for Plant and Krauss’ pitch-perfect but understated harmony. Basic sound and style in place, the album gets more playful and more varied. The following “Killing the Blues,” penned by Chris Isaak sideman Rowland Salley, is a highlight, the voices beginning to separate slightly and becoming more distinct.

Krauss deploys her own fiddle on the moody, carnivalesque “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” penned by Burnett’s ex, Sam Phillips. (No, not the deceased Memphis music patriarch.) The pace picks up with “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On),” a sunny bit of break-up-song rockabilly from the Everly Brothers that finds Krauss more loose and rhythmic than maybe ever before. She sounds more like herself on the relatively straight country of Clark’s “Through the Morning, Through the Night,” her voice a thing of crystalline beauty on verses, Plant joining her on the chorus.

Raising Sand peaks toward the end, when Plant takes the lead with a Honeydrippers-esque reading of the New Orleans R&B “Fortune Teller,” and then the duo comes together for a sweet reading of the Mel Tillis-penned, Everly-recorded ballad “Stick With Me Baby.”

The album concludes in a decidedly down-home mood. Little Milton’s “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” morphs into a country-rock showcase where Krauss sings from a male perspective while also finding her sassy side. The ending “Your Long Journey” is mountain gospel that speaks to the duo’s dual roots. They conclude the album in perfect, impregnable harmony.

Raising Sand fits comfortably into what has, over the past decade, become almost a new genre and a profitable one at a time where under-30s can’t be trusted to purchase the music they acquire: prestige albums for upscale, adult listeners. It’s a genre that’s probably made up of equal parts sound and self-image.

From O Brother and Norah Jones to comeback albums from living and late legends such as Solomon Burke, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Loretta Lynn, these records always project Quality and always get great press. But once you hear past the concept, the artistic success rate tends to be more hit and miss. Raising Sand is one of the better examples of the genre, though it isn’t perfect.

Plant and Krauss make a beautiful vocal couple. They never oversing, and they create a relaxed feel. Raising Sand doesn’t reach the offhand heights the pair is sneakily striving for — it’s too painstaking and precise for that — but it’s a damn good record anyway.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Mud Island Amphitheatre

Tuesday, July 8th

Show starts at 7:30 p.m.; tickets $56

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Two takes on indie-rock from Seattle’s Sub Pop

You don’t have to believe the hippy-dippy crap about “old souls” to wonder if the bearded young men from Seattle that lead the brand-new band Fleet Foxes aren’t channeling some kind of ancient musical sage — like maybe early Neil Young or his sometime partners Crosby, Stills & Nash. The comparisons could continue — Mamas & Papas, anybody? — but they aren’t really fair and should not come without a qualification, i.e., Fleet Foxes have released one of the best albums of the year.

What might trip people up is that while the instruments employed are traditional in rock and folk — acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, piano, tambourine, lots of tom drums — the emphasis is on voices. The band calls its music “baroque harmonic pop jams,” and, outside of top-flight choral competitions, it’s not likely that you’ve heard harmonies soar like they do on Fleet Foxes. Lead singer Robin Pecknold is practically mystical in the way his voice — so huge and yet controlled — finds a way to pierce your heart.

In many respects, Pecknold and his pals reject the shaggy, psychedelic aspect that marked the recent freak-folk movement. These songs are put together with a professional sheen and construction that’s anything but loose. It makes for drama on a grand scale. Listen to the way the held-back instruments burst open and mimic a bright sunrise on the opening track, “Sun It Rises.” The dramatic stops and starts of the heart-wrenching prodigal-son song, “He Doesn’t Know Why,” are breathtaking.

Lyrically, Fleet Foxes falls in with the folk tradition of dealing with and dwelling on nature. The sublime and ominous “White Winter Hymnal” has children — or is it birds? — marching through snow. “Meadowlarks” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” sound like they were written hundreds of years ago by writers who had never seen concrete.

Certainly some will carp that Fleet Foxes are too pristine and too clean for a rock or even a folk band. The rest of us will treat this masterly music the same way we would treat the sight of a grand cathedral of trees or a sun-drenched valley — with something close to awe. — Werner Trieschmann

Grade: A

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Record Reviews

In 2005, Wolf Parade emerged as one of the most popular bands in Montreal’s bustling indie-rock scene, second only to the Arcade Fire and sharing DNA with Final Fantasy, Picastro, and the Besnard Lakes. Their debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was produced by Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock and hung on the alternating vocals between Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug, who claims one of indie-rock’s most distinctive yelps. That year, they seemed to rewrite indie dance-punk as frenetic paranoia music that could nevertheless accommodate a sense of noisy grandeur.

In the intervening years, Wolf Parade has spawned countless offshoots, including Sunset Rubdown, Handsome Furs, Swan Lake, Megasoid, Johnny & the Moon, and the still-active Frog Eyes. Perhaps they have stretched themselves too thin locally. Their follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, lacks the nervy zip of its predecessor. Instead of getting in your face, these new songs occasionally sound content just to sit there, thanks largely to the band’s too-slick production, which buffs away too many of their rough edges and drains the chemistry between Boeckner and Krug.

“Fine Young Cannibals” devolves into a staid guitar solo that recalls Stephen Malkmus’ jam-band noodling, and the mid-tempo “Bang Your Drum” never lives up to its title. If Apologies was both a cerebral and a physical experience — heady art-rock that wanted you dancing — At Mount Zoomer is too brainy and insufficiently rhythmic. When the two singers trade off vocals on “Kissing the Beehive” and break into a tense, bass-driven groove to close out the album, it’s too little, too late.

Wolf Parade may have softened their art-rock attack, but their artillery can nevertheless be as deadly as ever. Hadji Bakara’s buzzing synths rip “Language City” to tatters, and stand-out “California Dreamer” alternates between Boeckner’s restrained verses and headlong refrains, constantly shifting and feinting to keep you off-guard. Likewise, “An Animal in Your Case” dives and swoops dramatically, its din of dirty guitars and blaring synths pushing Boeckner’s vocals beyond their usual mania. Far from a sophomore slump, At Mount Zoomer is the dreaded, difficult follow-up — more demanding but less rewarding. ­

— Stephen Deusner

Grade: B

Categories
Special Sections

Beale Street Tonight

CREDIT: Stephen Strathdee | dreamstime.com

The 4th of July is not only a celebration of freedom. For Memphians, it means hot weather, big beers, and a huge fireworks show. The celebration takes place on the river at Tom Lee Park from 3 to 11 p.m. There will be a “kid zone” with activities for tykes and beer and bands for grown-ups. Local groups the Nina Makris Band, C-Note, Tom, Dick, & Harry, The Soul Shockers, and Ten Years will perform. Admission is free, and the fireworks will begin around 9:30 p.m. Afterward, take a walk down historic Beale Street and party like it’s 2008!

Categories
Book Features Books

The Big Easy?

When Julia Reed met the man of her dreams and, at the age of 42, finally got married, she realized it was time to move on — and out: out of a former slave quarters off Bourbon Street in New Orleans. The apartment sat secluded behind a Creole cottage, and it was your classic French Quarter setup: charming and crumbling.

Reed — a native of Greenville, Mississippi; a senior writer at Vogue; a contributing editor at Newsweek; and a food writer for The New York Times — loves to entertain, but her oven was the size of a tin can. Her dishwasher wasn’t hooked up to a water line. And her microwave … well, she didn’t have a microwave. There wasn’t enough counter space. But there was no end to the noise.

Located between the two biggest gay bars in New Orleans, nights inside Reed’s place were spent thumping to the disco beat; mornings to the sound of a tone-deaf nun singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at the nearby Cathedral School. Add to this the “triage unit” Reed’s landlord had hired to make repairs. If it wasn’t bricklayers at the crack of dawn, it was roofers who’d leave in the afternoon without tarping over the holes they’d made. Given a rain storm, Reed’s rugs would get soaked and her books water damaged. For further damage, factor in the wildlife below and above ground: subterranean termites and flying Formosan termites.

Time, then, for Reed and her husband John to search the Garden District for a house, which they finally found: a Greek Revival at the corner of First and Chestnut — another New Orleans classic but one in need of mega repairs. And time, according to Reed’s The House on First Street (Ecco/HarperCollins), for the real troubles to begin.

Start with Eddie, the couple’s contractor, and his team of immigrant workmen. You want a room torn to bits? No problem. You want a room painted once and right, outdoor paving laid according to plan, or a roof that doesn’t (repeatedly) leak? Eddie is not your man, but he was Reed’s. She threatened, repeatedly, to kill him.

And then there was Antoine, a handyman with a heart — when he wasn’t in jail. The charges: public drunkenness or possession of crack. (Reed bailed him out, repeatedly.)

And then there was the day, 10 months into the renovation of the house and four weeks after the couple finally moved in, when a hurricane hit, then the levees broke. It was 2004.

Reed and her husband, a lawyer, were the lucky ones, and she knows it. The couple fled for a time to her parents’ house in Greenville, and they returned to New Orleans days after Katrina to find their house in one piece. But major areas of the city … You know the story. The House on First Street is subtitled My New Orleans Story, but it’s the city’s story too in the aftermath of Katrina, with Reed filing early, onsite reports for Newsweek; Reed traveling with and delivering food to National Guard units; and Reed tracking the whereabouts and safety of those who’d served not only in her kitchen but as her friends. And then there are the chefs of the city, who got their restaurants running in the face of terrible conditions.

New Orleans’ road to recovery continues to this day. But the road to The House on First Street was a hard one too, because in the epilogue, we read of Reed’s no end of rotten luck. Roughly a year ago, her book was ready for the publisher. But a burglar got his hands on some things: the author’s TVs, some jewelry — and her computer. She’d backed up exactly one chapter of her book.

Renovation of a house. Recovery of a whole city. It’s all in how you look at it, but try rewriting a book from scratch. Reed did. She had to. And it’s hard to imagine the lost version being funnier, more exasperating, and more affecting. For fans of Reed’s previous book, the best-selling Queen of the Turtle Derby, I don’t have to tell you.

Julia Reed will be signing The House on First Street at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on Wednesday, July 9th, at 6 p.m. She’ll also be at Square Books in Oxford the next day at 5 p.m. But before Reed’s booksignings in Memphis and Oxford, the Flyer had a chance to talk to her by phone from New York City, where she was scheduled for a booksigning. It was the third stop on a national tour. But the interview ran into a problem: the whereabouts of Julia Reed. Twenty minutes after the scheduled time for our talk, the publicist was saying that Reed was trying to call, but there was no word from Reed. Then there was, with an apology for not calling on time and a kindly request. I’ll leave it to Reed to describe:

Julia Reed: This is the wayward Julia. I’m so sorry for not calling you on time. My phone died. I was on the street in New York. I’ve literally had to duck inside a friend’s apartment to make this call.

The Flyer: Thanks, and that’s nice of you to do.

Oh no, it’s not nice.

Why not?

Because today has been crazy. I’m going to ask if you could postpone this interview until tomorrow.

Fine. I can get back to cleaning my apartment.

I know the feeling. I was cleaning the pile on my desk last week, and I found unopened invitations to last year’s Christmas parties. My office is a very scary place. Tomorrow then …

[Tomorrow]

It’s the wayward Julia again … finally. You must have a really clean apartment by now.

I do. And today’s better for you than yesterday?

I’m fine. My book party last night, which was supposed to last from 6 to 8, ended up lasting till midnight. But here I am. Slightly worse in voice but not by much. I’d better start behaving. If I act like this for every signing on this tour, I’ll be dead.

The House on First Street is about a home renovation, and it’s about your adopted hometown, New Orleans, during the worst natural disaster this country has seen. But it’s also a homecoming of sorts for you, back to Greenville, Mississippi, where you grew up.

I left Greenville when I was 16 to go to boarding school, and I pretty much never came back. I worked in Washington, moved to New York. I was 44 when Katrina hit, so, at 44, when you move back in with your parents … well, that’s something you don’t count on happening.

But it was sort of nice. When I left home, the last place I wanted to be was where my parents were. So, after an interlude of 30 years, you appreciate it a lot more. It was a silver lining.

There was lots of talk after Katrina about who should have been FEMA director. Almost anyone but the one we had. My father … He would have made a better director. He was great. He immediately got wireless Internet for my husband and me, new phones.

While your mother was peeling tomatoes to feed the hundreds of those in Greenville who fled New Orleans.

Well, that was just obsessive, crazy. God forbid we have another hurricane. But if you are a refugee, a good place to go is Greenville, Mississippi.

What’s this about having to rewrite The House on First Street?

The book was due on a Monday. On the preceding Thursday, nobody was in the house for about one hour. A man broke in through a kitchen window, stole two or three TVs, all my jewelry — and my computer.

When my husband John got home and called to say the house had been broken into, it was like … the TVs are gone. That was really no big deal. The jewelry, which I had a huge freakout about later … At the time, I could deal with it. But when he literally could not get out the last line of what he was trying to tell me, I was convinced he was going to tell me my dog Henry was dead.

Julia Reed

“No,” he said. “The burglar kenneled him up!”

Henry’s so friendly my neighbor calls him the burglar’s assistant. He probably licked the guy’s face when he came in the window.

So, it was the computer that John was trying to tell me about. After the initial, complete, and total shock (and my not-lovely reaction, let me just say) … The best place for something like this to happen is New Orleans.

Why is that?

When they heard about the burglary, all my writer friends were like, “Oh Jesus, I would jump in the river if that happened to me, kill myself.” Whatever. In New Orleans, things are so bad that if you’re not dead or you didn’t lose your family or your house to Katrina, nothing really bad has happened to you. It’s a good place to keep your perspective.

So, I thought, Okay, I’ll just rewrite the book. I did say last night at the signing that I’d be happy to do something just once. My husband and I renovated a house, and then we sort of re-renovated it. I wrote a book, and it got stolen, so I rewrote it.

I thought you were going to tell me that the computer was recovered, and your book was too.

Hell no! Are you kidding me? The New Orleans police department?

They got fingerprints. They got the guy’s footprint. And I was like, this is great! But one police guy said, “Lady, this ain’t CSI.”

New Orleans didn’t even have a crime lab at the time. It took another year for me to rewrite the book.

Does the rewrite differ from the first version?

Who knows? You’re not the first person to ask me that, and I should have a better answer, but I don’t.

I don’t think it’s much different. Basically, it’s your life you’re writing about, and if you’re not somebody like James Frey, the story remains the same.

When your troubles began with the house and then Katrina hit, did you know at that point that you had a book?

I thought: renovating a house. It’s so not interesting. It’s everybody’s story. I had a renovation like everybody in the world has a renovation, which is a bad renovation. It’s not worth writing about — unless you have a hurricane or you live in Provence. My friend the artist Bill Dunlap — a hilarious guy, he’s from Mississippi — he described my book as “A Year in Provence meets The Poseidon Adventure.”

But a week before the storm, I was with my agent, talking about peddling a book idea: maybe my growing up in the Mississippi Delta, which used to be a much richer, more thriving place. We had an economy back then. Greenville was a great port city. We had a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. Home of so many writers.

Then the storm hit, and I thought, Why am I writing about my former home when my current home is suddenly a lot more interesting? So I wrote about it immediately for Newsweek and for Vogue.

I knew that Doug Brinkley had gotten his contract for The Great Deluge. And there were other strictly storm books. So many books. My publisher wanted a book about New Orleans that would have staying power. I don’t know if I’ve done that. It is very much a description of a place before, during, and after. In a way, I’m hoping it stands up as a love letter.

And it is that — a testament to the people of New Orleans.

I’m a lot more optimistic about the future of the town now than I was before the storm. There were things like the school system, for example, that you could not have fixed without it literally being blown away. That’s a continuing story.

A lot of people saw the horror show the week after Katrina, and for them that was the end of the story. The city was under water. FEMA failed. Blah blah blah. What I still get a lot is: “How could New Orleans have reelected that mayor?” It’s a good question. We have a buffoonish mayor who’s an idiot.

But I didn’t want the book to be political. The thing about New Orleans is: We made our own problems. Folks — the so-called social elite or economic elite — had opted out of any civic involvement. They were going to spend their life savings on their daughter having a successful Mardi Gras debut. That sort of thing.

That is a recipe for disaster, and we got a disaster. We dodged the hurricane, but after the levees failed, what was writ large was what a cesspool the city had been before the storm.

Now everyone with a remote backbone and brain realizes you get the government you deserve. And now you’ve got a level of volunteerism and civic responsibility that never existed before. You’ve got garden-club ladies lobbying the legislature when the government fails us, whereas before it would have been an eyeroll and “Oh, that’s just Louisiana and that’s our governor.”

The feds are doing us a huge favor too by arresting every single corrupt politician we’ve got left. You’ve read about the money in Bill Jefferson’s freezer. Jefferson’s whole family is now under indictment!

Sounds like Memphis.

Memphis has a lot in common with New Orleans.

You know the city well?

When I was a kid we went to Memphis to buy clothes or eat at Justine’s. You know, we’d just get in the car and drive. We’d stay at the Peabody. I’ve stayed at the Peabody more than any hotel in the country.

When I was growing up, Memphis and New Orleans were our twin cities.

Not Nashville, even though you had grandparents who lived there and you visited often. You write in The House on First Street that you even considered moving to Nashville, but you prefer a city with some grit.

Yes. You know that book by Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis, where he compares Nashville as a city of churches to Memphis as a city of barrooms. It’s the barrooms that “get” me.

It was the musicians and restaurant owners and chefs who got New Orleans somewhat back on its feet when the city was practically a ghost town.

The work those restaurant people did can’t be overestimated. The fact that where people used to eat … that those places were back a month after the storm. It was a reassurance.

New Orleans is a neighborhood town — neighborhoods that bump up against one another. A place like the Upperline restaurant: For those in New Orleans who live in that neighborhood, it’s their joint.

I think I gained 100 pounds going to all the restaurant reopenings. It was my civic duty.

Where does the rebuilding of New Orleans stand today?

At one point, there was lots of talk: Will New Orleans be rebuilt to look like Disneyland? First of all, it hasn’t been rebuilt! We don’t have to worry about it looking like Disneyland. You can’t pave over a culture.

Speaking of coming back, where’s your handyman, Antoine?

After I spent about a billion dollars on Antoine, he’s sadly back in jail, where I think, this time, I just might leave him.

And Eddie, your contractor?

I’m still having to correct mistakes he made. Eddie’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Don’t tell me he’s still doing work for you.

No! The other day, I looked at my office window, and it was cracked. I thought, How did that happen? We’d had a mildly windy day, and all of a sudden I had this huge crack in my office window. It was a window Eddie had forgotten to glaze. So it had been rattling around. A thousand dollars later, I replaced the damn window. Other little stuff you can’t even imagine. It was a major day when we actually got grass in our yard. But the house is pretty much done.

Why didn’t you, at some point, just say to hell with it?

Aside from the daily throwing-up-my-hands, what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me, why-am-I-here, you think of the alternatives. We have a chance now to restore the best things about New Orleans. The choices are rich.

And you have yet another book. It’s due out soon.

It’s called … what? Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and it’s a collection of my food columns for The New York Times. But because The House on First Street was delayed for a year because of the rewrite, the new book bumps up against it. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

It is. Thank you, Julia Reed.

Thank you. I’m sorry to have driven you crazy.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Hitler Rocks!

Times certainly do change. When Mel Brooks’ multiple Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of his satirical 1968 film The Producers opened on Broadway in 2001, it was gobbled up whole by critics who praised it as comic manna from show-business heaven. The slobbering reception had to be sweet vindication for Brooks, a master parodist who won a best screenplay Oscar for the original film only after watching it tank at the box office amid angry, nearly universal critical outrage. Even the drug-taking, love-making, rock-and-roll revolutionaries of ’68 rejected Brooks’ total iconoclasm.

And it probably goes without saying that a scant two decades after the end of WWII, mainstream America still wasn’t prepared for the intentionally offensive story of two Jewish swindlers (brilliantly played by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) who concoct a plan to bilk a million bucks from investors in a glitzy Broadway show called Springtime for Hitler, a musical celebrating in song and dance the glorious achievements of a handsome young fuhrer and his hip, hypersexualized Nazi Party.

For all of its naughty words and bad intentions, the retooled Producers musical, which opened last week at Playhouse on the Square, will only be shocking to the militant prudes and fans of well-crafted lowbrow comedy who are offended by how often Brooks repeats the same “laugh-at-the-funny-homo” gags. That’s a problem because the show’s title characters, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, are beasts of pure avarice and envy, and to make the characters as sympathetic as Playhouse heavy-hitters Dave Landis (Bialystock) and Michael Detroit (Bloom) have done (with the help of Brooks’ updated script) guts a story that works best when it revels in its own absolute amorality.

Landis, a versatile actor and sharp director, should be able to settle fairly easily into Bialystock’s greedy, grossly libidinous shoes. But he plays the role too amiably and close to his vest, allowing Detroit, his equally gifted co-star, to upstage him at every turn in the role of Bloom, a sputtering nebbish.

Detroit’s over-the-top antics don’t mask the actor’s stunted character development, though there’s every reason to believe he’ll find some motivation for his mugging over the course of the show’s run.

Ken Zimmerman engages in some expert scenery-chewing as the flamboyantly homosexual (not to mention completely thickheaded) Broadway director Roger De Bris. Zimmerman obviously (and rightfully) derives a tremendous amount of pleasure knowing just how much the sparkling, silver dress he wears makes him resemble the Chrysler Building. David Foster is delightful as Carmen Ghia, De Bris’ houseboy and partner in fabulousness. It’s a true shame that Foster, a deceptively physical actor and a real joy to watch here, is only given one threadbare joke to stretch over the entire show. Still, he swishes through it with zany aplomb.

Bruce Bergner’s scenic design, a mix of painted drops and practical furniture on wagons, is almost as flat and uninspired as Ben Wheeler’s lights and director Jay Berkow’s bloodless choreography. To that end, The Producers is the perfect opposite of Theatre Memphis’ current production of West Side Story, where extraordinary design and tight dancing make up for an unevenness among actors and vocalists. In this case, bland design and washed-out lighting leave Landis, Detroit, and a talented cast of professionals looking like well-intentioned community-theater performers.

Showgirls wearing giant pretzels, Volks-wagens, wieners, and German shepherds on their heads will always by funny. But once you get past the awesome headgear, Rebecca Powell’s costumes for the “Springtime for Hitler” sequence are just plain boring compared to the vaguely sadomasochistic go-go-booted storm troopers from Brooks’ original.

To do justice to The Producers, a director must press against the boundaries of good taste to find every naughty nook and crude crevice in order to discover where Brooks’ once reviled, now classic material can still make audiences squirm with guilty delight. It’s an exercise in excess irreverence that’s been treated entirely too reverently in its Memphis premiere.

Through July 27th at Playhouse on

the Square

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Sweet Lady

CREDIT: Christopher Parks

Got a serious sweet tooth? Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes in Lexington, Tennessee, offers a variety of decadent desserts and other tasty treats that makes that two-hour trek seem awfully tempting, gas prices be damned. Thankfully, Memphians don’t have to make that chocoholic commute to get their hands — and mouths — on them.

Each Wednesday, Sharon’s owner Sharon Fajans loads her van with coolers of delightfully rich chocolate truffles and creamy sweet cheesecakes and baskets of freshly baked breads and drives them to the farmers market at the Memphis Botanic Garden. Fajans’ top sellers include truffles in a variety of flavors, such as dark and milk chocolate, caramel, chocolate raspberry, mocha latte, and espresso. The truffles are beyond creamy, and the taste lingers a few sweet moments after the last bite.

Fajans also sells cheesecakes in classic, key lime, and chocolate. The key lime is exceptional: a tangy fresh melt-in-your-mouth twist on the classic New York-style variety.

She recently introduced her artisan breads, including rustic Italian, semolina, and focaccia. The baked breads come out of the oven at noon on Wednesdays before she heads to Memphis.

“I have an in-house kitchen in my shop. I do it mostly by myself and all by hand,” Fajans says.

“I perfected the recipes over time through trial and error. My classic cheesecake recipe came from my husband’s side of the family, but I’ve also come up with a 60 percent chocolate cheesecake and the key lime cheesecake for summer. They are all very creamy and light,” Fajans says.

Fajans’ retail shop opened last November in Lexington. Customers can purchase fresh goodies in the store, but a large portion of her business consists of special orders.

“I work with a wedding planner in Lexington and make chocolates for weddings and special occasions, and I do truffles for party favors and gifts,” Fajans says.

Besides the aforementioned delectables, Fajans also makes biscottis, eclairs, dark-chocolate blueberry-walnut bark, apricot-almond bark, strawberry shortcake, and tiramisu, all from scratch. Fajans offers seasonal truffle flavors as well, such as pumpkin, eggnog, and peppermint during the winter holiday season. Simply put, she can whip up just about any treat imaginable.

Fajans has worked as a sous chef at an Italian restaurant in New York and also ran a chocolate shop in Arkansas, but she has been cooking since her youth.

“My mom was a baker, so I’ve been around it my whole life,” Fajans says. “It’s my passion. I love what I do. And I love chocolate, too,” she says.

She will continue to offer her goods at the Farmers Market at the Garden on Wednesdays and hopes to rotate between the downtown and Agricenter farmers markets on Saturdays.

To place an order or to find out more about Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes, visit her stand at the Memphis Botanic Garden’s farmers market between 2 and 5 p.m. on Wednesdays or call her shop at 731-968-0400.

Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes, 60 Natchez Trace Drive South, Lexington

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Summer School

CREDIT: by Justin Fox Burks

Is there any better season than summer to learn new cooking skills, when both produce and free time are more plentiful?

The folks at the Memphis Botanic Garden certainly agree, which is why a cooking series called “Taste of the Garden” offers affordable Saturday-morning classes on summertime foods.

“The classes are casual and family-friendly, using recipes that are simple and easy to prepare,” says Jana Gilbertson, director of marketing and public relations for the Botanic Garden.

Summer squash is the theme for the next class on July 12th, followed by grains on August 16th, and fall squash on September 13th.

“That’s a lot of squash,” admits Gilbertson, laughing, “but we tie our class themes into foods that are readily available at our weekly farmers market on Wednesdays.”

Local chefs conduct the classes, offering demonstrations, tastings, and recipes. Gardening experts can participate, as well. “If we have a nice example in our garden of the food we are highlighting, we might walk out and take a look or discuss how to grow it,” Gilbertson says.

Class size is limited, so participants should register in advance. Classes cost $4 for members of the Botanic Garden and $6 for nonmembers.

“Taste of the Garden,” Memphis Botanic Garden (636-4128)

Seasonal produce also is influencing Mantia’s restaurant and market in East Memphis, where “The Sicilian Table,” “Summertime Salads,” and “An Antipasto Party” are three of six upcoming classes scheduled for summer.

“I think produce from the farmers markets will be even more popular this summer since the great tomato scare,” says store owner Alyce Mantia. “At least we know where local tomatoes have come from.”

One of Mantia’s classes, called “Too Many Tomatoes,” will teach new uses for summer’s most prolific food, and another class, called “Where’s the Beef?,” will offer unusual burger recipes using seafood, lamb, and turkey.

All classes are a “make-and-taste” demonstration format, meet at 6 p.m. on weekdays, cost $35 per person, and require advance registration. Go to mantias.com for class dates, which were not available at press time.

Mantia’s, 4856 Poplar (762-8560)

Here’s more good news for summertime leisure: Continuing education at the University of Memphis is back with cooking and tasting classes offered in three-hour evening sessions.

Course selections are an eclectic mix for cooks who aren’t serious foodies, explains Vicki Murrell, director of professional and continuing education. “We’re not interested in fancy cooking,” Murrell says. “We want classes that teach basic skills, like how to chop up food without leaving a fingertip in the sauce.”

Upcoming classes include “Dinner in the Pantry,” taught by Melissa Petersen on July 21st, and “Great Brews,” a two-session tasting conducted by Steve Barzizza on July 15th and 17th. Each class costs $59.

Later in the month on July 29th, Phyllis Cline will conduct a class called “Desperation Dinners,” offering shortcuts and organizational advice for preparing 30-minute meals.

“I start with all the ingredients on the counter and don’t do any chopping or preparation in advance,” says Cline, the owner of Forty Carrots in East Memphis. “I want people to really see how to make a quick and delicious meal.”

Cline also will provide plenty of advice on topics such as how to freeze food efficiently. “It doesn’t do any good to get home and have a three-pound lump of frozen hamburger,” she says. “Instead, make an extra meat loaf, slice it up, and freeze it in individual servings.”

If summer offerings don’t work, fall classes on vegetarian cooking, stretching food dollars, and healthy eating will begin soon after Labor Day. A complete listing will be published in continuing-education catalogs, available in mid-August at libraries, local bookstores, and online (http://umce.memphis.edu).

Professional and Continuing Education, University of Memphis (682-6000)

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Wanted: Dead, Not Alive

It’s always a little agonizing wondering what the worst movie of the year is going to be, but here we are at the halfway point, and the title of the year’s worst has already been claimed: Wanted, the new action-movie comic-book adaptation starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman.

Let’s be clear up front: Wanted has a few great action sequences and intermittent visual panache. It’s based on one of the better comic miniseries of the last five years. The film’s ambitious, but it plays out as a negative. It doesn’t walk the tightrope between too much and not enough — it hangs itself with it. Wanted is truly terrible.

Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) is a white-collar loser, an accountant stuck in a cubicle-correct world with no desire to move beyond it. Gibson’s regularly subjected to a bullying boss, and his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. Hell, even his dad left him when he was only 7 days old. As Wesley says in narration, “I’m the most insignificant asshole of the 21st century.”

That’s until Gibson is rescued from a gunman’s bullets by Fox (Jolie) and is informed that his dad was one of the greatest killers of all time — a member of a secret group of assassins called the Fraternity — and that Wesley has inherited all of his pop’s genetic badassness and million-dollar fortune.

Faster than you can say “montage,” the pathetic weakling becomes a force to be reckoned with, and he’s inducted into the Fraternity. He’s charged with assassinating select people, all determined by a loom, which spits out a hit list based on a complex code built into the threads. The code of the Fraternity: Kill one person and maybe save a thousand. They’re the warriors of fate, the weavers of doom. Oh, yes.

Wanted piggybacks on Fight Club, Office Space, The Matrix, Terminator 2, comic-book origin stories, and fantasy coming-of-age formulas. The movie is so preposterous, it even draws into question the worth of its source material. I almost don’t like fiction anymore after watching Wanted.

The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who also made the visually exciting but dramatically discombobulated Night Watch (and its sequel, Day Watch). Bekmambetov is talented but shows no restraint. Wanted is shot and edited like an epileptic seizure. There are a number of gee-whiz moments — usually spooling in slo-mo — but it’s hard to appreciate them amidst all the chaos. Bekmambetov makes 100-image-a-second movies in a 24-frame-a-second medium. It’s too much.

The comic book that Wanted is based on is light years away from the film in terms of plot, back story, and theme. In the book, Wesley becomes an actual villain — a murderer and a rapist who, in the infamous last few pages (Spoiler Alert!), tells the fanboy reader just what’s going on in the world while everybody’s spending their time consuming pop culture.

Sure, no studio is dropping tens of millions of dollars to make that movie. But, in trying to make the characters fundamentally good guys, the filmmakers have made the whole enterprise morally repugnant. The comic was mean; the movie is mean-spirited. There’s no subversion or satire, just good ole American violent consumerism. Built, as it is, on the absurd loom-and-weavers premise (an addition just for the movie —  thanks, screenwriters!), Wanted is a great cinematic abortion. It’s not as steep a drop-off from source material to film as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but that’s the ass it’s sniffing.

Wanted

Now playing

Multiple locations