By the time we got outside, a growing lake of slush gathered at the curbs. Crossing the street was akin to an Olympic long jump trying to avoid the continuously expanding water or an obstacle course looking for the safe drier path between the furrows ploughed by the cars and the hills forming between them as the sidewalks were shoveled and cleared. Many pedestrians were attempting to stay dry by clutching umbrellas over their heads. The streets were greying again with the traffic of people and vehicles. Cars passing by quickly sprayed the slush back onto the sidewalk and passersby.
Although the neighbourhood was an ordeal to navigate, Prospect Park remained pristine. Walkers had compacted the snow into distinct paths without slush or puddles. The evergreen bushes were shrouded and bent, green needles poking their way out and branches bowing down to the earth. The mundane mesh like snow fences wore lacy white shawls. Every surface of each tree was iced with layers of snow that fell in clumps on the unsuspecting when the outstretched branches could bear no more snow.
Marissa treated herself to the refreshing snow from the limbs that leaned to the ground. Kaya became animated, springing from one mound to another, scooting to the wooded areas through holes in the fences and burying her snout in the snow. Tiny snowballs compacted on her undercoat through her exploration of the ever deepening snow. When we reached an open field, Dov made snowballs from the heavy snow and threw them for Kaya to retrieve. When she reached the area where the ball had landed, she began digging deeper and deeper into the snow looking for it. Dov fell to the ground to make a snow angel. Kaya leapt on him covering his face with kisses. The vast expanse of virgin snow was hard to resist. First Marissa and then I both added angels to the choir and even Kaya, with some help stretched her legs back and forth in the snow to make wings. The snow was irresistible and soon we indulged in a snowball fight, me missing my target far more often than I was hit.
In the distance, I could see woman, walking alone and sheltering herself with a clear umbrella. After a few steps, she would stop and raise her umbrella higher. She looked like Mary Poppins waiting for the perfect gust of wind to fly her off. As she neared, the reality was not as playful. Every time she raised her umbrella, her other hand maneuvered a camera hanging from her neck and snapped photos of the transformed landscape. The digital beep of each picture echoed across the field. At that moment, I regretted leaving my camera behind, but realized that I would not have frolicked with an electronic gadget in hand. For the child still inside me, lack of camera was fortuitous.
We wound our way back to the entrance of the park, Kaya greeting every other dog enthusiastically. Walkers were bundled in scarves and hats, a tobogganer was building a mogul at the foot of his hill and a skier silently cut his way through the fields only leaving his tracks behind. After complaining about winter at every turn, grudgingly I had to admit how much fun I had had.
Unfortunately, the walk back to the apartment was an antidote to the fun. Huge ploughs traveled up and down the streets shoving the furrows left behind by the cars to the curb, transforming the lakes at each crossing into seas. My wonderful boots that have kept my toes cozy failed and once back home, I had to wring out my socks and set my boots on the rad in an attempt to dry them. My long black coat is wonderful for keeping me warm, but the hem had become both snow encrusted and wet as it dragged across and through the slush and snow banks.
Marissa headed downtown for her job and later in the afternoon for her French class. Dov began surfing the net, reading a script and relaxing. We had the Sleep No More event scheduled for eight and originally planned to head out to Chelsea early, do some shopping and meet Marissa for dinner. My boots were still wet and we would have to drag anything purchased along with us so we decided to forgo shopping. Perhaps we can find time for it tomorrow.
We ate at a Japanese restaurant just across from the Empire Diner, a place Dov and I frequented when he had the part of Nick Burns in the play A Thousand Clowns and lived around the corner. The food at the restaurant was tasty but sparse. The first few offers had three of each item, but there were only two cubes of agadachi tofu and after waiting a considerable length of time, a minuscule mound of garlic spinach appeared. Although we had ordered seven dishes, all three of us walked away hungry. Dov suggested trying some large portioned American food after the show.
My boots were only damp when we set out but now my feet were drowning again as it was impossible to cross any street without traversing a body of water. Later in the evening, a snow plough passed by us at a clip clearing the roads but spraying us with debris, ice and slush. We hurried towards
the store fronts of the wide street to avoid the shower but with the size of the plough and the quantity of muck on the road, it was hard to avoid. This happened after the production and we already so giddy from what we had experienced, that this brought on howls of laughter.
To the production . . .The front of the MacKitterick Hotel is art deco in style. Two security people check ID before you enter. The first venue of the visit is in the bar and they are making sure everyone is of age. As soon as you enter, the music begins, something composed by either the Addams family or the Munsters. The walls are all black but there is enough light here to see where you are going. Coats and bags must be checked. Nothing can be held in your hands but you are encouraged to slip some money or a credit card into a pocket in case you want to imbibe at the bar. Earlier today, I had forgotten my camera. This evening I was better prepared. I had slipped an extra pair of socks and my shoes into my bag so I was able to check my boots and walk around with dry feet.
At reception, your reservations are checked and you get a 'card' key for the door of your hotel room. And here it begins. This place is creepalicious. There are some low lights in the stairwell but then it goes dark. The first thing I realize is that my night vision is very poor. I began to stumble into walls and blind corners. Marissa actually has to guide me through the passageway to the bar, a room from the thirties, surrounded by red velvet drapery and hosted by attractive young men in tuxedoes. The band is dressed likewise, the vocalist in a period gown and the music is from that era. After a short wait (long enough for a cocktail or beer) the band leader invites the visitors with certain room numbers to enter the main portion of the hotel. As you slip behind the curtains, you are handed a white Carnival mask and are sternly told that no sounds are permitted. A couple beside me is gruffly admonished for whispering to one another.
We enter an elevator and are let out to wander on that first level. The eerie music continues but it is now interspersed with songs from the thirties. The corridors are covered with sepia photographs and murky mirrors. The doors to all the rooms are open and I wander into each one, opening drawers, looking through children's clothing hung by a bed, reading the open book left on the bed. I find a lipstick, a key, sayings etched into the inside of drawers, a sewing box. It is crowded and dark. I continue to bump into people, furniture and walls. A woman in an old fashioned, blood stained uniform pushes by me. Do I follow? The floors are uneven and covered in a variety of bumpy materials in recognizable in the dark. I' m not sure where to go or what to expect, but as I enter a drawing room, there are crowds around the settee. A young pregnant woman is throwing herself from one sofa to another. She slips to the floor. Zombie like, she makes her way around the room opening a chest of doors. She takes something out and slips behind all the people and scurries out the door. Many follow her. I continue through the maze of rooms.
People in black, wearing black masks silently, with a shake of the head or pointing of arms direct you which way to go. There is no set route and within several minutes there are streams of white masks moving in all directions, some stumbling, some running after a silent character.
Each floor has a different theme. This one is a hotel with guest rooms, all dimly lit, all filled with trinkets, toiletries books suitcases some open some closed. In a hallway I spot the nurse again she is climbing the walls and leaping also in a zombie like state in a macabre dance. Through a wall behind he, I notice crowds again. There are a man and an almost bald woman interacting in a dance like manner with one another, sometimes appearing to make love, sometimes fighting, doing gymnastics over a bathtub. They separate, the woman disrobes and slips on another dress and the gyrations continue until they rush off again followed by the crowds. After winding through the halls you reach a set of stairs and climb to investigate the secrets and surprises on another floor.
On the next floor is a series of offices with desks. I examine the strewn papers. I open drawers. I find a hammer in one, pliers in another. Again characters appear and disappear. The nurse writes a message in chalk up, down and across a corrugated wall. A chemist pours elixirs and serves a customer who dashes off. The chemist reaches over and takes the hand of a guest, unlocks a door and directs her behind it. The stewards motion everyone else to move on. There are rooms with stuffed animals heads, pelts hung on the wall, a desk sporting a preserved fox uncannily resembling Kaya. I find a candy store with open glass canisters of peppermint, gumdrops, fruit drops, licorice. I help myself and go behind the counter to taste other varieties of sweets. There is a small room with a an empty crib, above it fly stuffed, headless mannequins. Other rooms have cases of bones, skulls. Elsewhere there are crates for shipping.
More stairs, a hospital ward. The nurse's desk has some patient charts. Antique surgical instruments are displayed on the walls. This is a psychiatric ward. One patient is an arsonist, another violently abusive. Each bed has anther chart, a bedpan under the bed, taut sheets, books on night tables or left open on the beds. Beside is a room full of tubs for the cold water treatment as seen in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In another room is a tub on a pedestal, a woman washing blood from her hands.
I spot the pregnant girl again in another dress packing a suitcase. She grabs it and moves on to a room with drawers. She takes a blanket out, pretending to swaddle an infant. She drops it and without looking puts baby clothes into a drawer behind her. Like a sleep walker she moves on, dancing with and then resisting a man in a tuxedo. This looks like a lobby with a bank of pay phones. I wander off and find a dining room, the tables all formally set with monogrammed linens and cutlery. The pregnant woman enters, sits and spreads jam on a piece of toast. As she is about to eat, the woman with the bloody hands traipses in with a period jar of milk. She pours the milk for the pregnant woman and forces her to drink. A balletic chase takes place from one table to another, the characters sometimes climbing on the walls. The expectant mother escapes. A man joins the other woman at the table, pouring milk for one another and eating toast with jam.
On another floor there is a deserted nightclub complete with tables and chairs. An elegant woman in a lace trimmed red dress with a train swoops in. She opens a tray on a table to reveal raw meat. She sits, carves it and bites the morsels off the knife. Suddenly she retches and spits out the partially chewed meat to find a ring in her mouth. She takes the hand of a guest, fondles it, puts the ring on her finger and floats to the stage to lip synch the song Is that all there is. I try to leave the nightclub and bump into furniture and walls looking for the curtain slit that is the exit.
Another floor has a padlocked graveyard and further on, the ruins of houses on a street. By now I am totally disoriented. I have no idea of the time or the floor. We seem to be herded into a ballroom. All the characters are seated at a banquet table on a dais. They are toasting each other, miming eating and conversing in slow motion. A man walks over to the side and slowly releases a noose that hangs in front of the man seatedat the middle of the table. He jumps onto the table, fixes the noose around his neck and sits on a chair placed beneath him. All but one of the others run off the dais and disappear behind the crowd. The chair is pulled out from under the man. The lights go out momentarily and when they come on again, the man is swinging limply from the rope.
The stewards motion everyone to the stairs. At the top is another red curtain with a host welcoming us back. Everyone takes off their masks, buys drinks and enjoys the thirties jazz band once again. I am disoriented but laughing giddily about my journey. The phone rings. Dov and Marissa are waiting for me at the coat check. As you leave, another hosts invites you into yet another room to extend the evening with a bite to eat or dessert. We pass. Outside, dangling our souvenir masks, we cannot stop laughing. All of us loved it. One at a time we describe our experience, each so different that it is hard to believe we were at the same event. We all agree that the missing storyline connecting the venue and the characters is one of the flaws of the production. I found that I started creating my own narrative as I re encountered characters. However, the lighting, the furniture, the artifacts, the background music as well as the period music, the re creation of the thirties made this an extraordinary New York moment. This is supposed to be based on the play Macbeth. I would never have associated what I saw with that play. I would love to have someone to explain it to me.
Our appetizer sized dinner and the two hours trekking from room to room and floor to floor had made us hungry and we set off to find an American style eatery. First choice was the Empire Diner, but it had been transformed from a down at the heels joint to a chic bar. We moved on. Our American food was found at The Chelsea Diner owned and hosted by Greeks. This time we did eat heartily. By now it was close to midnight and none of us looked forward to an hour and a half on the subway and a shlep in wet boots back to the apartment, so we treated ourselves to a taxi cab ride back to Brooklyn. What a day!!!!
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