Opera Week Postscript

I want to expand the last posting by saying how much I liked the A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) production of The Scottsboro Boys, which Ron and I saw on Friday evening. What was particularly impressive, apart from the brilliant choreography, was the appropriation of the minstrel-show format to tell a very powerful and tragic story. When the all-black cast appeared at the end of the production in blackface, the incongruity was startling--a pointed comment on racism. Another last treat was eating dinner at La Scene Cafe & Bar in the Warwick Hotel, across the street from ACT. Despite its location on downtown Geary Street, the restaurant had the ambiance of a small neighborhood bar, complete with regulars. One old woman, obviously with memory problems, came in for her evening drink (which, for all we knew, might have been water)just to sit at the bar and observe the company. It was obvious that someone would see she got home OK. At the next table there was an out-of-town couple, ACT subscribers who, as the wife informed us, travel to San Francisco and stay at the hotel for each performance. The head waiter chatted with them as a friend would. One of the waiters carried out a takeaway carton of food to a homeless man who dropped by. San Francisco is an odd city. On the Muni people sitting side-by-side can strike up intimate conversations. One man on the F streetcar announced to the world that he was celebrating the fourth anniversary of a successful liver transplant. Every time I go there I lose some of my reserve, at least for a couple of days. I have never been in another metropolitan area where strangers have so few inhibitions about being themselves. Well, maybe Rome, but there the group interactions are much different.