One of the things I miss most about Boston, or any big city, is the way the afternoon lingers just a little bit longer, thanks to the buildings that hold its amber light until the very end. That’s something you don’t get in the suburbs – once the sun starts going down, it fades quickly. I like to hold onto the light as long as possible.
For one of my last acts of 2011, a quick impromptu trip to Boston, and the cozy condo that has always provided a bastion against coming winters and ends-of-the-world. This photo was taken as I walked the Southwest Corridor at 6 AM, in order to make it back home in time to cook the New Year’s candied yams and pecan pie.
At such an early hour so late in the year, the air is usually frigid and dead, but on this morning it had the slightest bit of Spring to it, and the foggy haze was closer to a thaw than the very beginning of a freeze. Perhaps Winter will go easy on us this year.
A woman walks in spurts ahead of me, stopping to talk and mutter to herself every few steps. It is a mad, mad world, but a magical one, and life, even at its most forlorn, has a dim, haunting beauty to it.
Afternoon sunlight of a fading December day holds the brick in Beacon Hill resplendent. A bit of holiday bustle on a Sunday as the pungent pine aroma of evergreen wreaths breathes through muffled scarves. Christmas lights twinkle on the shaded side of Charles Street, while pots of paperwhites burst with star-like blooms through frosted glass. The bells of tiny shop entrances ring as dogs await their owner’s return. It feels like another era, another place, when cobblestone streets and gaslights were ubiquitous.
Now it’s merely quaint, if it exists at all. If I tried to return, to find my way back to this same place, this same moment, I would fail. When the night comes, this will be over, and when the month goes so too will the magic.
These gleefully-upside-down Christmas trees currently hang in the lobby of the Liberty Hotel. Despite its hot-spot status (I know BostonMo is a regular) I had not made my way to its barracks until the last time I was in Boston. Kira and I stumbled upon it on our way to Beacon Hill, and decided to stop in for a spell to check it out.
If there’s a favorite place for me to spend time, it’s at a hotel. Even if I’m not actually staying as a guest, I find a subsidiary thrill in being close to other travelers, in the same way I enjoy being at airports or train stations. Little journeys through approximation, a brush with movement, ancillary excitement.
We made a day of it, stopping all over the city, including my first exploration of the Ritz Carlton as seen below. I’d stayed in the original location many years ago on the other side of the Public Garden (and later when it became the Taj), but the new one offers this spectacular lounge area, backed by a long firescape, and perfectly cozy for a windy December day.
Somehow I feel quite at home in the lobby of a hotel. A transient gypsy calling from a former life, perhaps, or maybe the simple wish of wanting to get away – who can tell the reasons for it. Even in downtown Albany, I’ll occasionally take a lunch break in one of the hotel lobbies, reading just a few pages of a book before being distracted with the arrivals and departures, all the while wondering at the lives of strangers.
Stumbling inadvertently along and around the Freedom Trail, I found myself in front of the wrought iron gate of Old City Hall as the last of the early afternoon sunlight filtered through the Fall leaves. A multitude of shopping bags in both hands (Christmas gifts mostly, mind you) and a coat and scarf staving off the brisk breeze, I walk into the Omni Parker House Hotel, where the past still resides, unwavering in the face of modern hotel minimalism.
This is old-school Boston, with sky-high dark wood, chandeliers, and antique glass – a place where ladies once wore petticoats and gentlemen wouldn’t dare leave without a proper hat. I sit in the cozy lounge area of the Parker Bar, looking out onto Old City Hall on one side, and into the dining room area on the other. I believe this hotel was featured in the movie version of ‘The Age of Innocence’, with a bit of movie-magic to remove the modern city that now encroaches upon its once-glorious entrance.
After a day of walking and shopping, it is officially cocktail time, so I order up a martini and lean back into the comfy chair. Here is where the turn of the afternoon, and the backward-tick of the extra Daylight Savings hour, takes place – and after a bowl of chowder and a club sandwich (and a second martini) – I re-enter a darkened city.
The night is beautiful and clear, and I walk through Boston Common, descending back towards the Public Garden. In the early 90’s, when I first walked along the area by the Boylston T stop, it was not the best of places, and most people were wise to avoid the Park at dusk. Today, it is a safer spot, and at this early hour, even with the sun down, I feel at perfect ease.
A far cry from the last feel-good production I saw put on by the SpeakEasy Stage Company (that would be the rollicking good-time of ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’), ‘Next Fall’ is a very serious play that resonates with several particularly-timely subjects – yet it is just as expertly-done, and haunts in a more provocative manner. At its heart, it is a play about the difficult reconciliation between religion and homosexuality, and it also touches on family relations, the question of faith, and the simple (or not so simple) meaning of love. If it sounds like a lot, it is – but somehow the ensemble cast reins it in with impeccably-rendered performances.
Nominated for a Tony for Best Play in 2010, ‘Next Fall’ by Geoffrey Nauffts is compellingly of-the-moment, especially given these religiously-fanatic times. A Bible makes it way around to each of the characters – sometimes instilling comfort, sometimes inciting anger, sometimes invoking sadness – and it becomes its own central character, embodying the idea of religion, and all notions of good and bad. Any sort of judgment one way or another is wisely avoided, and the lingering ambivalence over the real role of religion and faith in the characters’ lives remains powerfully unresolved.
Directed by Scott Emriston, the production keeps its pace, owing in part to several ingenious set design shifts (Scenic Designer Janie Howland) and quick costume changes (Costume Design by Carlos Aguilar). Most effective may be the lighting (courtesy of Lighting Designer Karen Perlow), which somehow manages to differentiate between a cold hospital waiting room and a warm personal apartment, seemingly at the flip of a switch.
There are a few minor quibbles. A quick drug-addiction scene comes out of nowhere and ends up in the same place, and at times it does feel like there are too many things going on when a closer, more detailed examination of the bigger issues at hand might have proved better, but the strength of the ensemble pulls it all together. Not one of the actors uses broad strokes to fill their character, and their subtle, natural nuances keep things grounded on a credible level. There’s not a weak-link in the bunch. Taken as a whole, they add up to a powerful night of theater.
‘Next Fall’ plays at the SpeakEasy Stage Company through October 15, 2011. You may visit their website here.
