When it comes to creating community and providing intellectual stimulation, book groups have a stronghold. But on Tuesday, I discovered a gem that provides both, with lunch thrown in. Play with Your Food presents three play readings, stimulating conversation, and lunch neatly condensed into an hour and a half, the perfect long lunch.
The collaborative product of Carole Schweid and Nancy Diamond, Play with Your Food concluded its 10th season on Thursday. Schweid and Diamond were both mothers of young children when they met and served together on Westport’s PTA Cultural Arts Committee. Schweid had been a director and Broadway actor and Diamond an arts producer. The two women decided to pool their complementary backgrounds to bring a theater program (similar to one Diamond had seen in New York) to Connecticut.
“The community has been incredibly supportive,” Diamond said before Tuesday’s show at Toquet Hall. Play with Your Food began in Westport and has since branched out to Greenwich and Fairfield. Their program’s success can be attributed to three things: well-written plays, good acting, and good food, all of which “receive equal treatment,” Diamond added.
An impressive spread provided by Garelick & Herbs was set up at the back of the hall, including ham and brie sandwiches, chicken salad with cranberries, and Kosher matzoth wraps for those observing Passover. Attendees gathered in little clumps throughout the hall with plates on their laps, some sitting on the edge of the stage, others sunk into the couches along the walls, chatting and perusing the day’s program.
Among the attendees were Lisa Pinney-Keusch and her grandmother, artist Doris Brenner, who has been attending Play with Your Food’s shows since they first began. When Pinney-Keusch moved to Westport from New York City last year, Brenner bought tickets for the two of them, a shared experience between generations. They enjoyed it so much, they returned for a second season.
“It’s very intimate and raw but professional,” Pinney-Keusch said of the production, adding that the collection consistently touches on universal themes. “They’re passionate about what they’re doing.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by ‘intimate and raw’ until the show began. There are no elaborate stage sets or costumes, and the actors read from scripts. The absence of ornament heightens rather than detracts from the intensity of the experience because the success of the production hinges on the actors’ performances and the quality of the material. At Tuesday’s show, the actors were, to a (wo)man, flawless, and the plays were thought-provoking, well-crafted, and expertly curated.
First on the program was a scene from Act II of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play, which in a happy coincidence celebrated its 100th anniversary on Tuesday. The play was a contemporary take on the Ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion, who begged Aphrodite to breathe life into a sculpture he’d created and fallen in love with. In Shaw’s version, transformation happens through language rather than from inanimate object to living person: Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins bets he can transform working class Eliza Doolittle by teaching her to adopt the speech patterns and habits of the upper class.
The scene read on Tuesday involved Higgins and Alfred Doolittle, Eliza’s father, chosen, Schweid told the audience, because it provided a searing lampoon of the British class system. Tom Zingarelli and Norman Allen, who read the roles of Higgins and Doolittle respectively, were commanding presences on the stage, their body language and pitch-perfect accents embodying the idea of the play in the compressed space of one scene.
The actors’ nuanced performances render each of their characters at turns sympathetic and unlikeable as events progress. Ruth is frustrated by what she sees as Simone’s disinterest and resistance, whose sources are never fully disclosed though Ruth has her own theories. The final heartbreaking result—it’s implied Simone commits suicide—left me pondering the extent to which words, whose meanings are not absolute but always colored by associations and connotations that demand interpretation, act as obstacles even when intentions are pure and expertise implied.
But just as things got heavy, the final play to be read lightened the mood while still leaving the audience with something to think about regarding language. “Bottom of the Ninth” is set on a baseball field and was selected because, Schweid told the audience, “At the end of our seasons, we like to find a play about the outdoors.” Written by Tony Sportiello (check it: his name even has “sport” in it), the play presents two conversations that are also in conversation.
It’s the bottom of the 9th in the 7th game of the World Series. Manesco (Chris Wilkes) is at bat, and Wolford (Ryan O’Neill) is behind the plate. In the stands, Bob (Allan Zeller) and Jean (Julia O’Neill) call the game, interpreting the pitches (pantomimed on the stage) and the interaction between the two players. Specifically, they ponder over the source of the in-your-face confrontation that explodes between the two players, speculating their argument has its sources in the strain of competition.
Actually, Wolford and Manesco are arguing over to whom to attribute the phrase “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Nathaniel Green uttered it, Manesco claims, while Wolford insists it was Marcel Proust. (I looked it up: it was Thomas Paine in “The Crisis.”) They also disagree about George Washington’s prowess on the battlefield. Clever writing and staging and brilliant execution by the actors, the play ends in speculation: with two outs, Manesco connects with the ball, and the four characters watch breathlessly for the outcome as the scene closes.The speculation isn't confined to the field, though. The audience is also left to wonder about the assumptions we make about what we see and hear, a theme woven through all three plays.
At the conclusion of the readings, Schweid and the actors returned to the stage for a conversation with the audience, inviting interpretations and providing a collaborative space to process what we had witnessed. Diamond offered the final comment, much beloved by the book nerd writing this right now but also highlighting the interrelatedness of the arts.
“The combination of the first two plays has me feeling like I have a lot to read this summer,” Diamond said.
As I took the last few bites of the ham and brie sandwich I’d squirreled away and stepped into the breezy alley outside of Toquet Hall, I marveled at the journey Play with Your Food had taken me on (intellectual and emotional and no homework required) in the space of one hour and a half.
Before the show, Pinney-Keush said, “They put together a wonderful gift to the community.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Here’s to looking forward to next season!
Photos 1 through 4 provided by Play with Your Food. All other photos are the writer's.