The Smell of New York and The Healing Darkness of The Theatre

 My last post wasn’t a sad one.

I was just struck by the fact that I looked so happy and rather suddenly I was transported to that hot day in New York where the air quality gave the city a smell and a feel all of its very own.

A strange, airless, slightly industrial typically New York type of atmosphere

I remember thinking that as I stopped for a moment on the High Line and squinted into the sun high over the Hudson River.

A moment and a feeling I will always remember.

Anyhow I’ve been busy today. 

I was up early with the dogs then took Bluebell to the hand wash and gave her a good seeing to with the shampoo Lance which is an incredibly therapeutic experience. I waxed her until she shone like a cornflower and vacuumed her insides until the heady stench of wet bulldog was camouflaged with the scent of lemon and antiseptic.

I picked up a coffee at the drive through then drove to the picture framers in St Asaph to pick up two “vintage” posters I had framed. The posters I bought when I went to Sitges ages ago and I found them in  their cardboard roll a couple of weeks ago when I clearing the decks.

The prints are straightforward, Japanese exhibition posters that pleased me with their simplicity.

They will govern the change of decoration in my office 

At midday I popped over to Trefor’s bungalow to check on his eye dressing ( which is doing very nicely thank you!) and after that I met a friend at Theatre Clwyd , for an afternoon performance of the play Isla. 

My friend is still deeply in grief and is finding socialising difficult so after a few aborted plans to meet up, I suggested we met at the theatre where she could “lose” herself  in the darkness and not feel obliged to say anything. 

Theatre and cinema darkness has always been a friend to me when I’ve felt brittle or lost.

Mark Lambert as Roger and Lisa Zahra as his daughter Erin

Isla promotes an interesting idea. Soon there will me more virtual assistants crooning their hushed female tones through wify, speakers, laptop and iPad than people. Lonely Roger ( Mark Lambert) is bought virtual helper Isla by his daughter Erin for him to keep occupied and busy and a strange sort of relationship is forged between man and machine as Roger’s life is complicated by an all consuming technology, lockdown isolation, and a sad loneliness that results in his frustrations being taken out with causal misogyny against his “female” companion with disastrous results  

Catrin Aaron

This co production between London’s Royal Court and Theatr Clwyd is an interesting one. Tightly directed by the theatre’s artistic lead Tamara Harvey and wonderfully acted by Lambert and by Catrin Aaron in a small but effective role as an officious policewoman, this production shows that North Wales’ lead theatre has hit the ground running.

It’s a thoughtful, incredibly funny and occasionally poignant piece of theatre which could stand its own in the west end .