And this song of the vine,
This greeting of mine,
The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West
In her garlands dressed
On the banks of the beautiful river.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Now you know why it's called the "Queen City." It is called Cincinnati after the Society of Cincinnati, founded to honor George Washington, who was considered in his time to be a latter day Cincinnatus, the Roman who was called upon to be dictator and resigned the position as soon as he had accomplished a great military victory. And that completes today's history lesson.
Happy New Year!! I hope that you had a good time ushering out 2008 and welcoming in 2009. The new year arrived clear and cold here in Cincinnati. "Spamalot" celebrated in its usual festive style, taking over the upstairs of a popular martini bar following our performance that night. Show biz people clean up real good, and all our lovely ladies took the opportunity to break out their most stunning frocks and give us a glimpse of beauty and class.
This trio of lovelies is, from left to right, Cara, Jen and Paula. A good time was had by all. It was wild to remember last New Year's Eve in Washington, D.C., which was right after I opened in the show , and to realize that a whole year of touring adventures has passed. What will 2009 hold? Well, we all have our hopes, our dreams and a few resolutions. For the world, I hope that we can find our way to peace; and for our country, that we can emerge from our economic crisis, get behind our new President, and learn to be more accepting and inclusive of all Americans. For myself, I look forward to a year full of more creative opportunity, abundance, adventure, joy--and health and well being for my loved ones.
I must say I like Cincinnati. The downtown area is concentrated enough to be extremely accessible and walkable.
Fountain Square is the heart of the city and a sort of miniature Rockefeller Center, bordered by hotels, restaurants and cultural institutions, like our venue this week, the Aronoff Center for the Arts. You may recall the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin and its very beautiful streamlined modern design. That venue and the Aronoff Center were designed by renowned Argentinean architect Cesar Pelli. The Aronoff is quite nice, all honey toned woods and plush seats in sage velvet, with a ceiling of translucent tiers adorned with twinkling lights.
Cincinnati is known for its many cultural institutions, fine theatre and dance companies and museums. While I was disappointed, what with the New Year's holiday smack dab in the middle of the week, not to have gotten to the Cincinnati Art Museum, which is some ways outside of the downtown area--I did get to two fine museums.
The Taft Museum of Art is a real gem of a collection housed in a stately mansion built around 1820 by Cincinnati's first millionaire. In time the home was bequeathed to iron industry heiress Anna Sinton, who, with her husband Charles Phelps Taft, amassed an extraordinary collection of paintings, decorative art and Chinese porcelains. In the 1920s, these patrons of the arts bequeathed the house and the artworks to the people of Cincinnati and in the 1930s the museum was opened to the public. It is a wonderful place, part historic home, part art museum, and reminded me of a miniature version of places like the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston or the Frick Collection in New York. Each room has been painstakingly decorated with Federalist antique furnishings and reproduction carpets and window treatments, in color and design schemes that compliment the period of the artworks in each room. A wonderful feature of the house is a series of wall murals painted in tromp l'oeil style by the prominent 19th century African American artist Robert S. Duncanson, commissioned by the then owner of the house, arts patron and abolitionist Nicholas Longworth. The Taft collection ranges from Dutch masters such as Rembrandt and Frans Hals, to 18th century portraitists like Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, to artists of the Barbizon school such as Camille-Corot and Daubigny, who was a strong influence on Monet and other impressionist painters. There is a treasure trove of Chinese artifacts as well as an extensive collection of Limoges enamel pieces from the 16th and 17th centuries.
My favorite pieces in the museum were the early Whistler masterpiece, "At the Piano," John Singer Sergeant's portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson, and a hauntingly beautiful portrait by Ingres, "Mademoiselle Jeanne Gonin," exquisitely rendered in amazing detail. Incredible, really.
By contrast, the Contemporary Arts Center is a far cry from the decorative splendor and classical antiquities of the Taft. The museum building, opened in 2003, is a marvelous combination of industrial materials and innovative design by architect Zaha Hadid. The space is vast, open, airy and is a strong background for the challenging exhibitions of contemporary art on display. My favorite of the shows was the first U.S. solo exhibition of Austrian artist Maria Lassnig.
Now 90 years old and still painting (most of the pieces in the exhibit were executed within the last five years), Lassnig's work is spontaneous, vigorous, sometimes startling and confrontational, at others, touchingly human, particularly in her depiction of less than "perfect" human bodies. Applying oils to raw canvases with enormous courage and vitality, her use of the layering of color to create surreal depictions of human flesh are startling. I found it an extremely invigorating show. On the top floor of CAC is the "UnMuseum"--a center for arts education and an interactive museum for kids that I found wonderfully creative and imaginative.
My cultural exploration went from high brow to low brow, when I conducted a "when in Rome" foray into local cuisine phenomena.
Cincinnati is obsessed with chili, considering itself the true chili capital of the world, and they do it in a very special way. A meat based chili, with a slightly thinned out consistency, it is flavored with unsweetened cocoa, cinnamon and Worcestershire sauce, and served spooned over spaghetti and topped with a mound of shredded cheese. If you want your chili "Five Way" you would add to this a pile of additional toppings, including onions, refried or kidney beans, and crushed oyster crackers. So, I tried it. I had been warned it was an acquired taste. I did not acquire it. I found it icky. And it was almost instantaneous heartburn.
However, the local taste I did acquire was the yummy goodness that is Graeter's Ice Cream. This frozen confection is made using the "French Pot Process" in which fresh cream and egg custard is gently swirled around the sides of a slowly spinning French Pot freezer. As it thickens, blades scrape the ice cream from the sides of the pot, folding it in on itself. This accounts for less air in the product and a denser, thicker ice cream. It is beyond rich and delicious. My dresser in Cincinnati is Pat.
Pat studied design and stage management at the University of Oklahoma and when the "Spamalot" tour was last here, she worked as a stitcher on the show. This time she decided to get into the action back stage and she has done a great job dressing me and Brad Bradley. I asked her about herself and she said, 'I have two kids and two cats. The kids are out on their own and the cats are still at home!'
Our midwest odyssey continues next week in South Bend, Indiana. This next stop will be the calm before the storm in a way, as our engagements in Peoria, Chicago and Detroit will all bring significant changes of cast, with a new King Arthur, a new Lady of the Lake and a new (or I should say, returning) Patsy.
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