I could do better than these Italians

When you are raised in a household that prides itself on connecting to culture of it’s ancestors, you get familiar with tastes and cooking rhythms. More than most you know how Chicken Tikka should taste, why a mole takes hours to perfect, and how great effort goes into a broth for minestrone soup. You get labeled a snob and in your pauses for self-reflection, you wear that blue ribbon of cultural criticism with honor, never taking substitutes with the mantra “I can do better than these…(insert your respective ethnic group).

In Highwood, Illinois stands a long running Italian steakhouse named Bertucci’s. My Grandparents use to frequent this establishment which I swore as a child was run by mobsters with the way I caught a glimpse of slick dealings in back rooms on the way to the toilet. Getting older, I realized those squeaky wheels could have been greased but it was likely a façade that Bertucci’s had any interesting décor outside of bland green and red carpets and posters of The Godfather. These are the places where heritage takes slips in identity and devolves into the idealized culture that doesn’t exist and perhaps never did. I say this because most Italians that I met in Rome and in Europe actually took pride in their service and quality of food. Ally and I, with another couple waiting behind us, waited close to five minutes at the host table before the late-sixties slick-haired Italian owner in an off-colored jacket just paraded us around the restaurant to find any seat.

 I’d say the clientele of Bertucci’s had been collecting Social Security and using Medicare for over five years. Most of the old Italians in my Mom’s side of the family are irritable, making me wonder why no one bothered to make a stink. Our waitress had a dead look in her eye akin to the in-flight hostess doing the seat belt demonstration. She didn’t care to read off specials or show much effort in appearing throughout the meal, an aspect of service I’ve heard more than once about Bertucci’s. Later on she was helpful, only after I dialed up the niceties. With our LivingSocial coupon, there shouldn’t have been an automatic 18% gratuity.  

The coupon was bought as a $41 for $80 deal where the couple gets a shared appetizer, two entrees up to $31 each and a shared dessert. The bland artichoke fritters came out far too quickly, making me think they had previously made them and warmed them in the microwave considering their temperature. Oh and do you ever remember ordering a side of béarnaise sauce and instead was happy with having your fritters a patty of Velveeta cheese? Yeah, me neither! The bland repeated itself in a boring side salad and a minestrone soup that was so boring and tasteless; I only had about four to five spoonfuls. My Great-Grandma would be ashamed of them! 

Ally and I both ordered the 16 oz NY strip with an alforno crust of Parmesan and garlic, both to be cooked at medium. The edges were certainly medium but the insides were medium rare to rare, and without the crust. The waitress explained that we didn’t request the crust – how the hell are we supposed to know if you don’t write it on the menu and do not take the extra two seconds out of your rounds to explain? When returned, the cheese and garlic crust more resembled a skin flap on top, adding a bit more flavor. The roasted zucchini and squash on the side and sliced bell peppers needed salt, butter, balsamic – anything! Thankfully, we got to take most of the dinner home. 

The one redeeming factor of the night was a chocolate shell that encased a smooth hazelnut moose with an amaretto sponge bottom. I’d order that again if in fact I was dragged back to Bertucci’s. What use to be an establishment with a name in downtown Highwood in a shell where the lackluster effort and execution in each stage is visible. Why people keep returning is beyond me.  

Life in Living Color - Let me take you for an uneven ride

Musicals have the ability for those willing to listen to infect your ears with lyrical worms usually left for the three minute pop songs on top forty stations. At any given moment you could be belting out the delightful but filthy lines from The Book of Mormon. You could even go traditionalist on your springtime walks with Oklahoma. I believe a show has to have an even level of relevance in their songs for the characters and the story, each song presenting something new in song, dance, comedy or tragedy. When a show has ever other song crash like a plane on takeoff, you know your in-flight entertainment is going to be a bumpy ride.

This past Sunday night Ally and I took up Broadway in Chicago ticket offers of buy one, get one free to see the limited run of Catch Me if You Can, adapted into a stage musical from the 2002 charming Steven Spielberg film that reminded us what it was like for that filmmaker to have fun again. Though the film runs a bit long at the beginning and end (not uncommon for Spielberg), the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks were dynamite in the true tale of Frank Abignale, Jr, who by his 22^nd birthday in the late 1960’s impersonated a Pam Am pilot, E.R Doctor and Lawyer, forging enough checks to warrant the F.B.I to hunt him down for the over two million he stole.

Now, one wonders, as I was throughout the show, how the heck can you adapt this for the Broadway stage – you can’t, unless the story changes dramatically. Usually the first act curtain of a show should have set up everything required to ride itself out for the rest of the show. Some of the numbers just drag and frankly kind of stink, (Butter out of Cream, Don’t be a Stranger), making me wonder if the producer’s said to themselves “Shit, we’ve already committed to this musical and the film story really doesn’t work as one…just stuff it with songs and get it on stage!”

Catch Me if You Can at the Cadillac Palace was still setting up circumstances for Frank about four songs into the second act. Problem is with such a long story, and each of those impersonation sections of Frank’s life necessary is that you end up rushing the show to get to the climax of the story where he leaves the Louisiana lawyer’s daughter. Then, you further root those dancing shoes into the stage with songs that are better left for nails in coffins. Characters that didn’t deserve as much time on stage, such as the Italian-stallion mook performance for Frank Sr, were not nearly as boring as Frank Jr’s ex-fiance belting out a tune that has little relevance to the show, considering that she’s such a minor character singing the main climatic number.

Those infectious songs in Catch Me if You Can by the performances of Frank Jr (Stephen Anthony) and F.B.I agent Carl Hanratty (Merritt David Janes) were the boards holding back the water in that sinking ship. The show kicks off what promises to be the story through Frank Jr’s vision, as if he is on a celebrity T.V with his name, the dancers living out his life tongue-in-cheek style, video screens broadcasting Bond-girl like cut-outs to the audience of women and planes in stark 60’s color patterns. Life in Living Color, sung by Frank Jr, personifies this airway vision. Stephen Anthony and Merritt David Janes had great comic timing, eliciting laughs from myself and many audience members in the unfulfilled seating of the massive Palace. Catch Me if You Can was certainly a bumpy ride that though had delightful numbers it probably should have been left as film or taken time to develop the music and lyrics with what is a great composer in Marc Shaiman.

In my final thoughts I have to reserve disdain for fellow audience members all around Ally and I. The whiny, high-pitched voices of the men behind us, laughed one does when someone feels the need to scream for a brief second. The man to Ally’s right fidgeted by leaning forward and back so many times I thought there was a six foot five child next to her. Two ass-hats took the open seats in front of us in the second act, the one guy’s massive Jupiter head blocking Ally’s view. Behind me and to the left a few seats, two caddy women were drinking copious amounts of over-priced chardonnay and talking as loud as two friends would in a club before some of us shushed them into silence. People, for the love of God, leave your rude and ill-advised choices for your home cinema and let the rest of us who know how to respect our fellow theater goers enjoy the show! If you can't tell I'm already developing curmudgeon sensibilities at 31 years old.