The Cottage Play Review

There is something delicious about a well-written and acted farce. Forcing aside manners and respectability, it reveals our common human foibles.

The Cottage, written by Sandy Rustin and directed by Jason Alexander, premiered on Broadway last week.

In a country cottage in 1920’s England, Sylvia (Laura Bell Bundy) and Beau (Eric McCormack) are having an affair. So are Marjorie (Lilli Cooper) and Clarke (Alex Moffatt). Add in Richard (Nehal Joshi) and Diedre (Dana Steingold) to the mix and you have a raunchy comedy of manners that is gut-bustlingly funny.

I laughed so hard that I got an ab workout. This cast is brilliant and hilarious. It is one of the funniest plays that I have seen in a long time. I walked out of the theater with the biggest smile on my face. This is one show that I would be happily willing to see more than once.

There is also a girl power ending that was the cherry on top of this marvelous play.

Do I recommend it? Without a doubt.

The Cottage is playing at the Helen Hayes Theater in New York City until October 29th, 2023. Check the website for tickets and showtimes.

How Rude, Tanneritos! Podcast Review

As an adult, our childhood memories are sometimes fuzzy or missing important pieces that have been lost to time.

The new Full House rewatch podcast, How Rude, Tanneritos, is hosted by Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie Tanner) and Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibbler). For those unaware (or who have forgotten), Stephanie was the middle Tanner child. Kimmy was the best friend of DJ Tanner (Candace Cameron Bure) and the annoying neighbor who always came in at the worst time.

Starting with the pilot, Sweetin and Barber travel back in time to talk about their memories and the experiences of making the show as kids.

I am loving this podcast so far. Listening to Sweetin and Barber takes me back. Their decades-long off-screen friendship makes this one fun to listen to. It comes off as an intimate conversation between two women who know each other inside out and not a series of recorded interviews for anyone to press play on.

There is, of course, the question of Full House Rewind. The obvious difference is that Coulier was an adult while the show was on the air and Sweetin and Barber were kids. I can’t choose one or the other. Both are fantastic.

Do I recommend it? Yes.

New episodes of How Rude, Tanneritos! are released every Tuesday.

The First Ladies Book Review

Friendship is very often, the way to break through stereotypes and prejudice. By knowing someone on a personal level, we will hopefully judge that person by who they are and not their identity.

The First Ladies, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, was published last month. At first glance, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune have nothing in common. The first woman comes from one of the most storied families in American social and political history. The second woman is the daughter and granddaughter of former slaves.

They bond over the dual movements of first-wave feminism and civil rights. When Eleanor’s husband wins his first Presidential election in 1932, they see an opportunity to elevate the issues that are important to them. But it won’t be so easy. On top of the political pressure and the hate focused on both Roosevelt and Bethune, Eleanor is beyond hurt by Franklin’s affair with Lucy Mercer.

Drawn together by a common cause, Roosevelt and Bethune are one piece of a much larger puzzle that has paved the way for the world we live in now.

I loved this book. What the authors have brilliantly done is take these giants of American history and reveal the person underneath the legend. Though the narrative is a little slow, it is slow in a good way. Instead of racing through the tale, the reader is taken on a journey that is both informative and entertaining.

What kept me reading was their friendship and the emotional connection that kept them together, even with all of the obstacles in their way. As Jane Austen said in Northanger Abbey,

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”

Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

The First Ladies is available wherever books are sold.

Saved by the Bell Character Review: Kelly Kapowski

The schedule for the Character Review posts will be changing to Friday (or Saturday at the latest from now on).

*I apologize for not posting last week. There is only so much energy in a day.

*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the characters from the television show Saved by the Bell. Read at your own risk if you have not watched the program. There is something to be said about a well-written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front of us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.

There is a stereotype about the high school cheerleader. She is pretty, but there is nothing upstairs. She is also popular and usually the other half of one of the jocks.

In Saved by the Bell, Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Thiessen) is an all-American girl and the head cheerleader at Bayside High School. In addition to the cheerleading squad and being on top of her schoolwork, Kelly is also a member of several sports teams. One of seven children, she is used to financial stress and has learned to make do with what she has.

While in high school, Kelly has a series of romantic relationships. After she chooses Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) over A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), their relationship is on and off for a number of years. After college, they decide to elope in Las Vegas, to the chagrin of their parents.

When we last see Kelly, she and Zack are still together and have a teenage son.

To sum it up: Kelly is intelligent, compassionate, driven, and not bowed down by life’s challenges. Though she is sometimes not the smartest book in the library (but who isn’t sometimes?) it is her openness and genuineness that had endeared her to generations of fans.

Which is why she is a memorable character.