done gone

The idea, Mr. Newman said, is to return the theater to the significance it once held, while making the grounds a community gathering spot.

To that end he and the team behind the restaurant already have a weekly farmers’ market going in the parking lot. Mr. Newman hopes to add electric go-carts too, a point that he likes to bring up as often as he can and that the people around him try their best to ignore.

From today’s New York Times piece on Paul Newman’s new restaurant, Dressing Room, which will open alongside the Westport Country Playhouse – a regional theater that he and his wife have had a hand in saving.

I would like that – to see the theatre return to the significance it once held – but folks, I’m afraid that boat has sailed. Population patterns, competing entertainment sources, modes and venues, the fact that fewer folks are writing for the theatre or engaged in the business of putting on a show – we’ll never go back there again, not to the Broadway of the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

But I’m all for enjoying a good show and great meal afterwards, anyway. Because good theater – stories told out loud – that’s the kind of fix that folks go to church for. If I have a religion, it’s this: tell me your story, and take the time to tell it well, because there’s magic and transformation in that. Not just in the story, but in the hearing and receiving.

And in the sitting around the table talking and drinking wine with friends afterwards. (There's magic and transformation there too -- sometimes more.)