LOVE AMONG THE RUINS PREVIEW AT EL PORTAL, WITH AFTERNOON TEA

When I received an invitation that was titled Love Among The Ruins, which also mentioned “Afternoon Tea,” my first thought was that Mr. X was jokingly inviting me to a lovely repast in the cluttered mess I’ve made of our very cute house! And I would actually have loved that.

But I also loved the different kind of event that this really was. And when I was telling Mr. X about how interesting, amusing, and delicious it all was, he queried, “You’re going to write about it, right?” When he thinks something is worth telling you, you know it really is!

So let me do just that right now. Last week, I went to a preview, of sorts, of the upcoming play Love Among The Ruins, starring JoBeth Williams and Peter Strauss. It will run at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood for most of October, so the producers wanted to introduce the creative team to a few select journalists. The entire day was actually delightful.

After an early-morning mingle, (during which we sipped iced tea, lemonade, and very-welcome-to-me OJ,) we went into the smaller theatre of the two in that historic edifice for the presentation which was hosted by the Supervising Producer, (with the absolute best name I’ve ever heard!,) Conwell S. Worthington, II. All of his comments were charming and humorous. And he was highly complementary of the El Portal, which I appreciated; it always holds a special place in my heart because the lobby is where I first met Adam Lambert many, many years ago.

After his entertaining opening, Conwell introduced us to the writers-producers, James G. Hirsch and Robert A Papazian, (what’s up with all these middle initials?); the director, Michael Arabian; costume designer, Kate Bergh; the President of the NoHo Arts District, (where the El Portal is,) Nancy Bianconi; and of course, the cast.

JoBeth Williams and Peter Strauss were very cute together. But my favorite part of the speeches was when the Director told the assemblage how good and glamorous we all look. (I believe he was looking right at yours truly at the time! Just sayin’.)

From everything all of the speakers said about this romantic comedy play, I’ve been anxious to look up the action of the show, but, as always, I’ve held myself back because I’d rather be surprised.

But I can tell you this: Love Among The Ruins has never been a play before! It was a highly successful TV movie back in the day, starring Katherine Hepburn and Lawrence Olivier. (I can’t believe either of those top movie stars ever did television, so this script must be special.)

I love to learn about history, so this should be interesting to me. I understand that the narrative is partly about when women had few rights. (So it could be taking place in some states right now, actually!!!) The original telefilm was set in the early 1900s, but this version moves it way up to 1934, which means much better costumes. The designer, Kate Bergh, showed us the drawings for a few of them, and they were beautiful. I love that era.

Just as I had made a note that I was glad to see a project with so many seniors involved, (which is a rarity nowadays,) and was trying to figure-out how to politely mention that tidbit in this article, JoBeth said, “It’s about people who are my age,” so I was relieved. But then Peter replied to her, “Speak for herself,” which cracked everyone up, because they’re both septuagenarians. (But don’t look it!)

I believe that Love Among The Ruins is about an older female who has money and a toy-boy paramour. Sound familiar? It’s like the story of Britney Spears and her younger estranged husband, Sam Asghari! So everyone should like the play, no matter their generation! (Maybe Britney herself should see the show, to get some tips on how to get rid of paying spousal support to a leach.)

As far as the new medium for the work goes, live theatre seems perfect for it. Peter reminded us all that “the pandemic affected theatre profoundly,” and added, “Theater is now more essential than ever.” I hear ya, bro!

Before I move on to the reception portion of the day, here’s a fun side note on JoBeth: Several years ago, she and I were on the winning team of an afternoon of Charades at a private party hosted by Jeannie Berlin; the two women were starring in a play together at the I-hope-will-be-reopened-again-soon Mark Taper Forum. We had such a good time that long ago day, (especially moi, because I love winning intellectual games,) and we had one again at this recent event reminiscing about our Charades Championship.

Now, after that amusing and informative presentation, we moved into the lobby for an absolutely delicious Afternoon Tea! As some of you may know, Afternoon Tea is seriously my area of expertise, so, at an event such as this one, where taking tea is not the raison d’etre for it, I really didn’t expect it to be anything special. But let me tell you—it was! It was so perfect, in fact, that it was almost as though I had told the caterers, the Alligator Pear Company, how to do it!

The buffet was stocked with perfect Afternoon Tea fare. And in the right order, too! There were three different kinds of finger sandwiches, all delish and varied for everyone’s dietary concerns, (salmon on white bread, chicken salad on wheat, and caprese on pretzel bread–yum!,) cups of an interesting salad, skewers of fresh fruit, bite-sized potatoes topped with spinach, and two kinds of scones accompanied by strawberry jam and crème fraîche! That they knew to have those sides for the scones impressed me so much.

Across the lobby, on another buffet was a trio of desserts–little iced lemon cakes, mini chocolate ganache cakes, and pistachio cannoli. What a pure delight all of that was!

The funny thing, though, is that there was no tea! That’s my least favorite part of Afternoon Tea, anyway, so I didn’t even notice for a while, and not one person there missed it on the hot day.

And they did the best thing—they had to-go containers! My friend and I didn’t notice them until the last one was on the way out the door, but the darling guy who ran the event, Tom, came right over to us and said to pack some food between two clear plastic plates, and he’d wrap them in plastic for us! I love kind people like that.

There is one other thing that was mentioned that day, which has nothing to do with this show, but Mr. Hirsch wants to get the word out, and it sounds like something worthwhile to me, so, especially as a person who had a mini-stroke a few years ago, I’m happy to pass the word along. It’s an organization called Recovery Shot, and was founded by a couple of pals of his after one had a major stroke. Golf helped him recover, and that’s what started the ball rolling on this idea which now helps others. You should check it out.

Right after you see Love Among The Ruins, of course.