Sunday Morning Michael Dale: Love Gets Debated, The Duplex Gets a Makeover and the K.G.B. Switches Allegiances

Manhattan may have the world's most famous skyline...

...but I must admit, the bright lights of Jersey City overlooking the Hudson can seem pretty romantic over cocktails at City Vineyard. Even more dazzling are the evening views looking up at nearby TriBeCa skyscrapers.

I had ventured way out west to that charming nightspot to see my pal, public relations maven Sara Davis, in The Great Love Debate, an audience participation panel discussion show that tours one-nighters around the country. She frequently appears as part of the onstage group of dating experts and while I've never seen the show before, I was pretty certain it would be good for a quotable quip.

Geared toward the straight and single crowd looking for a fun group night out, the crux of the evening, as explained by host Brian Howie, is that the trouble with dating is that women say men don't try hard enough and men say women expect too much.

So Howie surveys the crowd, microphone in hand, seeking answers to questions like "What are the best things to do on a first date?" and even gets volunteers to demonstrate techniques like "How to seem approachable while waiting in line at Starbucks."

Professional wingwoman Erin Davis and Bridesmaid for Hire founder Jen Glantz chimed in when asked what women need a man for in this day and age, but it was Sara who had me spit-taking my martini when she flashed a sly smile and quipped, "I need a man to placate my daddy issues."

And that was my quotable for the night.

Sadly, my raised hand never attracted the host's attention, otherwise, when asked for our worst first date stories, I would have told of the time I met an app match for drinks at Lincoln Center's Lincoln Ristorante. About twenty minutes in she asked if I could get her tickets for Hamilton and about five minutes after my politely negative response, she was out the door.

Just think, if she had wanted to see Perfect Crime we might have been engaged by now.

Call it the Sardi's of East 4th Street...

...or maybe Czardi's might be a more appropriate nickname for the popular Kraine Theater watering hole, K.G.B. Bar, though I'm sure Khrushchev would have thrown his shoe at me for such a suggestion.

My father's father ventured from Moscow to New York to escape the revolution's turmoil, and my mother hung out with that Depression-era leftist crowd, so I do tend to gravitate towards this tongue-in-cheek Soviet hangout when I'm checking out what's happening at the local theatres.

K.G.B. recently announced they'd tossed out the Russian vodka and have replaced it with Ukrainian spirits, so I enjoyed my pre-theatre martini with Khor Platinum. It's a symbolic gesture, of course, which shouldn't take the place of donating to organizations that are doing real work to help the innocent victims of a tyrant's invasion.

Nowadays, the only spies you might run into at K.G.B....

...are the theatre spies reporting to Broadway producers about the capitalist potential of the latest offerings at New York Theatre Workshop, which most recently transferred Slave Play and What The Constitution Means To Me up to Broadway and showed the below 14th Street set a version of Hadestown that was eventually revamped and shipped to the Walter Kerr.

With the Broadway landscape becoming both more political and more diverse these days, it wouldn't be surprising to see On Sugarland, an epic theatrical collage created by playwright Aleshea Harris and director Whitney White, making the move.

Alternating interactions are set around three mobile homes in a southern Black neighborhood where the only exit from their cul-de-sac community is through military service, fighting in an unspecified war durung an unspecified time. The excellent ensemble includes Adeola Role as a woman who has taken to alcohol to dull the pain of losing her husband to the effort, Caleb Eberhardt as a teenager with a mental disability who wants to follow in the footsteps of his wounded father (Billy Eugene Jones), and Stephanie Berry as an elder stateswoman who carries herself with the utmost elegance, prompting sarcastic banter with her down-to-earth housemate (Lizan Mitchell) who spends her time tending to a memorial garden dedicated to the neighborhood's fallen soldiers.

Most impactful are the monologues delivered to the audience by Kiki Layne, whose character has stopped talking since her mother was killed, but who boasts an ability to speak with the dead and explains how being a young Black girl grants her the power of invisibility among others.

It may sound depressing, but the serious issues are illuminated through Harris' captivating language ("Love yourself as much as they hate you.") and invigorating scenes invoking Greek tragedy and Southern gothic.

Why didn't anyone tell me...

...The Duplex's cabaret room had undergone a makeover? Gone are the standard nightclub tables and chairs and now the décor gives the joint the feel of a proper Victorian parlor, with comfy couches, red drapes, fringy lampshades and vintage sheet music on display.

Also on display last night was Scantic River Productions' premiere mounting of playwright/director Catie Carlisle's 100 Days, a two-person drama with an intriguing mystery to it. A series of short scenes depict various moments during a 100 day period in the marriage of a young couple. Moving forwards and backwards in time, the playwright drops clues here and there about the significance of this particular stretch of time that only adds up to a clear narrative once the 90 minute story is completed.

Sometimes funny, frequently touching, and played winningly by Teajuana Scott and Charles Meckley, with pianist/composer Colby Herschel providing a sweet mood-enhancing score, this brief run of 100 Days has one more performance, March 12th at 6:30. It's a great reason to check out the new vibe upstairs on Christopher Street. $15 in advance with 2-drink minimum.

Kudos of the week...

...go to Natalie Menna and Brad Fryman, playing the hateful couple "celebrating" their 25th Anniversary in August Strindberg Repertory Theatre's production of Dance of Death, Parts One and Two.

Portraying the retired military man with disgruntled crustiness and the actress who gave up her career to marry him with underplayed coldness, it may not be completely appropriate to say they have great "chemistry" onstage, but their fierce depiction of unbearable dissatisfaction makes them sure candidates for stage couple of the year.

You can catch them in translator/director Robert Greer's small scale production at Theater for the New City through March 12th. Tickets are only $18. $12 for seniors and students.

Curtain Line...

I got a press release for a show called Balkan Bordello at La MaMa, which is interesting because I think that's what the building was before it was a theatre.