Charlie Varon and a Reflection about Hotels

Reformed, Conservative and Orthodox Plotnikkies alike will cringe when they see Charlie Varon's latest one-man show "Rabbi Sam." It may remind some about everything they dislike about all religion with an emphasis on the religion being featured. It may also make some feel proud. The Great Plotnik, though his empathy with the board members of the fictional suburban Temple Beth Am would only be measurable with an electron microscope that can make out the tattoos on a bacterium's butt, nonetheless felt he understood Rabbi Sam's dilemma. Sam wants to be the Messiah, but he has ended up in San Jose.

If you know the difference between a pickle and a shmeckel, you will probably want to see Rabbi Sam. You can read the San Francisco Theater Blog review here. Charlie Varon is a theatrical genius for sure.

Saint Plotniko is a marvelous theater town. You can get big ones and little ones, glitzy ones and plain-wrap ones, fabulous costumes or none, fantastic music or none, brilliant sets or none. This weekend Plot and Duck got the None spectrum. The acting was no less spectacular.

Sometimes Plotnik thinks theater is like a hotel. His taste in hotels leans towards the bare bones. You spend as little as possible for a place to sleep and then you splurge on a few meals. Most people he knows feel the opposite: if you're going to stay in a hotel, they say, stay in the finest. Take the room service. Tip the bellhops. Eat the buffet. Buy the Hawaiian shirt.

These folks go to Cats or Phantom. They enjoy the fact that it costs two arms and a kidney. Plotnik and Ducknik are as cheap as Pharoah's accountant but they like the Hawaiian shirt too. Plot has a closet full of 'em. When it comes to theater, they also enjoy the big ones, but they truly love the little ones. These theaters are the loading zone, the place where the artists arrive. It has been a nice Little weekend in a great town.