Something interesting is going on here: A lot of current and soon-coming attractions have at least two venues — one on St. Thomas, the other on St. John. Are 'Johnians who commute across the waters to work all week too tired to take the ferry to see a show? Are 'Thomians unwilling to be moved for the sake of entertainment on the Little Island? Here's a more positive spin: If you can't make one performance, maybe your schedule will let you get to the other. Fortunately, between the ferries and the barges, getting there and back — from either direction — isn't hard to do.
LOVE CITY LOVE SHACK: It was a "soft opening" last Saturday night for the new Duffy's Love Shack in Cruz Bay, but patrons were lined up waiting to get in, all the same, and business hasn't slowed down since, co-owner Liz Duffy reports. "We were waiting to get electricity for a week and finally got it Friday afternoon," she says. "Twenty-four hours to get the beer iced. Even so, there was a line outside the door."
Duffy and her husband, Tim, spent months gutting the former Backyard and rebuilding it into a kind of fantasy island outpost that has a symbiotic relationship with an old almond tree extending up through the bar and a frangipani by the dance floor. There's a polynesian-style bar and lounge on the ground level, dining above on a deck with a decor she describes as a "Swiss Family Robinson adaptation," and, up a rope bridge from there, a small deck with a thatched tree house that serves as the DJ booth.
Such effects have not come about without planning. "We ripped apart barn boards in Maryland and brought them down, and old shutters," Duffy says, "and Page Winter carved all kinds of tiki gods. We've got bamboo fencing you'll never find anywhere else in the Caribbean."
Although the look is a lot different, those familiar with the Duffy's in the Red Hook Plaza parking lot — or its Ocean City, Md., summer extension — will feel at home. They'll find the same taco specials on Tuesday, ladies' night on Wednesday and wacky theme parties on Thursday. The same bubbles, smoke, red lights and other fussing over fun drinks. And soon to come from sculptor Winter: another stainless steel mechanical shark like the one in Red Hook. "The electricians are working on hooking it up," Duffy says. "It has to come out, gnash its teeth and go back into a trap door over the bar."
What's different in Cruz Bay, she is finding, are patrons' tastes. "We're doing a lot of food over here, lunch and dinner," she says. "St. John has kind of a dearth of restaurants with meals between $5 and $25. Ours are $6 to $9. . . we're doing more fresh tuna, lobster, more esoteric things." Her impression is that about 80 percent of the patrons are residents.
With business booming in Love City, Duffy makes it clear that there are no plans to abandon either Red Hook or Ocean City. "We have a very long lease in Red Hook, and my hope is that we can do something there similar to what we've done on St. John," she says. And the summer Maryland Love Shack, opened two years ago, fits right in with the St. John addition. "Up there, the season is the opposite of ours," she notes. "Right now, our Maryland kitchen manager is running the St. Thomas place so the St. Thomas manager can do St. John. We have 12 staff from Ocean City here. When season ends here, it's time to start up there."
Cruz Bay hours are from 11 a.m. until 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The kitchen is open until 10 now but will have late-night offerings starting in April.
SHE'S SEEN AND HEARD, AND RAVES: There's nothing like a personal recommendation when it comes to deciding whether to go see an entertainment event. If you're still on the fence about the "golden oldies" cabaret show coming up next week at Tillett Gardens on Wednesday and at the Westin Resort on Thursday, Ruth "Sis" Frank's opinion is probably worth a listen.
The program is titled "Isn't It Romantic?" It's an evening of show tunes and other enduring American standards from the 1920s, '30s and '40s presented by New York supper club singer Mary Cleere Haran and her accompanist, Richard Rodney Bennett.
Frank is the director of the St. John School of the Arts, which is the presenter for the performance booked in the Westin ballroom. Partnering with the resort for the first time this concert season has turned out to be a growth experience for the school. The ballroom can seat maybe three times as many patrons as the school, and attendance so far has more than justified the move (try an on-its-feet crowd of 350 for the Charlie Musselwhite Blues Band last month).
Last summer, Frank, signed on sight unseen (and sound unheard, other than a CD) for the Haran-Bennett show as part of the season package assembled by Arts Alive, which presents the Classics in the Garden and Tillett Garden Series concerts. Some weeks later, she was in New York with St. John friends Bente Hirsch and Inga Hiilivirta, and they decided to catch the duo's act in the Oak Room at the famed Algonquin Hotel.
The show, "Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the '20s," showcasing musical moments from the charleston, flapper and speakeasy era, "was outstanding," Frank said. "I've never heard better performers." For what it's further worth, The New York Times concurred. Reviewer Stephen Holden credited Haran with creating "an impressionistic mosaic of an era by blending songs, witty quotations and show business lore with funny self-explanatory asides."
Both Haran and Bennett bring a lot more than performance talent to the spotlight. Haran not only specializes in singing the song of earlier eras; she is an accomplished music historian who has contributed research for such PBS documentaries as "Remembering Bing," "Satchmo" (Louis Armstrong), "Rodgers and Hammerstein," "Sentimental Journey" (Doris Day) and "When We Were Young" (child movie stars).
Bennett has composed many orchestral, chamber and choral works as well as scores for such films as "Enchanted April" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral." The first student of Pierre Boulez, he was a composer-in-residence at the Peabody Conservatory and recently assisted a fellow Sir (both having been knighted by Queen Elizabeth for their contributions to music), Paul McCartney, on the symphonic work "Standing Stone."
Reservations would be wise for either island. Tickets are $25 at both venues, but with a $10 student rate on St. John. Call 775-1929 or e-mail to [email protected] for the St. Thomas performance (which has a dinner option). Tickets are being sold at Connections for the St. John show; for more information, call 779-4322 or 776-6777.
STRINGS AND THINGS: Yes, the folks at the Reichhold Center for the Arts who put together the premiere International Film and Video Festival last month are bringing Speaking in Strings, showcased at that event and announced days later as an Oscar contender, back to the territory for showings before the Academy Awards are given out.
There will be at least three screenings of the 75-minute documentary feature film about the artistry and life of flamboyant classical violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg that was produced by St. Thomian Lilibet Foster. On St. John, it will be shown on Friday and Saturday, March 17 and 18, at 7:30 p.m. at the Westin Resort. On St. Thomas, it will be shown in the Sugar Bay Resort theater on Sunday, March 19, at 7 p.m. Admission in both cases will be $10.
Why twice the price of commercial cinema? Because, the Reichhold's Karrl Foster explains, the showings will be fund raisers for a new Virgin Islands Film Society. He is looking into taking Strings to the Sidney Lee Theater
at St. Croix's Island Center, too, and says a second showing may be scheduled on St. Thomas. And he agrees with Scene that there should be a Oscar party on St. Thomas on awards night, March 26 — if possible, with a television hookup at the Reichhold Center plugged into the big movie screen.
One reason he has scheduled the March 19 showing at Sugar Bay is to accommodate an East End audience. "For those who say the Reichhold is too far away, let's take that excuse away," he says. But the resort theater seats only 112 people, "so we may end up having another showing at the Reichhold, too," he adds.
The society would bring in "culturally diverse and artistically significant" films and would seek to "create a forum for greater understanding and tolerance in our communities, with film as the catalyst," while providing "an educational platform for our kids," according to a draft mission statement. Foster would like, for example, to involve the local East Indian community, as India is a world center of filmmaking. "I've been in touch with people in Calcutta, and they are going to send me some films to review," he says.
Foster envisions the Reichhold Center as the primary exhibition venue but also aims to develop a permanent facility housing a film, video and book rental library as well as space for screenings, discussions and workshops. Plus, he says, next year's festival "will need as much help as it can get in terms of funding and community support."
Having come aboard in the final months before the first festival, he moved in as the prime mover behind the scenes with the departure of Reichhold technical director Tony Caparelli a month before the event. He's already working on plans for "the second annual," and envisions a different cultural focus each evening — "an India night, a Latin night and the like, with a documentary, shorts, a feature film, and cultural foods."
‘CINEMA SUNDAYS' MAY STAY ON: Meantime, Foster says there is talk in-house of extending the Reichhold's "Cinema Sundays" programing beyond the scheduled stop date of March 26. There's patron interest, he says, noting that last weekend's turnout for the also Oscar-nominated Buena Vista Social Club was strong, but money is an issue.
Rental for 35mm films that aren't in demand "you can sometimes get for a couple hundred bucks, maybe $300 to $350 average," he says. "But as soon as they make the headlines, the price soars — the universal number seems to be 750 bucks." Air parcel delivery and insurance can run another $250, he adds, and if it's a two-reel film, "you're already talking $500 on top of the rental fee." The good news is that, having rented a film and shown it once, a presenting organization can show it additional times just for a percentage of the gate — which is why and how he is bringing Singing in Strings back to the territory.
SINGERS GOT FRIENDS: It's spring concert time this weekend for the St. John Singers, and this time the group has invited three friends to join in song and an organist to be their accompanist. As usual, there will be performances both at home on St. John and across the waters on St. Thomas.
The guest artists are Las Tres Amigas — Wendy Joseph, Sandraann Massac and Jacqueline Bergland — and organist Albert Lynch. While the trio is mainly known as the V.I. Carnival calypso chorus and the singers in the band, the women are all classically trained musicians, and the group — under the direction of John Cahill, who also conducts the Singers — has performed classical and sacred works.
The St. Thomas program is scheduled for Sunday at 3:30 p.m. in All Saints Cathedral. The one on St. John will be Monday at 8 p.m. in St. Ursula's Church in Cruz Bay.
The showpiece of the concerts will be Vivaldi's "Gloria" in its entirety, arranged for women's voices with solos by Joseph, Massac and Bergland. The choir has sung portions of Vivaldi's choral masterpiece in previous concerts, but this will be its first performance of the full work, with organ.
(Here's a quick glimpse at the "Gloria," courtesy of a cursory Scene search on the web: The 30-minute setting of liturgical text, in Latin, was composed in the early 1700s for solo voices, choir, solo instruments and orchestra. It is notable for its octave leaps in the first movement, extraordinary chord changes in the second, and a melodic line that's an eccentric 17 bars long in the third. It is not, in short, an easy piece to sing. The music can be heard in the motion pictures "Runaway Train" and "Someone to Watch over Me.")
The choir of about 24 members will also perform lighter choral pieces in celebration of spring, and Las Tres Amigas and Lynch will each provide special music. The St. Thomas concert will include as well guest appearances by the V.I. Pride Boys Choir, directed by Lynch, and the St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Choir, directed by Ed Arter.
Tickets for both concerts are $10 general admission, $5 for those under 12 years. They will be available at the door at both venues.
WHALE SAIL STILL AVAILABLE: As of Thursday morning, there were still tickets available for both the Saturday and Sunday Whale Watch excursions sponsored by the Environmental Association of St. Thomas/St. John. Nisky Mail Boxes reported 11 left for Saturday and 4 unsold (but 2 reserved) for Sunday. East End Secretarial Services had 9 available for Saturday and the last one ("right now") up for grabs for Sunday. The St. John outlet, Connections, had already returned its unsold tickets to the EAST office St. Thomas.
Participants in this winter's first two outings, Feb. 26 and 27, enjoyed some memorable sightings north of St. Thomas. Of course, there's never a guarantee, but experts aboard will provide commentary, regardless of whether the whales show up. The catamaran Jolly Mon will depart the National Park dock in Vessup Bay at 8:30 each morning with a maximum of 40 passengers. Those without tickets can always try their luck by just showing up. The price is $55 for non-members of EAST and $45 for members, and it doesn't include beverages or snacks.
THE ARTS OF THE HUMANITIES: There are several performance events in the weeklong University of the Virgin Islands Humanities Festival that opens Sunday, March 19. Opening night will feature a concert by the UVI concert band, concert choir, jazz ensemble and steelband at 7:30 p.m. in the Reichhold Center. The spring Little Theater production, the carnival- theme drama "Play Mas" by Trinidadian writer Mustapha Matura, will open its four-night run on Friday, March 24. The festival will conclude with a "Jazz on the Green" jam featuring local musicians; it's being put together by UVI music faculty member and jazz ensemble director Martin J. Lamkin. Details are to come on ticket prices and outlets.
A BIT ABOUT JANKOMBUM: In the midst of the Humanities Festival at UVI, the Reichhold Center will be the scene for three nights of a seemingly related and yet not associated event — the world premiere Thursday to Saturday, March 23-25, of "Jankombum," a musical theatrical work by Eddie Donoghue about life in slave society in the Danish West Indies. The play will overlap with the Little Theater production of "Play Mas" two of the three nights, but since each has multiple performances, theater lovers wil be able to see both.
The elements of the play — characters, names, use of tribal languages, connection to historic events, and a focus on the universal human traits of love, jealousy and betrayal — reflect Donoghue's background as a sociologist and historical researcher. The work is set around 1840 and is built around historical events — an interracial marriage and government prosecution thereof. The cast of 29 is headed by the educated freed slave Jankombum of the Amina tr
ibe, disparagingly called "Jim Cock" by his former masters; Rebecca, the free mulatto teacher to whom he is attracted; and Freundlich, the Moravian Brethren missionary to whom Rebecca is wed. The marriage is arranged by the wife of a local planter who sees it as a way of de-fusing slave unrest.
Ah, but the plot is thicker. The planter and his wife are leading members of the Moravian Church, in which the interracial marriage occurs — one of just two on record in the plantation era in the Danish West Indies, according to Donoghue. However, the Lutheran and Dutch Reformed Churches say it is illegal and bring criminal charges against the missionary. A dramatic high point of the play is the trial — in which defense plays no part. Much of the play, however, is not about the marriage and its political aftermath, but about the life and times of the free and unfree blacks in the Danish colony. Donoghue acknowledges having "taken dramatic license to embody a number of historical events from a later period" into the work.
He wrote the lyrics or chose the source material for the 15 musical pieces in the production, which opens with a scene of chanting and drumming evoking the various tribes of Africa from which the enslaved have been taken. Lee Vantepool is choreographing the two major dance scenes — at the opening and in the illicit bar and house of ill repute of the politically powerful Mama Luna. Robert Leonard is the musical director. The overall production is being directed by Clarence Cuthbertson, artistic director of the St. John-based Carabana Ensemble Theater Company, which is producing the play.
Tickets are $25, with seating only in the covered section. They're available at the Reichhold box office, UVI bookstore, Draughting Shaft/Sub Base, Parrot Fish Music, Modern Music/Havensight and Crystal & Gifts Galore on St. Thomas; and at Connections on St. John.
WHAT'S ON THE WALLS:
The Temporary Gallery Space in the Fort Christian Museum is exhibiting 30 recent oil paintings by artists who meet weekly in a group class conducted by Tom St. Vincent di Coio. Among a number of larger people studies, Cathy Carlson's "Lullaby" a portrait of a mother and infant is a standout. At the other extreme dimensionally, Susan Edwards' petite "Donkey Taking in the View" has big appeal. Don't overlook it by failing to look overhead in the small exhibition area. Edwards also has a couple of collages incorporating religious imagery and themes — the kind of works that invite the viewer to think, which is not a bad thing.
For self-evident content, artist Pamela Murnan's horizontal portrait of four contented, clay-colored weimeraners is compelling. The animals, three of them mugging for the camera of the artist's eye, recline on a reddish textured rug that all but reaches out to be touched. Three land- and seascapes by Margit Kanstrup also attract the visitor's eye, with their short vertical brush strokes that yield a contemporary, neo-impressionist look. Kanstrup says she has been experimenting with the vertical strokes increasingly and finds it a "very relaxing" way to paint, with "no stress." The show will hang for a month. The gallery is open during museum hours — 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays except holidays.
Mango Tango Gallery takes down Jens-Peter Kemmler's too-short two-week exhibition of oils and watercolors Saturday, immediately to hang Donald Laurent Dahlke's new show. Dalhke, who spends several months painting in the Caribbean each year, typically shows several distinct types of work — his popular whimsical multiple-character studies, the large architectural portal paintings for which he also is known, his modernist abstracts, and sometimes an impetuous output of light-hearted computer images. The show opens Sunday with a meet-the- artist reception from 2 to 6 p.m.
Color of Joy will host a reception on Thursday, March 16, to open a showing of semi-abstract acrylics on canvas by Alexis St. John that the St. Thomas artist has collectively titled "Lost in Dreams." St. John says she sees her art as a tool to explore the relationship between the spiritual and the material and often borrows symbols from a variety of cultures to express herself. "When I come across an idea I have no symbol for," she says, "I invent one." She adds that "the soft spirit-beings found in many of my paintings are intentionally amorphous, leaving room for the viewers to find their own interpretation." The reception will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
The Westin Resort Banquet Hall will be the scene of an exhibition of oils and acrylics this weekend by St. John artist Lee Eng Khauv. Citing European painter Jesus Camargo as her greatest inspiration, Eng recalls her visits to his Mallorca studio "to watch him throw colors on canvas with no fear." Camargo, she says, "taught me to put myself on canvas with rhythm and harmony." The show is open to viewing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
THE SECOND ARTY GARDEN PARTY: The artist and artisan tenants of Tillett Gardens are hosting their second monthly Saturday Garden Party this weekend, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the complex. They and other exhibitors will be selling paintings, pottery, plants, fresh herbs, candles, beadwork, leatherwork, hand-woven work, aromatherapy items, prints, cards, custom T-shirts, silkscreened fabric and more. There will be craft demonstrations throughout the day, raffle prizes and steelpan music by Morgan Rael from noon to 3 p.m. Polli's Mexican Restaurant in the garden will have its usual menu plus pates and johnnycakes.
From now on, there will be Garden Parties on the second Saturday of each month. Admission is free. For exhibitors who aren't tenants of Tillett Gardens, there's a $25 space fee. To learn more, call the Ridvan Studio at 776-0901. (The studio name is pronounced Riz'-wahn. It's Arabic, owner Lynn Piccassi-Berry explains, and is a word with special meaning to Baha'i followers — the name of a sacred place, the Ridvan Gardens, and an annual faith festival.)
TO BE SEEN BY THE HERD: Scene & Herd appears weekly in the Source, previewing arts and entertainment events open to the public on St. Thomas and St. John. To have material considered for inclusion, send it in writing by Monday of the desired week of publication. Fax to 776-4812 or e-mail to [email protected].