In most cases, I find the customer service in America to be way behind China. Many stores here are understaffed; which means customers have to depend on themselves. While I was frustrated about whom to ask for help at Macy’s, I got marvelous service at American banks. As soon as I walk into a branch, …
King Hedley II. By August Wilson. Directed by Eileen J. Morris. With Ben Cain, Tyla Abercrumbie, Chrystal Bates, Kevin Brown, Jonas Chaney, and Leslie “Ezra” Smith. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company in association with August Wilson Center for African American Culture. 980 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA. Often described as the darkest play of Wilson’s twentieth-century cycle, …
Robert and I are at Cold Spring Park. November has stepped into the dressing rooms of the poor, their cold parlors, cold hearths which are cathedrals for the dispossessed. The sky, hard as a chestnut, is one such cathedral and my lips silently move in prayer to the small god of my misunderstanding. The only …
Alan Ayckbourn’s “House & Garden,” is held together on a fairly incredible concept: two separate plays with the same cast going on at the exact same time. Characters run in and out, often screaming, complaining, or mumbling. Plates are shattered, marriages crumble, copious amounts of alcohol are consumed; essentially it is standard dark comedy. Yet …
As soon as I came up with that title I realized I just can’t help myself—I am an ad man’s daughter after all; I come by the glib and the slick naturally. That said (and perhaps as a counter to the genetic link!), I also put my heart and soul into most of the works …
When I lived in Mexico City, I now and again stopped at the Cafe Tacuba, just a few blocks from the Zocalo, the city center. The Cafe Tacuba is a pastry and snack joint built in a colonial nunnery. It’s a popular lunch spot for government workers. It’s built right on the old Aztec causeway …
A few years ago, an American friend of mine visited China and asked me why Chinese don’t want to have their own houses. I said we do. We save money for our lifetime just to purchase a decent apartment. (Owning property is not cheap in China, especially in cities.) Then my friend disagreed with me. …
Majeed is an immigrant. He speaks five languages, and is illiterate in four of them. He learned Afghani at home, and the other three languages in refugee camps throughout Europe. He never attended school, not one, until, at fourteen or fifteen, he enrolled in this high school. He spoke no English. I know he flunked …