Food and a flick at Smitty's Cinema

Going to the movies. It's been a fall-back option to the "What do you want to do tonight?" question for decades. It's not the most creative suggestion, but it works thanks to its simplicity and cheapness.

Dinner is inevitably added to the plan as a pre-movie warm up. But the thing about dinner is you're often compelled to, you know, talk. Have a conversation. Swap stories.

It's a lot of effort some nights. But try eating in silence just once and suddenly you're "awkward" and "no longer needed at the office."

Bless Smitty's Cinemas for providing a conversation-free dining experience. All you need to do is sit back, chew your fries and watch the big ol' screen up front.

Smitty's in Biddeford (there's also one in Sanford) looks like any other movie theater at the outset. Brightly patterned carpeting flecked with escapee popcorn, the scent of microwaved butter, the electronic gunfire of a video game audible from the arcade.

The real Smitty's draw isn't obvious until you press through the door to the theater. Goodbye rows of tightly packed seats. Hello table for six! Hello rolling, reclining chair from heaven!

There are a handful of tables in the theater - and rows of seats up front if you're really hankering for the traditional theater experience. If you didn't grab a menu from the ticket counter a waiter will bring you one. That's right - a waiter.

It's a dinner-while-you-movie kind of theater. The menu consists of the deep fried basics like chicken fingers and fries, burgers and nachos. Beer ($2.99 Bud, Bud Light, Michelob Light, Miller Light, Coors Light, Rolling Rock and Michelob Ultra), a few mixed drinks ($4.99 Bacardi and cola or Bacardi and punch) and even wine is available as well.

Doors open long before the movie starts, so you can snag a table and get chowin' if you don't want food distracting you from your movie concentration. But you can order when the lights go down, too, if you dig the screen-watching/burger-chewing combo.

The theater is dark during the movie, though still well-lit enough for you to see what you're eating. Three cheers for that - since we were brought a side sauce that appeared to be growing some sort of fuzz. The waitress apologized profusely for the hairy marinara, but the full bill came at the end of the meal. Oh well.

It's a different way to see a regular old movie - with a bigger screen than your apartment and more personal space than other theaters. And being able to sip a couple of beers while you watch (without having to hide the bottle under your coat jacket) is kind of nice.

It isn't gourmet dinning here, but that's not the point. You don't go FOR the food - you go because there IS food (and drink).

Ladies Night at the Rock Gym

Womens night returns on the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month starting November 12th from 7 - 9pm. It costs $5 for climbers pass, $5.00 Equipment Rental and $5 for first time instruction. We've had a great, consistent group attending, with various levels of climbing experience. No appointment is necessary.

Human Puppetry with Open HeART Space

By Monique Wells, Freelance Writer

I told everybody: "Wear yoga pants. Bring something that you can do the splits in."

It wasn't hard to convince my friends Molly, Cat, and Christie to join me in "Human Puppetry" - put on by a group called Open HeART Space.

We giggled as we approached the building. A woman layered in cotton and dance socks saw us through the door's window. "Are you here for the workshop?" she asked. She seemed surprised to see us. Were we not Puppetry material?

We followed her into a large unfurnished classroom adorned with hanging tapestries. Four lanky men with soft eyes introduced themselves. Exclamations sounded. "New people!" We felt a little misplaced at first, like we'd come to a strangers' graduation party for appetizers.

My pals' applied their spandex (I had worn mine in, an eager beaver). The teacher, Armen, had us sit in a circle formation and we all went 'round and explained our history with movement and what we wanted to get out of the class. He asked me if I had any experience with "contact work." (I momentarily made a mental orgy joke. Was this how they began? I had always wondered). I told him that I had never heard the phrase "contact work" (others giggled, though I was being earnest), but I felt open to it.

For the first 20 minutes we lay on the floor and swooped our limbs in circles around on it. The floor supported our muscles, as if we were making a series of demented snow-angels, as if our toes were the pencil on a geometric compass.

The group circle was resumed. Each person then attempted "contact work" in the center with Armen. He danced slowly, leaning on the exemplary person, allowing the person to lean on him, making circles with the arms of the exemplary person as if they were an elliptical machine at a gym. He danced with one girl like she was a ballerina and wrestled with Molly, as upright as a horse sleeps. He explained that our first exercise in which the floor held our weight was preparing us for others to hold our weight and vise versa. I touched him sparingly, mostly in the fingertips - he was a stranger.

Suddenly there was an anticipatory vibration in the classroom. It was as if a Tibetan monk was teaching P.E. and my turn was coming to climb the rope. I was nervous. Was there a right or a wrong way to "contact?" Was it inappropriate to giggle? Each cell in my body seemed to shake like a numbered ball in a lotto machine, though as a whole I was still.

We partnered up and learned to cue another person's body to move by patting joints. For instance, if Bill was my puppet and I was the puppeteer, Bill would close his eyes and I would gently lift his bicep. The next time I touched his bicep, he would know that I intended him to raise it. I would put Bill in a hunting pose. Then Bill would be the puppeteer. Bill might walk my legs over to a chair, sit me down, and proceed to cue me into the pose of an old woman waiting for a bus. This was Human Puppetry.

Next we resumed our circle to play the puppetry game as a group. Two puppets in the middle were cued by the entire class. This part was quite a hit. It was strange to be creating a human scene, silently, with strangers.

As the class wound to a close, Armen had us close our eyes and hold hands to create noise music. We made a big, dynamic five-minute song complete with beats, whispers, whistles and growing melodies.

Throughout the class we had a series of blissful catching-ons (as we learned new tricks in people-catching or Morse code ankle-tapping). And suddenly we were a fully bonded set of strangers who moved and sang freely. After the song, a giggle-fest hit us like a nor'easter. We left feeling tranquil, wise and happy.

Naked Shakespeare at Wine Bar

Don't let the "naked" trip you up - it's not that kind of production.

Acorn Productions' Naked Shakespeare is minimalist in its performance. That means no period-appropriate costumes (but yes, the actors are dressed), no set (other than the preexisting backdrop of the bar) and no professional lighting (as evidenced by my poorly lit amateur photos). It's all about the poetry.

That was all the information I had going in.

The production started at 8:00 p.m., but my coworker Kate and I headed over a little early in order to cherry-pick our seats (and to get a head-start on the wine). The warm spell had stepped in a few days earlier - as evidenced by the slush piles on Wharf Street and the over-heated second-floor Wine Bar. I'll recuse an unstoppable heating system and not the bar owners - I don't recall being that uncomfortable during previous excursions there.

Kate and I both ordered glasses of Wild Pig (solely because it was called Wild Pig - that's what uneducated wine drinkers do) and found a couch by the bar to settle into.

After just a sip or two of the WP, one of the Acorn Productions actors came along to encourage us to get in on the action with a bit of audience participation. He handed Kate a slip of paper and asked her - when it was time - to introduce the next actor by reading what was written on the slip. Being bolder than I, she was all for it - and even tested a range of dramatic accents in an effort to give her lines the most "oomph." Then, a few minutes after 8:00, a man stood up from amongst the wine glass-tipping audience and began to speak. His hearty voice caused the rumble of scattered conversations to quiet, and the Naked Shakespeare began.

An audience member stood to read her slip of paper - and being at the other end of the room made her slightly hard to hear. But her lines prompted an actor (who had been inconspicuously sitting at the bar) to stand and recite - and these Acorn folks know how to make their voices carry.

Everyone in the room - which was by now without a seat to spare - turned in their chairs or craned their necks to face the speaker. He spoke with the ease and confidence of a seasoned actor, turning to people seated next to him, clutching his glass and blending this solo performance into the Wine Bar scene.

His lines reaching their conclusion, he resumed his seat at the bar, turned his back to the audience and we all began to clap.

When the applause subsided, a second audience member stood to read her introductory line. And so it went. There were approximately 6 actors reciting lines from an array of Shakespeare's plays - each doing one or two before the evening was out.

And Kate - who opted to read sans accent - was even complimented for her reading of the line: "No, really, Iago, take my money if it helps your revenge of Othello and Cassio."

Not surprisingly, the performances were impressive. While Naked Shakespeare features a rotating cast of actors, I'm willing to bet that all of them are as equally skilled as those we saw.

And there's no need to be proficient in the Shakespeare's work to appreciate this production - Naked Shakespeare is good old fashioned entertainment in it's own right. It's not high-brow or overblown, but offers just enough of the Bard's theatrics to make any audience member feel cultured. And hey, did I mention it's free? (Though donations are welcome - and well-deserved.)