Frishberg Branches Out

The show, Vitriol & Violets, is about the Algonquin Round Table, the group of writers and their cronies who gathered nearly every day at New York's Algonquin Hotel through the 1920s to exercise their wit. One of them later called it "the ten-year lunch." Among the verbal fencers were Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber, Heywood Broun and Harpo Marx. You may recognize the celebrated Al Hirschfeld drawing of a typical meeting. 

The dialogue in the show is fashioned by writers Shelly Lipkin, Louanne Moldovan, and Sherry Lamoreaux from published works or frequently quoted sayings of the Round Table members. The show opened off Broadway - 3000 miles off Broadway - last weekend in Portland, Oregon, Frishberg's base of operations for many years. It continues next weekend, Friday through Sunday. The top ticket price, 25 dollars, is definitely off-Broadway. Here's a brief review by Marty Hughley in OregonLive.com,the Portland Oregonian's online edition. 

For more information, go here. 

Those of us who can't make it to Portland for the show can hope for a New York run, a road version or - at the very least - an original cast recording.