If you’re planning a literary road trip, there’s no better place to pause on your journey than in Flowers, Kansas where a quaint and friendly restaurant, “The Van Gogh Café,” resides. Along with a plate of flapjacks and a slice of apple pie and coffee, you might just find a bowl of magic. Just ask ten year old Clara, a lively sprite captured by Shimali De Silva, who runs off to school when she isn’t helping her dad Marc, a patient and loving Mihir Kumar, serve the regular customers .
The Yale Cabaret at 217 Park Street in New Haven spent a weekend delightfully opening the café for a visit. A real café was built and the basement space reconfigured to make the atmosphere welcoming and inviting. Using the small novel by Cynthia Rylant, and proposed, directed and adapted by Madeline Charne and Emily Sorensen, the doors of the Van Gogh Café opened for business and happy were the guests who passed through its artistic doors.
Once upon a time, the café was a theater and Clara is convinced that the ghosts of that establishment magically linger in the café’s corners. Plus her mother, who now resides in New York, has left knick-knacks of hens and frogs and cuckoo clocks to inspire flights of fancy.
Is it magical when a seagull lands on the roof, when there is no body of water in the flat, dry Kansas landscape? Why does Emerald the cat steal his owner’s boot and glove and present them as gifts to the gull now named Kip? Could a strange species love affair be brewing?
When a lightning storm strikes and unexplainable things start happening, is this real evidence of super natural events? Marc’s cooking equipment repairs itself and then cooks and bakes without assistance, the pies are no longer burnt and Marc becomes a poet with poems that foretell the future.
Through all thes wondrous events, as hundreds of gulls hold a coffee klatch on the roof, the town’s customers and a few strangers faithfully appear: Taiga Christie, Danilo Gambini, Lily Haje, Faizan Kareem, Rebecca Kent, Jocelyn Knazik Phelps, Devin Matlock and Nicholas Orvis. A new play is penned, a long lost absent daughter returns, people find their soul mates and a forgotten star of the theater returns on a mission.
The Queen of Tarts Catering is available to provide such offerings as Split Pea Soup ($9), Roast Turkey ($19) and Lemon Meringue Pie ($9). Wine, beer and soft drinks are available.
Sorry but the Van Gogh Café is closed (but may reopen later in the season). A Satellite Festival featuring small experimental works will occur all around campus on the weekend of March 26-28. Watch for the artistic explosions! Call 203-432-1566 or go online to www.yalecabaret.org for reservations.
Brighten your days and nights with a visit to the mysterious and creative doings down under at 217 Park with the inspiring Cab 52 Artistic Team.
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