When you’ve been married 17 years, you have to keep it spicy. That’s why me and my wife role play. She puts on a Girl Scout outfit with a box of cookies and I answer the door in my boxers. Or, I rent out a wheelchair and she pretends to be my case worker.

*This post is from Friday, the 12th. Sorry for the delay.

Dear Tina,

I just got home from a one woman show at the Court Theatre in Chicago. The play was based on the Joan Didion book The Year of Magical Thinking of the same title. Starring Chicago actress Mary Beth Fisher, the world of the play is told from Didion’s point of view as she describes a year of terrible tragedy with poignant analysis and candid emotion. For an hour and forty minutes, Fisher maintains the audience’s attention not through superfluous gesturing or emoting as one might expect with such heavy material, but by honoring the voice of the playwright that requires a balance of directness and vulnerability to accurately portray this woman’s experience with unimaginable loss. Tonight I was particularly struck by the audience’s applause. As a retired stage actress myself (does retired imply I ever did it professionally?), I have always thought that what makes live theatre the more intimate experience than screen acting is the instant feedback. What you just did there? An hour and forty minutes of uninterrupted story telling at its finest? You need to know how much we appreciated what you just did and you need to know it after every single time you do it. So we applaud you. Yes yes yes. Blah blah blah. This is supposed to be a blog about television but theatre is and will always be my first love. And when you see theatre as well done as The Year of Magical Thinking you need to mention it. I mean, do I need to remind you I was Dorothy in my school’s 4th grade play? And I acted the business out of it. So I know what I’m talking about.

Alright, as promised I am dedicating this weekend to Valentine’s Day episodes that I loved. Today’s choice, an easy pick, is Modern Family. I’ve mentioned Modern Family a few times so far with the promise that one day I would go into detail about why this show is the best new show on television you may not be watching. Here’s my opportunity. Because the Valentine’s Day episode was a great representation of the show’s theme of blending silly sitcom with authentic tenderness. Let me offer a brief run down of the family tree on this show. Jay Pritchett, played by Ed O’Neill, is the family patriarch. He is remarried to a young Colombian woman named Gloria who has a son, Manny, from a previous relationship. Jay has two children, Claire and Mitchell. Claire is married to Phil (Ty Burrell, genius) and they have three children, two girls and a boy. Mitchell is gay and is in a committed relationship with Cameron (Cam) and they have recently adopted a baby girl, Lily, from Vietnam. And they all live in the same town. There you have it. We move on.

Most episodes are set-up with each family dealing with an issue specific to their relationships or households that will eventually result in all three families coming together to solve these problems, or make them worse. Wednesday night was no different. Claire and Phil have spent Valentine’s Day at family style Italian restaurant Fritelli’s for the last seventeen years. In the spirit of wanting to mix things up, they decide to instead spend the evening at a hotel. While they’re spicing things up, why not add role playing into the mix? I know I have no objections, because this proposal led to Phil trying out a variety of “sexy” dialects: “[British]Perhaps I’ll be Reginald Applebee. An English gentleman in town for a polo match. [Chinese] Or honorable business man from Hong Kong. [German?] It’s not a big deal Claire. I just train tigers for a living.”

Over at Mitchell and Cam’s, Mitchell slips as he walks in the front door. Angrily, “Are these rose petals?!” Mitchell is upset and distracted because the closing argument he had been working on for months was not needed when the client settled out of court. Mitchell is clearly in the mood to lay low this evening but Cam had previously agreed to watch Manny for the night. Manny comes in equally distraught because “Ted” from school stole his Valentine poem and used it to successfully ask out the girl Manny had written it for. Cam has a soft spot for meddling so this dilemma leads to all four (including baby Lily) to the restaurant “Great Shakes” where the culprit has taken Manny’s love, Fiona.

Meanwhile, the reason Jay and Gloria had to drop Manny off  was so they could attend a performance by stand-up comedian David Brenner. This was of course Jay’s gift and one that initially disappointed Gloria who wanted to go salsa dancing. “He was on Johnny Carson a hundred times! Who is Johnny Carson?!” If nothing else, watch the episode to hear Sofia Vergara pronounce the word ‘comedian’. Makes me wish I was a Colombian native.

In this particular episode, Cam and Mitchell’s plot never crosses the other’s, but Claire and Phil happen to be role playing at the same hotel where Jay (remember, her father) and Gloria are watching the stand up act. Can you guess what happens next? You cannot. If this show was filmed in front of a live studio audience, I’m sure they would have an ending as predictable as Rachel getting off the plane for Ross, but it wasn’t so it doesn’t.

At the hotel bar, Claire is now Juliana, and Phil, because he can’t help himself, is Clive Bixby. Here are some highlights from Phil’s attempt at role playing:

I design high-end electro acoustic transducers. Its a fancy way of saying I get things to make noise.

So what’s your story? Miss America pageant in town?

Claire: You’re a pretty smooth talker.
Phil: I’m pretty smooth all over.

Claire: Tell me about your wife.
Phil: Well she’s beautiful of course.
Claire: Well if she’s so very beautiful why are you here with me?
Phil: Well she’s always so tired and she’s always making lists of things for me to do.

Phil finally manages to say something that excites both Claire and Juliana, “I respect [my wife] too much to do the things to her that I’m going to do to you?” and Claire excuses herself to change out of her clothes and into her trench coat. By the way, the question mark there was not a typo. Watch the episode.

Back at Great Shakes, Cam comes up with a plan to get Manny some alone time with Fiona that involves a cell phone, a fake contest, and a southern dialect. This episode: heavy on dialects, heavy on fun. The plan is foiled after poem-stealer Ted loses interest in listing every shake option on the menu in order of favorite to least favorite over the phone to one “Don Jolly” at the Great Shakes Corporate offices. Upon the Manny-Ted confrontation ending in a “get lost” and a shove from Ted, Mitchell appears as Manny’s lawyer and we finally get to hear the closing argument we have been hearing about all episode. Of course applied not to a court case but to a case of middle school crime. The closing argument may not be as applicable a Mitchell is pretending, as Manny begs, “Can you please stop calling me the little guy? I’m in the 40th percentile!” Shh I got this! Cameron and Mitchell have great chemistry on the show. One’s love for drama and costume balances the other’s self-conscious neuroses. And while sometimes I just want to kick Mitchell for constantly knocking Cameron down for his flamboyant, over-the-top nature, the two express appreciation for one another in their own way. In a way that says to the outside observer “we don’t expect you to get it, but we’re happy.” Gay or straight, that is the type of intimacy everyone should be looking for.

At the David Brenner show, Jay becomes the center of the comedian’s lashings for the clear age discrepancy between Gloria and himself. I like to think the writers were mocking stand-up comedy in its worst form here when the easiest, most predictable jokes are cracked for the benefit of the simpletons in the audience and the lack of creativity in the comedian. Unfortunately Jay can’t take the ridicule, no matter how lame or tame it was and excuses himself from the room. Gloria meets him in the lobby and assures him that she doesn’t care what anyone thinks and reminds him that she is not so shallow that she would abandon him in his old age. Because she loves him and he wouldn’t do that to her if she were to say, gain 100 pounds, right? “I have to get old! You don’t have to get fat.”

As Claire and Phil head up to their hotel room, the belt to Claire’s trench coat gets stuck in the escalator. This being a sitcom, everyone from the school principal to Phil’s co worker happen to be at the hotel and passing the escalator when this happens. Just when it can’t get worse it does and Jay and Gloria walk by. “Well why don’t you just take the coat off! What are you naked?” Why yes dad, she is as naked as the day she was born. You were there, remember? If you have watched the show from the beginning you know that Claire doesn’t really care for Gloria and understandably questions her motives for marrying her wealthy father. Watching Gloria come to Claire’s rescue and help her into her own coat discreetly and without judgement, was the sweet cap to the escalator schtick that makes Modern Family such a smart, thoughtful show. It has a beautiful way of complementing the ridiculousness with the sentimental.

I know that a show like 30 Rock is not for everyone and a lot of the humor doesn’t hit people in a laugh out loud kind of way, but I do think that Modern Family has a style and a wit that anyone could enjoy. It is a major upgrade for Ed O’Neill who is proving himself much more intelligent than was ever required of him over on Married With Children. The entire cast, even the children, are fun to watch and that is so rare in television today. Do yourself a favor and watch this on Valentine’s Day. It will be so much more enjoyable than watching Jessica Biel stuff her face with chocolates, crying, and making predictable vibrating phone jokes. See: Valentine’s Day preview, if you must.

30 Rock Quote of the Day:

Jack: You know what family means to me Lemon? Resentment. Guilt. Anger. Easter egg hunts that turn into knife fights.