- Next on our place, our time, we'll meet a landscape architect who's leaving his mark on Hampton Roads.

We'll take you to two restaurants where the house specialty is mouthwatering crab cakes, and we'll preview an opera and a new waiting for Gau.

Welcome to our place our Time.

I'm Vian Webb.

Ed Carson is one of the most respected landscape architects in Hampton Roads.

In fact, he was one of the first landscape designers and Ed has lived and worked here for 35 years.

His designs adorn and enhanced scores of buildings throughout our region, but Ed's designs aren't just limited to landscape work.

Drawing has always been his hobby.

His sketches have won numerous awards and his drawings have been featured as part of the Smithsonian's International Drawing Show.

They're part of the permanent collection of the Chrysler Museum, and you can see samples of his work on our set today.

As our first story, Mike Sinclair tells us about the two sides of Ed Carson - As a landscape architect, ed Carson manipulates land, sky water and trees to create his art, but his art does not end with his landscape designs.

Carson is a well-respected graphic artist in the area known for his photorealistic style and his attention to detail.

Ed Carson has been drawing since he was in high school and has exhibited his work locally for nearly 30 years.

His art began as a hobby until some friends convinced him to exhibit some of his sketches at the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show in - 1963.

I did enter the show and that's when you took work to be judged in, in the various categories.

And so really I had two categories, more or less, a pen and egg drawing and a still life in done in oil.

So that's when the judges judged the work that you took in, which I did.

And I won two awards.

I won the most representational painting, the Alice Graham Walter Award, an honorable mention in drawing.

And that sort of blew me away because I was a good grief.

I didn't realize that you can win awards and cash awards too.

- Carson has been drawing seriously ever since his photo realistic style and eye for detail make his work easily recognizable.

Each drawing reflects the control and technical precision of an architect.

- Architect.

We have to do things precisely, I mean, they have to be dimension and accurately drawn to portray what's what you want developed.

And I think I've always enjoyed drafting and I think you have to be a draftsman, really.

And I think most of your artists have a certain draft draftsman ability.

And I've, I've always been a draftsman first - To look at one of Carson's drawings is to appreciate his love of the line.

His expertise with the pencil sets him apart from other artists.

Local artist Sheex is a friend of Carson's who advised him years ago on his strength as a graphic artist.

And - I said, ed, you're a graphic artist.

You are a drawer.

And I said, really and truly, if you get in a car and drive 15 miles in any direction here in Tidewater, you could probably pass seven or eight really competent painters, but you wouldn't pass one really good strong graphic or one drawer.

- Carson draws what is familiar to him, primarily people.

Some of his portraits are commissions and others are of folks that caught his eye.

His preferred medium for capturing these black and white likenesses is a number two pencil.

- I just feel I just, I can handle it.

I mean, I just love to see it develop.

You can take something and see it come to life and, and that, and there's a lot of ways you do it.

You blend and I race and just, I really play with it till I'm really satisfied.

It is.

I like to get down to the detail where it's almost photorealism and sometimes they've called it that.

And a lot of people see my work and they think it's a photograph.

The pencil is clean and you can come back to it where with your oil, you have to wait and just, it's a mess with the colors.

And I think that's probably what it is.

It's just easier, less messy for me.

So I, but I enjoy the color too.

I probably have done 25% coloring and 75% drawings.

- A landscape designer manipulates nature to compliment a specific building.

Carson's designs reflect his artistic eye.

- The art form comes into play.

Color balancing of colors, the arrangement of forms and the free forms and the fluid movement that you get as you do in paintings and so forth.

We deal in hard elements such as, you know, pavement and and so forth.

But the way you score the paving, different things play a role in the artistic betterment of the visual experience.

So I feel that they tie very closely and I feel I'm that I can relate that feeling.

A lot of my work, - Carson was among the first landscape architects working in this area, and many local landscape designers have worked with him at one point or another.

Carson's designs form many familiar landscapes around Hampton Roads like the Sovereign Bank drive through on Waterside Drive and the award-winning Riverside Corporate Center designed for Goodman Seeger Hogan.

- It is important for a landscape architect to be able to take a site or a building and bring that site out.

It's like putting a frame on a painting or a picture.

And the landscape architect has a chance to put the final touch on a project, but we think he has excellent taste.

And taste is such a function of design that that is the one single ingredient that you must look for is good taste.

And also as a developer who is in business to do this for a profit, you need someone who's sensitive to a budget.

And we've always found that Ed can come up with a design that meets our budgetary needs and really graces the projects in top-notch fashion.

- Carson strives to preserve the environment with his designs.

He believes that nature is the ultimate landscape architect.

- A lot of people don't realize the value of what nature has given us, particularly trees or even your, the terrain is a factor and these things that we always evaluate the site and we work with the architects and engineers in, in developing the best orientation and so forth.

- Ed Carson spreads his art across a vast canvas, whether using his pencil to create a new landscape or rediscover a familiar face, Carson continues to reflect and shape the world he sees around him.

- He's constantly renewing himself.

He, he still gets inspired.

He's enthusiastic like a child.

I mean, there's a childlike quality, which has nothing to do with him not being a mature artist, but it is that, I guess what I really want to say is it's that sense of wonder.

He has that sense of wonder that all artists have and all poets have of, of, of seeing if he sees something the same thing 10 times.

It's new each time and there's a new facet of it.

And I think this is what keeps him young, keeps him enthusiastic about his work.

It's that sense of wonder.

- Good.

Then I do two lunges.

One, two and I cut your head off, but now I'm after you still.

- The Virginia Opera is rehearsing its action scenes for Oz, French Opera Romeo and Juliet under the direction of fight expert BH Barry.

- What I try to do is to connect what I do, a fight thing to a story.

If you can remember a story, you know, like you remember a joke, if I tell you a joke for the first time, if you think it's funny, you'll remember the joke.

If you don't think it's funny, you won't remember it.

So I try and make the fight a series of of joke type movements.

What you're trying to do with your sword is this, rather than you move into CEP team or Tar Preem rather giving all the technical words.

I try and make it objective so there's a little story that goes on through every fight.

Alright, ready?

Step good.

See how much - Barry comes to the opera with an extensive background in all mediums, television, theater, ballet, opera and film.

Barry says that to create an authenticity in the dueling scenes on stage, the players must rely on acting, reacting and illusions.

- But up until then was perfect.

Yeah.

You know when a fight's safe, when it's got a good story, you can sit back and you kind of enjoy it.

But the moment that you feel danger for the actors are on stage, then it doesn't work.

Or the performers on stage.

So what I try to do is a believable hoax.

- 19th century French opera is grand and elaborate.

The Virginia Opera's production of the tragic love story, Romeo and Juliette Stakes, the same claim, incorporating dance choreographed by water Ballet director Glenn White and more.

- We've got several different elements.

They're singing in French and the music is French.

The story is about Italians, but it Shakespeare expressed it in through English verse.

So we've sort of done that in the production.

The music is French, there's singing in French.

The set is Elizabethan.

It looks like a Shakespearean theater, and the costumes are renaissance.

- Returning stage director Michael Irman calls the production extensive and vital from the lush love scenes to the dramatic moments, such as when Romeo must avenge his great friend CIO's death by slaying Tibalt.

- What I wanted is to capture the, the feeling of youth that Shakespeare put in.

Rather than having a bunch of opera divas playing teenagers, I really want the feeling of a very physical show.

And that's why I've engaged the, the fight choreographer that we have and the choreo, the dance choreographer to get a feeling of young people that are full of life and that just are victims of a fate that is out of their control.

- And yet control of the source is an important element in this performance, especially on opening night January 18th.

- If I jabbed you hard enough with this, it would kind of like go in a bit, but we don't sharpen the tips until opening night.

- I'm Holly O'Neal reporting - To the moon at Good.

- You don't have to travel very far in Hampton roads to enjoy a good crab cake.

Scores of restaurants have them on the menu and they guard their house recipe with jealousy.

Their customers who are aficionados of crab cakes say they'll eat crab cakes at only their one favorite restaurant.

Well, the crew of our place, our time decided to sample crab cakes and they did so from the northern neck to the outer banks, what we have for you is a report on two places where the crew enjoyed exceptional crab cakes, but then the restaurants themselves are fairly exceptional.

- When we came here, it was just an empty building with a boat ramp.

And so the, when I applied for my health license, the health man told me I had to have a name.

So he said he stuck, caught his grill on my health license.

So, but other than that, no we don't have a name 'cause I don't consider me a restaurant - Rescue marina.

That's the only sign you'll see on Vivian Carter's establishment.

The atmosphere is relaxed even though it's getting near lunchtime.

When the creme de la creme of Smithfield and Isle of White County come to eat.

Mrs.

Carter's k crab cakes doing the honors today is Annette Edin of Battery Park.

- First it was just hamburgers, you know, I was known for my hamburgers around town.

People would come down from the plants and everywhere I eat my hamburgers.

And then people would come in and get gas from Richmond and different places and they would eat my crab cakes and my oyster sandwiches, my fish sandwiches.

And they finally, the word has spreaded everywhere really?

But the locals around, oh, usually the locals in all white county kept it pretty quiet for years.

Then I experimented with crab cakes, everybody's recipe that told me one until I kind of hit one on one of my own that I liked.

And every, all my customers seemed to like it.

And then the oyster sandwiches and the fish sandwiches and the soft crabs.

I, we have people come from everywhere for softshell crabs because I guess after 33 years of cooking them, I know how to do it.

- Tell me about the crab cakes.

What, what makes a good crab cake?

- I think the least spices you put in it so it won't overpower with a crab meat and you won't, and use plenty of crab meat and the freshness.

And I get my crab meat right from the crab plant, which is picked every day.

And I, so I know it's fresh and I use a lot of crab meat.

I don't get both five crab cakes out of a pound.

And I've had people tell 'em they get as much as 12 out of a pound and I can't imagine you getting mostly fuller if you get 12 crab cakes out of a pound of crab neck.

Take that cornbread thing off.

You have three.

- I try to, - Hey, there's a rumor going around.

Serve food here.

- Hi.

- What hard did you have to say that?

- I invited to have crab cakes with me?

John Edwards, editor of the Smithfield Times and Smithfield Town Councilman Bob Hart.

They are regulars.

I understand you get assaulted when you come in here, right?

You do.

Everybody - Drink John bottle.

- Little ketchup maybe.

- Car sauce, butter tea, sweet herd, iced tea.

- Sweet, sweet, - Sweet.

- Okay, I gotta get into this.

Gotta try that.

I gotta go.

- The second place where we've enjoyed crab cakes is the Williamsburg Inn and the crab cake Chef.

Here is Russell Dandridge from New Kent County.

Dandridge has been making and cooking crab cakes at the inn for 17 years.

Crab cakes are in demand at the end.

Dandridge makes between 45 and 60 pounds of crab cakes a week.

- Okay, here I'm dicing.

My vegetables for crab cakes should serve at least eight people.

Starting off with celery, peppers, onions, and Virginia ham.

I saute this off after I dice up everything.

- The crabs are from the Rappahannock River and the meat is kept constantly chilled.

- Since it's such a large amount that I have to make, it's not a recipe, it's more like a taste thing that I go through.

The recipe, I guess is in my head.

- Seasonings include old bay seasonings, Tabasco sauce, and Escher sauce.

He adds Ritz crackers, salt and pepper, and mixes in the sauteed vegetables and Virginia ham with an ice cream scooper.

He shapes the mixture and puts the scoops on a tray covered with flour.

Later he will sprinkle flour on the top and at that point refrigerate the tray.

Just before cooking, he dips the scoops and eggs and breads the scoops.

In Sally Lund breadcrumbs.

Dandridge cooks the cakes and clarified butter in a hot pan at a medium temperature.

- I've tried crab cakes in other places and they just never came up to mind.

I found out a lot of places I go to, they have too much, too much bread in them.

And here is mostly all cran.

- He cooks the cakes five to seven minutes.

- I want to taste crab meat.

And I also wanna taste a little bit of my other ingredients that I have in it, not not too much crab, but I just want to taste a little bit of the other ingredients.

Also, - Are you absolutely - Oren Kaufman, the assistant manager of the Williamsburg Inn, agreed readily to join with me eating Russell D's crab cakes.

- I, - This week the Virginia Stage Company will open a new production of waiting for Gadot by Samuel Beckett.

38 years ago in Paris when waiting for Gau was premiered, very few people had ever heard of Samuel Beckett.

But since the premier of Gau, Beckett has won a Nobel Prize, primarily because of the worldwide fame of his play.

And waiting for Gau has become a symbol for whatever it is in anguish or hope that we wait for 38 years ago in Paris.

Waiting for Gadot was a symbol and metaphor of life to the people who saw its premier.

What is its meaning for us today?

Well, Mike Sinclair went to the Virginia Stage Company to find out - What do we do now while - Waiting?

- While waiting.

- We do our exercises, - Our movements, - Our elongation, - Our relaxations, - Our extrapolations, - Our relaxations.

- Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Cado was first performed in Paris in 1953.

Once considered on the cutting edge of the avant-garde, waiting for Gadot is now taught in colleges and high schools as a classic.

This week, just over a year after Beckett's death, the Virginia stage company's artistic director, Charles Towers, has decided to take another look at Gau.

- Yeah, sometimes I wish he he'd never been taught in college.

It's a play.

It's a play that's meant to be performed.

It's a very funny, alive, vibrant play that apparently perplexed audiences in the early fifties when it was first done here.

But I think the world has changed quite a bit since the early fifties and, and I don't think it's perplexing anymore.

Is it still relevant?

Well, yes.

That's what makes it classic.

It makes it relevant.

Is it, is it still cutting edge?

No, no.

I suppose it's not cutting edge.

I suppose it really was in the fifties and it's not now.

Is it still brilliant?

Yes.

It's it's a remarkable piece.

I've studied it, I thought I knew it and each day that I work on it, it's like unfolding, taking layers off an onion or something.

There's just more and more richness.

- Let's just do the tree for balance the tree.

- There have been volumes of criticism written about Gadot Scholars have poured over the pages searching for hidden meaning at some performances.

A study guide accompanies the program to make this production accessible.

Towers is allowing beckett's words to speak for themselves.

- You think God sees me?

- It's a play.

We're treating it like a play.

We pick up the script, we look at the script, we work on it.

We, we ask ourselves, what about this makes it come to life?

What doesn't make it come to life?

What's funny, what's not funny?

All those basic questions.

And, and in doing so, I hope will breathe freshness into it because we, we, we don't have a philosophy behind.

It is not some sort of philosophical stance we're taking.

I think it's about the human condition.

I think it's about people picking up this play is really like picking up a piece of music.

He gives you rhythm, he gives you shape, he gives you style.

And, and unlike many plays where you sort of cross the stage directions out because they're left over from somebody else's old production and you wanna create your own.

He has carefully shaped so much of the, the movement and which is unique.

The actual action that is, that occurs comes from his imagination.

- This show brings scenic and lighting designer Pavel d Bruski, back to the Wells Theater.

Dusky designed sets for Macbeth, the Tempest and Lilia liaison.

Deja Rus is designed for Gadot breaks with tradition and through the wells proscenium.

- We wanted to get away from some sort of barren landscape, which is he never, Beckett never calls for, he says a country road.

And whether he means that literally or not, it doesn't matter.

But, so it's kind of black and sandy color was out for us.

And, and we really, so we started with some color of, of and, and a piece of the earth.

Somehow we wanted it to be on a piece of the earth.

And so we have this sort of swelling on the stage, which is a, a little spot of earth and it is actually sort of greenish and the figures in their dark clothing and bowler hats will stand out, I think from them even more.

And the road, which is such an important piece of the play, instead of running right and left, actually comes from the back of the theater.

And then right out through the house, - Beckett's, precise scripting, repetition of language and use of long pauses makes the play technically very difficult.

Towers cast Doug Mark Kennon and Nesbit Blazedale to breathe life into the two tramps, estrogen.

And Vladimir, - I found the thing that was, that was very helpful for, for me was to read it really fast.

Just read it as fast as I could.

'cause then you start getting the flow.

I mean that's how, that's how this, there's a lot of one-liner, one-liner, one-liner liner, one liner pause.

And it's like I was saying about the way Beckett writes, these pauses are very specific.

We have reflections, we have prolonged reflections, we have pauses and we have silences.

And they're all sort of just slightly different lengths, but they're all important for what they are.

- Our job is to find a meaning that is logical to these characters so that the audience therefore can, if they wish, can enjoy and come out with a, with a, with a message or, or an experience, perhaps that's a better word.

The experience that these characters have gone through.

- The play tells the story of what happens while two men wait for a Mr.

Gado.

But who is this Mr.

Gado and what does he represent?

Scholars have debated for years and Beckett was conspicuously silent on the subject.

Let him alone.

- Mr.

Gado told me to tell you he won't be coming this evening, but surely tomorrow.

- I don't know.

I'm just waiting for him.

I don't know who he is personally.

I wouldn't recognize him if I saw him.

- He is not God.

- No, - He is not the man around the corner.

He is symbolic in some kind of meaningfulness in life.

Not, that's not going to help much.

But if you can visualize somebody who lives the road that you've never seen before, that has something perhaps that you don't have and you don't know what that is and that, but you might think that that might give you something in life that you lack.

Now, perhaps that's who Gado is.

- I think everyone has their own gau.

- See, disagreeing with me already.

- That's what I think.

Sorry.

- Waiting for Gadot has become a classic nearly 40 years after its first production.

Beckett's play still resonates with meaning, but what meaning does Towers want his audience to come away with?

You're - Not unhappy.

- I can't answer that.

I, if I could answer that, I wouldn't have to do the play.

I, I could just talk about it.

I, I I think it's really all going into the, into the experience of, of the event.

It's an event.

It really is a a a kind of to go to a Beckett playing, particularly this one is, is a theatrical event.

And, and I think they'll leave with what, whatever it is that we finally achieved on the stage.

And I, and I think it should be quite exciting - Waiting for Gado Opens at the Wales Theater on January 11th and runs through January 27th - Next week on our place, our time, we're going to continue with the Virginia Symphony search for a new music director.

We're going to meet all six of the candidates throughout the course of this season.

And next week we'll meet the one female candidate, Joanne fto.

We'll also have a profile of the watercolor artist Fannie Whitworth.

And we'll visit a gorgeous old church St.

John's Church in Hampton.

I hope you'll be with us then.

I'm Vian Webb.

Partial funding for our place, our Times made possible by grants from the Arts Commissions of the cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

From the Virginia Commission for the Arts and from the Arts Commissions of the cities of Newport News, Norfolk Hampton and Williamsburg.