Broadway Baby

Since this morning my nose is stuffed and my throat is raw, I suppose I should start with a blanket apology to shayheyred, and suricattus for that shared mimosa. Or possibly I should blame it. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, a fun time was had by all.

I got into town later than I'd hoped (note to self: There's no such thing as parking available at New Carrolton at midday. Period.) So that left little time than to drop off my stuff, stick my nose in Tip Top Shoes, and hie me down to Restaurant Row for something egregiously extravagant. (I had planned on going to Marlowe's, but instead went to Di Roma a few doors down, where they had a fixed price theater menu - $22 for a plate of asperagus with parmesan, a huge platter of fettucini and big chunks of salmon in a pink sauce, and a little bit of carmel flan for afters. MMmmm!)

And then:

Wicked
This was my favorite of the three plays I saw, and everything Broadway should be - larger than life, funny as hell, beautifully acted, lots of showstopping numbers, and mind-boggling sets (like the huge articulated dragon that hung over the stage, occasionally moving and blowing smoke).

It is also incredibly seditious, which only added to the fun. The story is all about propaganda. "There was discord everywhere," the Wizard protests, "and the best way to get people to unite is to give them an enemy. I did that." He did it by disenfranchising a huge section of the population, and then by smearing the name of his only opponent (Elphaba, soon to be known only as The Wicked Witch of the West).

You just can't get more topical than that these days.

The contrast is Galinda (soon to become known as Glinda the Good). Galinda, we soon find out, is pretty much only good at being popular. "It is good to see me, isn't it?" she smugs to the celebrating crowd as she arrives in a burst of bubbles. Joel Grey may be the big name star in the production, but Kristin Chenoweth (Galinda) and Idina Menzel (Elphaba) are high-powered perfection in their roles. Chenoweth is the quintessential dumb blonde - bubbly, giggly, silly... and in the end, resolute. Menzel can stop the show and break up the audience with a single, perfectly dry sentance. During the performance I saw, Dr Dillamond's microphone was acting up badly, throwing the actor off his stride, muting several of his lines, and distracting the audience. Without being out of character, Menzel came close enough for him to use her microphone and, after a particularly bad burst of static, threw in a particularly wry delivery of her next line "And that scares you?" The audience burst into laughter, William Youmans almost-but-not-quite giggled and the pace picked back up to where it should be.

Where Menzel's delivery made the character, Chenoweth was the queen of the perfect gesture, be it a sudden imitation of Evita or literally spelling out a character's doom in sign language. The book and music would make this a charming show in any competent hands, but these ladies have set a very high bar for future actors to follow.

Saturday
The morning can be summed up with "I shopped for shoes." Ye ghods, if you're looking for something, go to Harry's Shoes on Broadway and 83rd. If they don't have it, it can't be had. (Alas, with my feet, usually the answer was "it can't be had.") To my surprise, I ended sitting next to another woman from DC, who had come to town expressly to shop at Harry's!

I did find enough shoes to stagger through summer with, so then it was off in Shay's wake over to Elizabeth Arden. Yes, I paid a fortune, but I love what he did with my hair - it's now a softer, layered bob (no more Baby June!) and highlights so beautifully subtle that not even I can find them all... except that now there's no more gray. Yay! The acid test will come tonight when I wash it and find out if it's really true that this is a non-blow-dry style, as I insisted, but right now, I love it.

Reflexology was interesting. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll go for the longer session. I'll also make sure that I wasn't wearing new shoes the night before that put blisters on my toes. (I should have known better than to get the size 11s, even if they were big enough for my instep, I should have known!)

And then:

King Lear
Okay, this is the play that I went to NY to specifically see, the one that I have shining memories of, the one that is staffed with Stratford's best, who are probably collectively incapable of giving a bad performance unless they really concentrated on it.

And it was... flat and dull. I don't know what was wrong or what was different - certainly the audience was there determined to enjoy themselves and the place was packed. But I was, I hate to say it, bored.

So bored and so tired (I probably was, in the parlance of my southern relatives "Fixing to get sick" anyway) that at the intermission, I thought to myself, "Naked Colin or not, I've seen this production already and I'm tired" and... I left.

I will say one thing nonperformance related. The Lincoln Center has the perfect intermission appertif - a little wedge of brie, six crackers, two strawberries, and a bunch of grapes. It's exactly the right refreshment, it really is.

Sunday
Noteworthy for brunch with the gals, covered better by suricattus better than I. TOO much fun, y'all! We really must do it again next time I'm in town. And then, just before I left town:

Avenue Q
This was a lot of fun. A great deal more intimate than Wicked (a great deal considering there's muppet sex. Onstage!) this show doesn't have a Great Message as much as it resembles the Sesame Street performers letting off steam after a day of political correctness. (And, indeed, most of the performers have put in quite a few years on the Street.) Every Sesame convention is lampooned, from the squeaky clean language (no longer clean but occasionally squeaked) through the use of animated bouncing text on plasma screens to teach new words (schadenfreude) to the message of tolerance (the ensemble song Everybody is a Little Bit Racist). The one attempt of a character to be wholesome - Katie Monster's song about the many good uses of the internet - gets totally hijacked in The Internet is for Porn. ("Just grab your dick and double-click!")

I had expected that the show would be done Sesame-style, with the human performers standing in front of sets, while the muppets appeared behind windows and parapets. Instead, the muppet performers were right out there onstage, acting along with their counterparts. Kudos to them, because they were *acting* as well as simultaneously working their puppets, singing, dancing, etc. It was fascinating to see them work, which wasn't at all like I had thought it would be. For instance, performers would hand off puppets between and sometimes during scenes, without breaking the puppet's character. And the two-handed puppets, the ones with "real" fingers in gloves, don't have one person handling the head and the other person handling the arms. Instead, it's one person on head and one hand, another cuddled close on the other arm - a small thing, but one that makes the simplest of muppet actions - taking a hat off the head, holding it out, crushing it between both hands, and nervously transferring it from hand to hand (all while both operators focus on who the muppet is talking to) mind-boggling.

Although not as mind-boggling as that sex scene. None of the muppets had a body that extended below the waist and still it managed to be... quite... graphic. And many, many, hilariously delightful levels of wrong.

Getting out of the city proved to be a challenge - I missed the 4pm train, and I'd managed to miss realizing that the 5pm train was reserved (and which sold out before I could upgrade my ticket.) So it was a long wait in Penn until I could catch the 6pm train and thence to home. Tonight I'll be catching up with email and other stuff that stacked up over the weekend.

But it was Such a fun trip!