The Great White Way

As part of our October trip to New York we took in, as they say, a couple of shows. The first, Curtains, we saw on Friday night, followed by the Lion King on Saturday.

Curtains

Curtains is currently playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, or it was before the stagehands' strike. I'm not sure if this is one of the shows that escaped the scourge of labor strife or not. Anyhow, the play is set in Boston in the late Fifties, where a musical is undergoing out-of-town trials before moving to Broadway. Though, judging from the segments of the show one sees, it might be a better idea if the show never leaves Boston. Or better yet, Des Moines.

One night, shortly before the show is slated to conclude its less than stellar Boston run, the star, who is completely devoid of talent, is murdered. And not a moment too soon, for several reasons, the most important of which is that it puts the plot in motion. Soon a Boston police detective (David Hyde Pierce late of Spamalot fame and before that a little trifle of a show called Frasier), is called to the scene and for reasons that make little or no sense but are essential to the story, he forces the entire cast and crew to be sequestered in the theatre while he investigates the crime. The fact that he's stagestruck apparently plays just a small role in his decision.

Overall, the show is kind of a throwback to the era in which it is ostensibly set. It's light entertainment in its purest form and the jokes and songs waft on the breeze with nary a care. I liked it. There weren't any songs I came out of the theatre humming. On the other hand there wasn't anything so awful that I wanted to plug my ears up with sawdust and gum. (Not that I know what that's like nor do I know, from personal experience, whether or not that's successful or not in stopping hideous sounds. Like anything from Cats, for instance. So I wouldn't advise trying it at home.)

David Hyde Pierce is charming and can hold his own with the tunes, as one would expect, since he was previously in Spamalot. Pretty much all the cast meets expectations, which pretty much describes the show itself. Pleasant, meets expectations, not great art, nice way to spend an evening. Followed by Thai food and another harrowing taxi ride back to the hotel. For me all taxi rides in Manhattan are in the 'harrowing' category. No depth perception.

The Lion King

The second and unfortunately last show (until our next trip to the Big Apple) was The Lion King. Yes, I know it's been running a long time and everyone else on the planet has seen it but us. We're slow. And maybe slightly dull witted, but that's from the lack of oxygen in the mountains and not a reference whatsoever to excessive recreational drug use in our youth.

In the interests of total disclosure, I haven't actually seen The Lion King animated feature. Well, not in its entirety. I did see around 20 minutes one day while waiting in a physician's waiting room to pick up Mary from physical therapy. I'm not sure why they were showing the movie in the waiting room, since I'm pretty sure I was the only child or person with childlike tendencies in the room. But be that as it may, I have never seen the entire epic in its entirety, so I kind of entered into the show with little in the way of preconceptions.

The plot, as everyone else in the country (and fully half the world population) knows, is Hamlet-Lite. King dies due to machinations of evil brother, son is unwilling to accept the mantle of leadership and pops off to Gstaad to hit the slopes. Evil uncle screws everything up, son has to give up career in snowboarding and a great sponsorship from Red Bull and overthrow incompetent uncle and restore the kingdom to righteous rule under a tyrant, but a benevolent one, so it's all cool. I don't remember there being gassy wart hogs and small talking rodents or mammals (too lazy to look it up), in the Bard's original version, but I'm sure if he'd thought of it he would have included them, 'cause who doesn't like wisecracking sidekicks, especially if they have a fur coat and fleas?

On to the show we actually saw and it was pretty awesome. Not the story itself. As I think I may have pointed out above, it's not exactly original or groundbreaking. But the set, design, costumes (especially) and the music were all pretty stunning. Well maybe the music wasn't exactly stunning, but it was pretty hummable, like maybe a 7 or 8 on the hummable scale. The costumes and set design were really the reason to make an evening, or even an afternoon, available for catching this show. I know I liked it better than I expected and it has the bonus of not running the three or four hours that the original source material required. I'm not sure I would see this show over and over again, but I could see how those with young'uns might want to go back a few times.

Interestingly enough, the audience of the show we saw was almost entirely made up of adults, with nary a child in sight. It was a Saturday night, too. I'm not sure what this indicates except possibly they were all over viewing The Little Mermaid show that was still in previews.

So overall, we felt like the theatre experiences of this trip were a success. Nothing earthshaking or mind bending, but good solid, and clean entertainment. That was not by design, just accidental. Next time we're in town we'll check out something sordid and disgusting just to balance things out.