I would have liked to take more pictures of my recent sojourn to the Big Apple, but there was way too much rain to pull out the digital camera. Nevertheless, I did my best to honor the Yuletide season in NY by partaking in some shows. 
I am not sure when my tradition started to always see a Broadway show around the holidays. It certainly wasn't with my folks since the then $6.80 ticket was probably cost-prohibitive. But, we did always do the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall where the top ticket price was 75 cents and much more in line with the family budget. So, after beating senseless the horrible notion that Radio City Music Hall at Christmas is anything like the Radio City Music Hall at Christmas that I went to see, I tried one more time to see the Holiday Spectacular. My companions for the evening were a couple of younger work colleagues, who have never even been in the building. For shame.
Now, the last time I saw this Christmas dreck in the Showplace of the Nation, I was appalled at how canned it was. The only live music I heard was the toetapping I was doing to the imaginary orchestra in my head. Everything about fifteen or so years ago sounded like it had been recorded in your hall closet. And the show was badly paced for any age group except perhaps for that senior citizen bridge club from Montvale, New Jersey. That time, I had my eight year-old nephew in tow and he proclaimed loudly during the Nativity scene, "Uncle Lenny, is this over soon? I have to pee."
I am happy to report that, years later, the orchestra now lives again at Radio City Music Hall. Every note of music was live. Every voice heard was live. Every click of a Rockette's Capezio was live.
And the show was still dead.
Just the process of entering Radio City Music Hall for this is now an ordeal. You are queued up in a variety of ways behind barricades. The way people were bustling in you thought that John, Paul, George, and Ringo were appearing. With so many old people on line, I expected to wind up with a tray of lime Jello and a bag of Bingo chips.
The Music Hall lobby still gives me goosebumps. If I closed my eyes, I drifted back to the days when, holding hands of my mother and Aunt Edie, we mounted the stairs to the front mezzanine just in time to see "Father Goose" with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron start at 11:07AM. Now, the lobby is a maze of souvenir stands and people who haven't had their windows open since Roger Maris wore pinstripes. We did sit in the front mezzanine, too, but the only common thread with a past memory was the art deco bathroom down the hall.
This show starts promptly on the hour and lasts 90 minutes. No more, no less. 90 minutes. It is cut from the same straight forward mold you used last Christmas to do your sugar cookies. But, perhaps that is the allure. It is no different from one year to the next and the mere idea of introducing a new element would be akin to a suicide bomber driving into Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland.
They do milk the Rockettes endlessly. They seem to turn up in every number and I had seen several of them more in the 90 minutes than I've seen some relatives in 20 years. The first half dozen times they tap their way across the stage, you're engaged. The next two dozen times they tap their way across the stage, you start to play "Brickbreaker" on your Black Berry. There is obviously no union that governs their use and you wonder if the kids in Kathie Lee Gifford's Colombian sweat shop have a better employment agreement.
At one point, you follow a cartoon Santa as he flys over Manhattan. They give you 3-D glasses for this and the knuckleheads around me were ducking the snowballs "thrown" at them. Are their lives so simplistic that this is considered new and original entertainment? The audience is then instructed to remove their glasses, but I noticed some morons around me didn't. I get the impression they took them home and are now using the specs to read the Daily News.
There's a scene of ice skating on stage. A tour bus full of, what else, Rockettes takes us on a virtual tour of Manhattan which conveniently stops just short of 110th Street and Lenox. A Reader's Digest version of the Nutcracker condenses the entire ballet into four minutes with some of the creepiest dancing bears you ever would want to see. Children around me started to cringe. So did the two 25 year-olds I was with.
There's one 3-minute segment where a screen is unveiled and I think to myself that, at last, "Babes in Toyland" starring Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands will start. But, it's a very short but impressive film history of the Music Hall. Narrated by the unctuous Tony Bennett who might be currently dating a Rockette, this was my brief highlight of the evening as wonderful memories unfolded for me. If only they would do the same thing now. A film and a 30 minute stage show would be plenty. Certainly a lot more lively than this old episode of "Sing Along with Mitch."
At last, the Nativity scene started and they continue to not miss a beat with this reverent production replete with camels and sheep who are also trotted out multiple times a day and a signal to me that their employment agreement is no better than the Rockettes.
When the show was over exactly 90 minutes later, I wanted to linger and soak in the majesty of what once was. But, an usherette came along to hustle me out. After all, there's another show and a crowd due into the theater in exactly 42 minutes. I realized that I have spent more time with a Stouffer's Lean Cuisine dinner.
The next evening I moved onto some more legit theater when I hydroplaned my way into the Broadway Theater for a preview performance of "Shrek: The Musical." There was about 24 inches of rain outside which meant that the people crammed into the small seating areas were already drenched. There were enough wet umbrellas to stage fifteen touring companies of "Singin' in the Rain." Once again, the leg room at my seat had me sitting with my knees to my chest as if I was John Glenn orbiting the Earth in Friendship 7.
"Shrek: The Musical" follows in what is a new Broadway trend. If you use fairy tale characters and have your lead character colored green, you will be a big hit. And this show may just be that. While I have seen all three "Shrek" movies, I have never seen any of them more than once. This means I'm not a huge fan. But, still, I got completely sucked into the story all over again on stage. Some of the folks from "Avenue Q" are involved, so there are some foul mouthed puppets to contend with. The Donkey is played with a mincing lisp and could be auditioning for "Queer Eye for the Straight Jackass."
The first act is incredibly clever with lots of lampooning of Disney and other Broadway musicals. There is a brief moment that copies "The Lion King" and it is a howl. At another point, some of the fairy tale characters line up to match what used to be the trademark of "A Chorus Line." But, as well done as the first act is, the second act lags badly. It's all about the brewing romance between Shrek and Fiona and it's one big yawn. At one point, those two have a flatulence contest and the only two bigger farts I have seen on stage were when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton did "Private Lives."
When circulation returned to my legs, I stumbled up the mezzanine stairs and felt an odd sense of ambivalence when "Shrek:The Musical" was over. I liked it. I didn't like it. It got the usual standing ovation and I wasn't sure why. But, it will run for a long time. Even without any Rockettes.
My theater plans saved the best for last. The newest revival of "Gypsy." No green make-up. No 3-D glasses. No Rockettes. Just sheer tried-and-true Broadway entertainment that still works as well as it did way back in 1960 when Ethel Merman was stomping around as Mama Rose. 
This current production won a slew of Tonys and is closing way too soon. All three lead actors got Tonys---Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti, and Boyd Gaines who has parlayed a career debut as Valerie Bertinelli's boyfriend on "One Day at a Time" into a rousing theater resume that includes four Tony Awards. Who knew?
At the end, LuPone is chewing the scenery so much that she looked like one of those entrants into the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. But, it all worked. There was a standing ovation and, since the St. James Theater is better than most with leg room, I joined in with nary a crack of the kneecap. For once, there's a good reason to bestow a standing ovation on a production and a performance. "Gypsy" made all three nights worth the while.
Now, if only my parents had taken me to the original for $6.80.
Dinner last night: Chile Rellenos at Pink Taco.
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