I’ve been a little remiss in sharing an experience my wife and I had over the long weekend.
You see, from about the time we moved to Connecticut until the time of her accident, we had a habit of going into New York a couple of times a year to see a show on Broadway. Our last one of those Broadway-runs was remarkable in that at the Rocky Horror show, my wife had the opportunity to do the Time Warp with Dick Cavett and one of the ghouls.
Well, with my wife doing somewhat better since she got her occipital nerve stimulator, I took a gamble with her Christmas present—I got us fourth-row tickets to see Hairspray on Presidents Day weekend.
It was a great day, all things considered. True, we had to drive in rather than Metro North it in, and our wanderings were limited to the block the theater was on…but the weather was decent and traffic was (relatively) light. We arrived on 52nd street 90 minutes before show-time, allowing us time for a quick and unexpectedly good lunch at Victor’s Cafe, a Cuban restaurant next door to the theater.
(I wonder if we can take credit for our unexpected culinary diversion at a Cuban restaurant as being the shock that finally caused Fidel Castro to retire.)
The show itself was great. The plot details of Hairspray, the musical are significantly different than either movie. To be honest, I hadn’t seen the movies or heard the musical’s soundtrack before this weekend, but my wife assured me that the musical, while less realistic than the movies, was far more entertaining.
The music was great, the actors were obviously having fun cheesing up their roles…it was a good show.
About the only negative I could say about the experience was that the ratio of fake orgasms to number of pre-teen children in the audience was uncomfortably high to me…but that could be a function of either my prudishness or the visible confusion on the faces of the munchkins sitting up in the first row.
After the show, the stage door was mobbed by folks wanting to get autographs from the cast. My wife, looking to park her walker someplace comfortable and out-of-the-way while I stood on line in the garage, decided to watch the mob scene from across the street.
While she waited, she noticed a man, bundled up a little too tightly, walking towards her.
Then she noticed he was wearing make up.
Turns out it was George Wendt, who played Edna Turnblad in the show, trying to escape without being mobbed. When my wife quietly complimented him on his (her?) performance without requesting an autograph or otherwise drawing attention, he stopped and they chatted for a little bit.
Shortly after that, it was back in the car to return behind the Nutmeg Curtain for home.
All-in-all, it was probably one of the better Christmas present experiences we’ve had.
