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Grand ole days on B’way
In 1626 Peter Minuit, a Westphalian and this colony’s first governor, bought New York for 60 guilders. About $24. Nearly what a B’way show’s intermission drink costs today. Canal Street was then a tangled mass. Still now. New 1600 arrivals could not buy land. They were tenants. Powerless. Still now. All belonged to the haughty land-owning patroons. New settlers argued with powerful Minuit who favored the patroons. Still now. Think Albany, Washington. Think — or try to — of your landlord.
So today — just a lousy few hundred years later — it’s Tony time. And who really knows every nominee? Talented, able, but our massive public knows a Sarah Snook? Sadie Sink? James Monroe Iglehart? And why so expensive when these leads aren’t commanding A-Number-One movies? I mean, it’s not like film star salaries. Not like Jennifer Lawrence schlepping Stage Left in her underdrawers.
Also, how newly wildly exciting are these “new” shows — “Gypsy,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Sunset Blvd.”? When they first opened the subway was a nickel. Older folk don’t want to sit home and just watch cops and robbers on Netflix.
Yeah, we got stars — Denzel, Gyllenhaal. They’re doing “Othello,” also happening is a riff on “Romeo and Juliet.” Nice. Great. But new? I mean, please. Shakespeare hasn’t written anything — not even a letter to his mother — in weeks.
Audiences include the aging. Our citizenry now includes canes, wheelchairs, hearing aids. Needed are longer intermissions. Ladies’ cans are always downstairs, which means lumbering through the crowd, limping downstairs, waiting for a free stall then schlepping back up. We’re in that theater longer than the actors.
Broadway is New York. Foreigners from faraway lands like Montana, Utah, schlep here to see Broadway. Central Park they don’t need. They got cows pooping on their front lawn.
It’s here everybody wants to be. It’s New York. It’s “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Nobody’s humming “Say Hello to South Dakota.” Anyone taking pictures of themselves in front of a fire hydrant in Montezuma?
And the cost? A drink at intermission with a tip could cost $30? For another $12 you could be the show’s investor. Maybe someone to watch their child or someone to watch who’s watching their child? How about maybe a hotel — and transportation? Car, taxi, Uber, a pedicab that charges more than a divorce lawyer just to haul your behind four blocks?
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And now — tada! — the Tonys. Sunday. Nothing more exciting than maybe watching a rerun of the Knicks. I can’t remember anything else this exciting since my first night behind the schoolhouse with that kid who flunked history — but passed everything else.
What could be better? Maybe checking Biden’s penmanship. Still need an activity? See if Mrs. Biden’s hair colorist now charges her. Or accompany Hunter to lift one corner of the rug in the Lincoln Bedroom.
So, this theatrical agent told his client: “If you carry out my instructions, I’ll make a big star out of you.” Actor: “Great. What’s the first thing I have to do?” Agent: “First thing is get an extra cot in your room so I can move in with you.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.