#1
Posted: 7/18/04 at 2:09am
To begin, I must admit this may be long - as much as I will try to be succinct, and still say what I have to say. If that doesn't work for you, then other threads await.
This has to do with the fulfillment of a life's dream - my mother's, to be exact. A little background: she's 62, and has a background in the performing arts (she and my blood father met while members of the same civic light opera company.) She comes from an era when many of the Broadway 'hits' were part of popular culture. Being in the mid-west, however, she was only able to experience these (as many were) as the movies that were made of them. She saw SOUTH PACIFIC I don't know how many times, and knew EVERY word of MY FAIR LADY by heart. But, because of the twists that life can bring you, she lost touch with that aspect of her life for many years. And even though she had long dreamt of seeing a Broadway show, she never had (and this was even after living for a couple of years in her late twenties right across the river from Manhattan.)
WELL, skipping all the boring details of another person's life, last night she saw her first Broadway show! She had been visiting right after my partner and I came back from a week of theatre in NYC, and heard us going ON AND ON about THE BOY FROM OZ (now, the fact that, as gay men, we think he's a god had NOTHING to do with it.) And, for whatever reason, she decided she just HAD to see this. Now, I had been telling her for YEARS that all she had to do was go there, and there it was. But for reasons that aren't worth going into here, she hadn't.
So, all I needed to hear is that she was willing, and I jumped all over making the arrangements for her. It was to be her 'special' treat for my younger brother's 30th birthday (which isn't til October, but oh well.)
They flew in Saturday afternoon, had a limo take them to the Hotel Edison, and had fabulous seats for the evening performance of BOY. Then, because it was a 'virgin' trip, they went to Sardi's for dinner afterwards.
Why am I telling all this? Because SHE WAS ENTRANCED, ENTHRALLED and AGOG simply to be where she was, doing what she was doing.
So many times, those of us who have many experiences tend to forget what it is that is actually taking place. No, she wasn't seeing 'life-changing' theatre - no, she wasn't 'expanding the awareness of what it's like to be a human being through art.' What she WAS doing was living an experience that she had read/heard/dreamt about for all her life - and really wondered if she would ever be able to participate. Part of her evening also included interacting with the Australian members of the audience, who were also agog to be there witnessing what, for them, was history in the making.
I tell this only to remind us that sometimes - even though we may not understand it, or even disdain it - the experience of going to a show on Broadway is something special, unique and to be savored. Everybody has their own experience to live, and it shouldn't be qualified, judged or impuned simply because it isn't 'how I would have it.'
So, I hope ALL the tourists going to ALL the shows are experiencing the thrill of a lifetime. I hope all the young people who are super-charged by WICKED never lose their enthusiasm. I hope all the older folks who go to matinees enjoy their brief continued interaction with the human race.
And I REALLY hope that those of us who have lost that sense of wonder, awe, joy and acceptance can find some way to recapture even just a little of what drew us here in the first place.
This has to do with the fulfillment of a life's dream - my mother's, to be exact. A little background: she's 62, and has a background in the performing arts (she and my blood father met while members of the same civic light opera company.) She comes from an era when many of the Broadway 'hits' were part of popular culture. Being in the mid-west, however, she was only able to experience these (as many were) as the movies that were made of them. She saw SOUTH PACIFIC I don't know how many times, and knew EVERY word of MY FAIR LADY by heart. But, because of the twists that life can bring you, she lost touch with that aspect of her life for many years. And even though she had long dreamt of seeing a Broadway show, she never had (and this was even after living for a couple of years in her late twenties right across the river from Manhattan.)
WELL, skipping all the boring details of another person's life, last night she saw her first Broadway show! She had been visiting right after my partner and I came back from a week of theatre in NYC, and heard us going ON AND ON about THE BOY FROM OZ (now, the fact that, as gay men, we think he's a god had NOTHING to do with it.) And, for whatever reason, she decided she just HAD to see this. Now, I had been telling her for YEARS that all she had to do was go there, and there it was. But for reasons that aren't worth going into here, she hadn't.
So, all I needed to hear is that she was willing, and I jumped all over making the arrangements for her. It was to be her 'special' treat for my younger brother's 30th birthday (which isn't til October, but oh well.)
They flew in Saturday afternoon, had a limo take them to the Hotel Edison, and had fabulous seats for the evening performance of BOY. Then, because it was a 'virgin' trip, they went to Sardi's for dinner afterwards.
Why am I telling all this? Because SHE WAS ENTRANCED, ENTHRALLED and AGOG simply to be where she was, doing what she was doing.
So many times, those of us who have many experiences tend to forget what it is that is actually taking place. No, she wasn't seeing 'life-changing' theatre - no, she wasn't 'expanding the awareness of what it's like to be a human being through art.' What she WAS doing was living an experience that she had read/heard/dreamt about for all her life - and really wondered if she would ever be able to participate. Part of her evening also included interacting with the Australian members of the audience, who were also agog to be there witnessing what, for them, was history in the making.
I tell this only to remind us that sometimes - even though we may not understand it, or even disdain it - the experience of going to a show on Broadway is something special, unique and to be savored. Everybody has their own experience to live, and it shouldn't be qualified, judged or impuned simply because it isn't 'how I would have it.'
So, I hope ALL the tourists going to ALL the shows are experiencing the thrill of a lifetime. I hope all the young people who are super-charged by WICKED never lose their enthusiasm. I hope all the older folks who go to matinees enjoy their brief continued interaction with the human race.
And I REALLY hope that those of us who have lost that sense of wonder, awe, joy and acceptance can find some way to recapture even just a little of what drew us here in the first place.
