October 28, 2007 - Receipt #7 – Candy Before Performance of “Monte Python and the Holy Grail”

October 28, 2007 - Receipt #7 – Candy Before Performance of “Monte Python and the Holy Grail”

Back in the room, IM surfs the Internet while I write in my Reporter’s Notebook and read the May 21st issue of the New Yorker. I’m absorbed with Peter Hessler’s “Letter From China: Walking the Wall” describing David Spindler’s fascination with China’s hundreds year old defense against the marauding Mongols. Spindler is an independent scholar of the Great Wall and pursues his scholarship with a Quixote zeal that borders on obsession. I’ve visited Shanghai several times in the past year and a half and never gotten beyond a two-mile radius of the Hotel Sofitel Jin Jiang Pudong, the distance I can comfortably walk in the small amount of time my business reasons for visiting China allows. The author and Spindler hiking the little known sections of the ancient wall in remote areas of China I will probably never visit makes for a compelling read.

Curiously, the Great Wall has kept foreign cultures out all these many hundreds of years in contrast to America that has embraced continuous waves of immigration since the first Europeans set foot on this land. And nowhere is this influx of cultures and ethnicities more evident than in Manhattan, where north, south, east, Middle East, and west come together—a trip round the world experienced in a walk through the city’s neighborhoods. After over half a century watching the rest of Asia prosper by engaging the West, the gates of China’s Great Wall have been thrown open and the world is flooding in. I get the impression that if you understand the Great Wall you might well understand China.

Rested and refreshed, we leave the Buckingham at a quarter after seven in the evening, and walk down 6th Avenue to 44th Street, where we turn right, join the throng of theater-goers all making their ways to their play or musical, and proceed across Broadway and 7th where the two cross one another. We make it through the mass of humanity and arrive at the Shubert in plenty of time before the performance begins. The musical was vintage Monty Python, bits and pieces of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” a tune from “Meaning of Life”, all begun with a musical version of the fish face slapping skit from the original “Monty Python Flying Circus” BBC Series. It’s the joke that starts the play.

The audience at the Shubert for the play was unique in that most were fans of Monty Python comedy, much like the audience for “Jersey Boys” and “Mama Mia” are fans of the music in each play. Perhaps the uniqueness of the audience owes more to my observing its members more closely than when we attended musicals and plays in the past. Perhaps the audience for “A Class Act” the musical based on the life and work of Edward Kleban, which IM and I saw in 2001 were there to see life of the lyricist who created the songs to “Chorus Line” or the audience for “Aspects of Love” which I saw alone in 1991 were fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber, its creator. Neither garnered the Broadway acclaim of long running hits “Chorus Line” or “Cats”, perhaps because they lacked the fan base that causes one musical to succeed beyond expectations and others to sink into oblivion after a few performances.

I’m reminded of a musical playing during the time Irene and I were dating back in the 1960s. “The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd” book, music, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The musical had posters plastered throughout Penn Station and at every train stop on Long Island and in Manhattan. It failed after a few months on Broadway, despite producing the hit song “Who Can I turn to,” that every singer of note in the 1960s recorded. IM and I chose to see “Funny Girl,” with Barbra Streisand. It too produced the popular hit “People” but enjoyed long running success as well. On reflection, perhaps neither the Broadway plays nor the audiences have change, perhaps I have.

We are seated in the Mezzanine in row H seats 112 and 113 one in from the aisle. After we get settled, I want something sweet and venture to the concession stand at the a few rows up and behind us. There I purchase a box of junior mints for IM—her favorites—and a roll of Mentos mints for me. The attendant was so busy that I didn’t want to ask her for a receipt which she didn’t offer when providing me change for the five dollar bill I tendered for the purchase, which I dropped into a tip jar.

The aisle seat on our row is occupied by a lone male in seat 114, ten to fifteen years my junior, putting him in his fifties or late forties with thinning graying dark hair. Spreading in the middle, he fits uneasily in the narrow theater seat with so little leg room in front that those seated must stand up to allow others to pass. Throughout the play he squirms restlessly trying to get comfortable but to no avail, bumping into me in the process—the one reason I took notice of him. He is dressed in a white shirt and dull gray slacks and carries a white plastic shopping bag packed roundly with stuff—hard to tell if its recent purchases or belonging he’s carrying around for lack of a backpack or briefcase. Once I noticed him, I couldn’t help trying to fathom how he came to be at the play alone. Perhaps the simple answer was he wanted somewhere to spend a couple of hours and be entertained

The play had some funny bits, though the gay humor did get old after a bit. The female, who kept reminding the audience in typical Monty Python style that she was the female lead, was funny. The play ended to considerable audience applause and IM and I made our way out of the theater and headed for 8th Avenue for our return walk to the Buckingham Hotel.