New York City, Part One

My wife, Kathy, and I are partway through a five-show visit to Broadway, along with a few other chores and undertakings.

We started Wednesday night by visiting the TKTS booth and, after dropping a couple of possibles as they only had "partial view" seats for them, we picked up two decent seats for Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty." I had heard his name many times before, but never saw one of his shows, which apparently chiefly run off-Broadway until this one. We found the show to be quite interesting, and it included a neat set, good lighting and sound, and some good acting, too, particularly the lead actor. It certainly held our interest, no matter how off-putting some of the characters were, or how challenging it was to believe some of the aspects of the relationship between the four characters visible in the show.

As for me, trying hard not to be a throwback of any kind, I still found it difficult to believe that the use of words not really acceptable in mid-range society to the extreme that they appeared in the script was necessary, or didn't even detract from the storyline after a while. I for one do NOT object to the use of selected curse words from time to time, used for emphasis and/or charactor development. But this show, I believe, could have used 10-20% as many selected words, and still have gotten the intended point across just fine. Though it would have shortened the show measurably ....

Last night, we saw "Jersey Boys," another one of those top-hits review shows but with a difference, in that it delved into the interesting and sometimes challenging real lives of the group's members, and wove the songs into the real stories being told about them. For me, that worked so much better than "Mamma Mia" or "Back to the Eighties" or others of this ilk. And the musicianship, stage technology, etc. were top notch.

Now, I'm waiting to see what Kathy finds for us at TKTS for tonight. We already have our "Exit the King" (Ionesco) and "The 39 Steps" tickets for tomorrow (Saturday.)