I wonder sometimes, about those people who have pursued and succeeded in the line of work they always dreamed of doing and have done it for so long they really don't know how to do anything else. What must have started as a job driven by love and passion for some, talent by others, years later, I wonder...does it still feel like that same dream job to them? Or, do they wish they could travel back to their younger selves and slap them across the head and say..."You should have been a doctor...you idiot!" Take Broadway's Phantom Of The Opera, this is the longest running show in Broadway history, celebrating its 25th anniversary this month, to be exact. The tickets still cost an arm and a leg today as they did back then, but people still fill up those seats like it opened just last week. And from what I've learned, some of the cast and crew have been with the show for as long as it has been running, or a good many years of it anyway. How in the world could these people sing the same darn songs and hear the same darn music six to eight times a week, fifty two weeks a year and not want to set fire to the stage? The first time I heard the much-loved song "Music Of The Night" I was in love with this musical. It was the most beautiful piece of theater music that I had ever heard outside of a stage and I wanted nothing more than to someday sit in the famed Majestic Theater, smack center of that stage, and watch those actors bring one of the most wonderful stories of the musical theater world come to life. I've lived in New York City for over six years all together now and for those six years I've been reserving this show for the perfect moment, that special occasion to finally purchase those tickets and make that small dream a reality. However, at this point in time...what am I really waiting for? I'm probably the last person living in New York City as long as I have that still hasn't seen it. So, this special occasion I'm waiting for, will probably consist of me getting all dressed up and watching it all by myself anyway, so why wait? Then I realized...there is a special occasion to celebrate, every day is a special occasion really. I'm still alive and I still have eyes to see and ears to hear. I'm buying my ticket dang it! Every now and then I like to treat myself to a Broadway show. I live in the theater capital of the world. It would be a sin not to keep up with the culture here. Otherwise what am I doing in this particular city? If I were to just entertain myself with watching a movie at the cinemas once a week or once a month, I could do that anywhere. The cost of seeing a few films here could get you a lottery ticket for most shows, if you're one of the lucky twenty-five winners, or you could put that ol' student I.D. and that college investment to good use after all these years and purchase a student rush ticket at a ridiculously high discount. Then there you have it, a sophisticated and cultured night out without breaking the bank. I've been trying to watch at least one show every two months or so and it's been a wonderful experience every time and well worth it. Although Phantom Of The Opera doesn't really offer those options, they sometimes offer discounts during the post holiday off-season and now was as good a time as any to grab those stubs.
With my ticket in hand yesterday, I entered the front of the majestic theater, instantly bowled over by its glowing grandeur. Brushing my hand along the wall when no one was looking, like a small child at a museum, I felt its fabric lining and wood detail as I walked through the alcove and into the seating area. Turning the corner and seeing the stage with the set in place for the opening act, shot a thrill of excitement through my veins as the realization suddenly hit me... I was about to watch Phantom Of The Opera for the first time on Broadway. I think I'm having a Carrie Bradshaw moment. When I walked towards the orchestra section, a small elderly woman, who looked very much like the corpse of Norman Bates' mother, demanded in a high pitched screech, that the herd making their way in with me to wait at the entrance. Her frustration and the shrill tone of her voice stopped me cold in my tracks and I didn't dare move an inch until she told me so. When I was next in the order of those who entered with me, she grabbed my ticket with a shaking hand and a garbled instruction for me to follow her. With great caution, I followed as she crept her way over to my row and pointed a knobby finger at my seat. Just as I snuggled into my lovely orchestra seat, situated at the end of the center isle, an elderly couple came following Norman Bates' mother, with the same uncertainty on their faces that I had about the woman they were behind. With teacher-like authority, the grim woman directed the couple to the two empty seats next to me and with a struggle they scrambled out of their coats before finally making their way through the row to their seats. Just as I got resettled into my own, the woman who sat to the right side of her husband stood up with what looked like the intention of leaving the row, so I began gathering my things to stand up and let her through, but she just sat back down and I readjusted. A moment later, with a crisp bill in her hand, indicating that she was heading to the concession stand, up her husband went and up I went to let her through. Five minutes later she was back with her ten-dollar cup of soda and up I went again, dropping everything on my lap as I stood. While I was doubled over, picking up the scattered elements of my purse and the playbill from the theater floor I had to fight the urge not to snap at the woman and tell her that she should have thought of hitting the concession stand before heading to her seat in the first place. Oi, these two. But, of course, I just smiled as her husband next to me apologized on behalf of his fidgety wife. He was sweet...and patient and I knew better.
Just as the play started, I tried to find some clue from the cast that would indicate whether they might still enjoy doing what it was they did. I wondered if any of those particular actors had been with the show long enough now that they could care less about their performance now, as I do with my job most days...when it's not writing of course. It was hard to read any of the typical signs of boredom related to that from anyone because the opening act was meant to be dreary and depressing anyway. Then as the next scene opened up I was so dazzled by the sudden change of scenery, watching a massive chandelier rise above our heads, praying the wires didn't break loose and bring its sparkling mass cascading over our stunned craniums, that I lost my train of thought on the matter completely. And the explosion of sound, the music so familiar, yet so extraordinary...and very nineteen eighties, Ah, how I miss that time, Guns and Roses, Van Halen, Aerosmith...Andrew Lloyd Webber. What a start!
One scene after another I sat in my orchestra seat, hair standing on the ends of my arms and the back of my neck as the hauntingly gorgeous vibratos of the singers resonated from the stage in front of me. One of the first times my ears ever heard an operatic voice up close and personal was when a good friend and former roommate of mine opened her carefully trained mouth and breathed out the sound like I had never heard before. Of course I had heard operas sung a million different times in movies, over the radio, in elevators, all of them nice enough but nothing in that genre had ever moved me enough to take the time to learn more about its history, the masters and their sonatas, or how difficult the technique was before then. I had never appreciated it until I heard my friend Heather, who studied with Julliard for a time and once performed on the same stage as Liza Minnelli and Kristin Chenoweth, sing an Italian sonata for me. I was floored, beyond amazement. And that wasn't even when she was at her peak performance. Whenever we were out together and I introduced her to a new acquaintance, of course I boasted about her and her unique talent, sometimes urging her to sing for them if the setting was right. She probably hated it when I did that, but it was the only way I could get her to sing without being weird about it. If she were a man, it would have been easier to ask her when we were alone and I could pretend I was being serenaded to by tall dark Italian instead, but asking her to sing for me on the couch of our apartment between episodes of Family Guy, would have been awkward.
During intermission, I turned to my left to see our favorite fidgety woman hovering to my right, trying to make her way out of the row to refill her soda and relieve herself of the last. Up I went again to let her through. When she left, her husband turned to me and asked if this was my first time seeing the show. How did he know? Was it my stupid expression? The smile plastered across my face and my wide eyes wandering around the stage trying to take it all in? Probably. I told him that it was and he said that this was his third time seeing it. The first time was many years ago with his first wife, the second time was with his now grown daughter and this third time was with his "new wife." I had to ask...
"Widowed or divorced?"
"Widowed," he replied.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"We were married for forty-six years before she passed away. I was curious to see how much the show had changed since then. The costumes and some of the set are different now."
"Better different, or just different," I asked him.
"Better different," he said.
"Well, that's good. Are you glad you came back to see it?"
"Oh, yeah. It's a great play."
Just as our conversation was wrapping up his second wife was back with another soda in tow. Up we went and down the lights.
Towards the end of the third act, I happened to hear a slight sniffle directed to my right. At first I though it was just my neighbor's stuffy nose that took me out of the dramatic final scene, but then I realized through my peripheral vision, that he was actually wiping away his teary eyes, just as the heroine of the play, the love of the Phantom's life, was sailing away from him for the last time. What is it with elderly people? They're always crying in front of me. I imagine that maybe because he was talking about his long lost first wife he might have been thinking of her and the memory their first time here. That touching final scene must have hit him where it hurt and it was more than he could hold back. In that moment, not only did I feel sorry for him, but I was also feeling sorry for his fidgety second wife sitting beside him. I'm sure she knew those tears were not for the magnificence of the show, but tears for the other woman she probably never felt like she measured up to. I suppose it could all just be my hopeless romantic heart that sees too much into things and he was just so moved by the production he couldn't hold back the tears that now streamed down his face. But, I could be right, on some level, and it's just so heartbreaking to think about. As the curtains rose again at the end of the show and the actor's took their final bows, my teary eyed neighbor turned to me and said, "This was the best production."
"Better than the others?"
"The best."
After he said that, I looked at that stage for a long minute and beamed at the thought that I had seen this, "the best." I felt grateful that I was able to experience this production, in this lifetime, on this day in history. Unless Alzheimer’s or dementia steals this memory away from me someday, it would be with me always. Now that the play was over, the show of life had to move on. Off to work I went to make the rent money I just spent to see this production, so that can enjoy one last month in my apartment before I give it up for the cause of a much greater expenditure...emptying that list in my bucket and figuring out that thing I can do for the rest of my life that won't bore me to death first.
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