Escape from New York

February 2020, one week pre-pandemic

Dottie and I managed to make it in and out of NYC in February, just before the town started succumbing to the virus. While we were there, warnings floated faintly across some media, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way people behaved during our stay (Feb. 18-23).
Oblivious to the danger, we crowded in elevators and  drifted along Broadway between the Hudson and East Rives in Midtown, rubbing elbows, shoulders, and various other body parts with thousands of folks, some of whom were undoubtedly already infected. Then we went from theater to theater on our bi-annual quest to squeeze as many shows as possible into our stay.
Our music feast started with Ain’t Too Proud, The Life and Time of the Temptations, followed by Tina, the musical.
The opening numbers of Ain’t Too Proud took me back to the 1950s when I listened to a rhythm and blues radio station out of Vallejo after dark because that was when its signal could reach Sonoma.  The quality of the voices in this show and the classic old tunes they brought forth made this a delightful first night experience in the Big Apple.
The bittersweet story line in the musical Tina in no way dampened the energy and incredible talent of Adrienne Warren, who plays Tina Turner. If you get to NYC while she plays the lead, Tina is worth it just to see and hear her perform.
From those concert-like shows we time-warped out of the rhythm and blues of the mid 20th Century to the Moulin Rouge in Paris during La Belle Époque of the late 19th Century, which was strangely infected with pop tunes of the early 21st.
This was the 2001 movie, which starred Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, brought to the stage with great glitz, glamour and lots of lovely women in bustiers. Knowing the plot didn’t diminish our enjoyment of the music and dancing performed by talented artists clearly committed to their roles.
Next, as if by magic, we found ourselves in a Saturday double-header bewitched by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play based on an original story by J.K. Rowling.   I expected something like the movie versions of her books, but the play was uniquely adapted to the stage and enhanced by great acting and amazing stagecraft.
We understood it as a tale, told in charming fashion, about relationships between parents and their children.  Our grandkids would have understood more about Hogwarts and all of its key characters, but we did our best to follow along.
And speaking of the best, we saved it for last.
It was hell – Hadestown to be more precise.  Who would have thought it has such heavenly music?
The characters are derived from Greek mythology, but attired in New Orleans/depression era costumes and hang out somewhere near a coal mine.  There, the great Andre De Shields, playing the winged-messenger Hermes, introduces us to the Road to Hell, and we meet the main characters, including Orpheus, whose voice and songs are irresistible even to Hades himself, and the lovely Eurydice, a wood nymph with whom he falls desperately in love.  While Persephone, the seasonal wife of Hades, tries to soften her husband’s wrath, the chorus keeps us abreast of the plot.
I feared it would be all Greek to me, but like most critics and the judges for the 73rd Tony Awards, I was beguiled by the action, the talented cast, and especially the music, which reminded me of what one might hear at a really good jazz club on Frenchman Street in New Orleans.
It was the winner of eight Tony Awards. Dottie and I agreed that Hadestown is the best musical we have seen in several years.
There is not much fishing action in Manhattan in February, although one can fish in a large lake in Central Park.  Instead, we cast our eyes on some interesting art at several of the city’s museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and the Met. We could have spent our entire five-days in any one of those and not seen all within its walls.
I like the Guggenheim the best, but Dottie favored the Sandy Schreier fashion collection at the Met.  In any case, we had a generous helping of the arts that New York City has to offer, and left lots of things for our next trip.
And speaking of filling up, we enjoyed several excellent dinners, including one with Dee Tomasetta and her boyfriend Pete Fox.  Dee was our houseguest last summer while she was one of the leads at Transcendence Theater’s dance show.
Until the pandemic sideline virtually every musical artist in the country, she continued to shine as a dancer/singer in the Big Apple.
Our last night, we visited Brandy’s Piano Bar, 235 E. 84th St, on the Upper East Side, where the wait staff and bartenders are also talented musicians and singers.  We loved the vibe and the music. This tiny, hole-in-the-wall place is well worth the taxi ride.
The next day, we escaped New York City, not realizing at the time that we were just hours ahead of the alarms sounded all over the world that a plague was descending upon us,
A few days later, I came down with a really bad cold that lasted for ten days.  No tests were available. Dottie had no symptoms at all. By mid-March our governor locked us all down, and we’ve been there ever since.