Ah, the Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. New York, New York, it's a wonderful town. And yesterday, it was a great day for me, my girlfriend, my girlfriend's roommate that I told you before was editing my book, her boyfriend, and one of my friends and one of my girlfriend's friends (a total of about six people) to treat the roommate to a birthday party in the one of the busiest cities in the world...
It started with us all going by train and taxis to the South Seaport TKTS to get tickets to see a Broadway show, or an Off-Broadway show, or an Off-Off Broadway show (I've always been a bit confused by that, but anyway.) So we tried to get tickets to see Nice Work If You Can Get It, an adaptation of a 20s jazz musical comedy starring Matthew Broderick, but they were all sold out, so instead we got tickets to see Rent at 50% off the regular price. Pretty good deal considering that price turned out to be $54.70 each.
With the play starting at 8:00, we figured we'd get dinner in Chinatown since it was nearby. I hadn't been to Chinatown before, and what I love about Chinatown now is how it feels like a slice of Hong Kong got carved out of New York City. It's literally its own city with its own unique smells, atmosphere, and shops (one of which sold really crammed together crabs and lobsters and odd yellow looking pigs heads and squids), and is an experience that is hard to describe and not to be missed. Along the way, I got my girlfriend a tiny glow in the dark jade dragon and an Avengers backpack, and briefly considered a snow leopard print case with an anime looking snow leopard head for my iPad. Literally one second after that, she got complimented on how awesome her backpack was. And finally, after browsing through about 50,000 different NY Noodletowns (it's a wonder all of us tourists didn't get lost) we settled on Shanghai Heping Restaurant.
The restaurant had a clean, (maybe a bit TOO clean), stark, and modern look to it. Without the tiny Chinese looking figurines and bonsai trees scattered haphazardly through the place and the food they served, you wouldn't think this was any kind of Asian restaurant. The waiter served us with green tea and cans of Coke (with bendy straws!) that we ordered from the small fridge near the cash register. I'm not much of a tea drinker, but I'm not sure green tea is supposed to be so bitter or taste too sweet with sugar. And the Coke (which I've consumed a lot of) felt flat, like it'd been sitting in that fridge for too long. When we ordered our food, we could barely hear what our waiter was saying, even though there were 20 people, because of the blaring radio and chatter in the restaurant.
The price for the food was very reasonable- about $5-$15 for most things, with only one thing that I saw above $20. We all had an appetizer of peanut butter noodles, which tasted just as peanut buttery as expected, but had a hard to place kick that made them better than any I had ever had. And I ordered lo mein Shanghai style, with chicken, pork, and shrimp. The noodles were a bit thicker than I'm used to with lo mein (I'd say they were actually udong) and the chicken and pork flavors were hard to find amidst the overwhelming amount of vegetables and shrimp.
But my dish was good, and since we all sampled pieces of each other's food, I think everybody's food tasted fair to good and fattened us up as all Chinese food should, and you could do worse for the price range in the city (one restaurant next to us chopped up Peking duck in a poorly lit basement kitchen!) The service was prompt and friendly, but there was a nearly nonexistent atmosphere and the noise was distracting.
My Rating: *** (Go once for the food if you're new to Chinatown)
We then walked around Chinatown and Little Italy for some time, until a few hours later we moved through a thankfully fast moving line at the New Stages Theater on 50th and something I think (again, can't believe we didn't get lost) and were swiftly seated for Rent. I had seen the movie before, but it's been so long since I saw it that I don't remember the majority of what happens in it and couldn't tell you the differences between the play and movie.
The first act of the play opens with Mark and his friend Roger on December 24th, 1991, as they're living it up in the heyday of Bohemian Alphabet City, trying to become a breakout filmmaker and musician respectively while having to use an illegal wood fired stove for heat and intermittent power. The set as best as I can describe it without giving too much away is basically the stage, above which are two metal New York City style staircases with a metal balcony on top- and for such an unadorned set, it plays host to some wild musical numbers.
The plot then pretty much IS Mark, Roger, and their friends as they struggle to pay rent or be kicked out by their ex-roommate Benny who married a rich girl and bought the place, live with AIDS and a host of other relationship and life issues, and become a close knit family that celebrates the good times and comforts each other in the bad times throughout it all. The characters are so much of the plot that to describe any of them, other than to say that the actors for the characters of Maureen and Angel were my favorite ones, would spoil nearly the whole thing. And because the characters are called slackers by Benny and appear at first glance to be entitled ex-suburbanite druggies who will never really make it anywhere and apparently have the time to break into major musical numbers, it might have been a major problem for the audience to relate to them if they were written that way or if the play had portrayed them as above it all in any way, which would have quickly dated the setting and ended the play.
REVIEW INTERMISSION
During intermission, we all ordered beer and wine that was delivered to us in cups and got snacks of all sorts from a guy with a box like in a stadium. The beer and Reese's Pieces were good, and my girlfriend got another compliment on her backpack from the server which was a laugh riot for us all. Meanwhile, the theater was pretty cold and I had brought a short sleeved shirt because it had been 80 degrees out for most of the day, so my girlfriend gave me her cashmere sweatshirt. I didn't particularly care that it was girly- this was just another example of the kind of thing I love about her.
END OF REVIEW INTERMISSION
But thankfully, the character's actions and dialogue (which mostly consists of music- this usually bothers me about musicals because it requires a greater suspension of disbelief than I can provide, but didn't in this case) are so well written, directed, and acted that you can not only relate to these characters and root for them to succeed, but feel their pain during a heartbreaking second act that left all of us in the theater in tears and left me feeling so lucky to have my girlfriend and friends in my life. (I liked the song that Rent is most known for- "Seasons of Love"- but "I'll Cover You," "Over the Moon," and "Another Day" really moved my soul.)
In the end, Rent may have predicted the Arab Spring, Occupy, and We Are the 99% movements of today because it's really about the struggle of the human spirit to remain independent and find love and happiness in the face of adversity, often imposed by a system that favors the elite. Isn't that the essence of truly good fiction that transcends setting, characters, and even time, my friends? I remember liking the movie, but I'll remember Rent and hum its songs forever. There's just something about real people performing their hearts out in front of you, with no tricks of editing and camera angles and spliced in music, that makes theater a more visceral and powerful experience, and ensures live performance, on Broadway or elsewhere, will never die.
My Rating: ***** (If you never see another Broadway play ever, see this at least TWICE before you die!)
TL
R; In short, seeing Rent and taking a trip through Chinatown made for one hell of an unforgettable birthday party and trip to the concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
It started with us all going by train and taxis to the South Seaport TKTS to get tickets to see a Broadway show, or an Off-Broadway show, or an Off-Off Broadway show (I've always been a bit confused by that, but anyway.) So we tried to get tickets to see Nice Work If You Can Get It, an adaptation of a 20s jazz musical comedy starring Matthew Broderick, but they were all sold out, so instead we got tickets to see Rent at 50% off the regular price. Pretty good deal considering that price turned out to be $54.70 each.
With the play starting at 8:00, we figured we'd get dinner in Chinatown since it was nearby. I hadn't been to Chinatown before, and what I love about Chinatown now is how it feels like a slice of Hong Kong got carved out of New York City. It's literally its own city with its own unique smells, atmosphere, and shops (one of which sold really crammed together crabs and lobsters and odd yellow looking pigs heads and squids), and is an experience that is hard to describe and not to be missed. Along the way, I got my girlfriend a tiny glow in the dark jade dragon and an Avengers backpack, and briefly considered a snow leopard print case with an anime looking snow leopard head for my iPad. Literally one second after that, she got complimented on how awesome her backpack was. And finally, after browsing through about 50,000 different NY Noodletowns (it's a wonder all of us tourists didn't get lost) we settled on Shanghai Heping Restaurant.
The restaurant had a clean, (maybe a bit TOO clean), stark, and modern look to it. Without the tiny Chinese looking figurines and bonsai trees scattered haphazardly through the place and the food they served, you wouldn't think this was any kind of Asian restaurant. The waiter served us with green tea and cans of Coke (with bendy straws!) that we ordered from the small fridge near the cash register. I'm not much of a tea drinker, but I'm not sure green tea is supposed to be so bitter or taste too sweet with sugar. And the Coke (which I've consumed a lot of) felt flat, like it'd been sitting in that fridge for too long. When we ordered our food, we could barely hear what our waiter was saying, even though there were 20 people, because of the blaring radio and chatter in the restaurant.
The price for the food was very reasonable- about $5-$15 for most things, with only one thing that I saw above $20. We all had an appetizer of peanut butter noodles, which tasted just as peanut buttery as expected, but had a hard to place kick that made them better than any I had ever had. And I ordered lo mein Shanghai style, with chicken, pork, and shrimp. The noodles were a bit thicker than I'm used to with lo mein (I'd say they were actually udong) and the chicken and pork flavors were hard to find amidst the overwhelming amount of vegetables and shrimp.
But my dish was good, and since we all sampled pieces of each other's food, I think everybody's food tasted fair to good and fattened us up as all Chinese food should, and you could do worse for the price range in the city (one restaurant next to us chopped up Peking duck in a poorly lit basement kitchen!) The service was prompt and friendly, but there was a nearly nonexistent atmosphere and the noise was distracting.
My Rating: *** (Go once for the food if you're new to Chinatown)
We then walked around Chinatown and Little Italy for some time, until a few hours later we moved through a thankfully fast moving line at the New Stages Theater on 50th and something I think (again, can't believe we didn't get lost) and were swiftly seated for Rent. I had seen the movie before, but it's been so long since I saw it that I don't remember the majority of what happens in it and couldn't tell you the differences between the play and movie.
The first act of the play opens with Mark and his friend Roger on December 24th, 1991, as they're living it up in the heyday of Bohemian Alphabet City, trying to become a breakout filmmaker and musician respectively while having to use an illegal wood fired stove for heat and intermittent power. The set as best as I can describe it without giving too much away is basically the stage, above which are two metal New York City style staircases with a metal balcony on top- and for such an unadorned set, it plays host to some wild musical numbers.
The plot then pretty much IS Mark, Roger, and their friends as they struggle to pay rent or be kicked out by their ex-roommate Benny who married a rich girl and bought the place, live with AIDS and a host of other relationship and life issues, and become a close knit family that celebrates the good times and comforts each other in the bad times throughout it all. The characters are so much of the plot that to describe any of them, other than to say that the actors for the characters of Maureen and Angel were my favorite ones, would spoil nearly the whole thing. And because the characters are called slackers by Benny and appear at first glance to be entitled ex-suburbanite druggies who will never really make it anywhere and apparently have the time to break into major musical numbers, it might have been a major problem for the audience to relate to them if they were written that way or if the play had portrayed them as above it all in any way, which would have quickly dated the setting and ended the play.
REVIEW INTERMISSION
During intermission, we all ordered beer and wine that was delivered to us in cups and got snacks of all sorts from a guy with a box like in a stadium. The beer and Reese's Pieces were good, and my girlfriend got another compliment on her backpack from the server which was a laugh riot for us all. Meanwhile, the theater was pretty cold and I had brought a short sleeved shirt because it had been 80 degrees out for most of the day, so my girlfriend gave me her cashmere sweatshirt. I didn't particularly care that it was girly- this was just another example of the kind of thing I love about her.
END OF REVIEW INTERMISSION
But thankfully, the character's actions and dialogue (which mostly consists of music- this usually bothers me about musicals because it requires a greater suspension of disbelief than I can provide, but didn't in this case) are so well written, directed, and acted that you can not only relate to these characters and root for them to succeed, but feel their pain during a heartbreaking second act that left all of us in the theater in tears and left me feeling so lucky to have my girlfriend and friends in my life. (I liked the song that Rent is most known for- "Seasons of Love"- but "I'll Cover You," "Over the Moon," and "Another Day" really moved my soul.)
In the end, Rent may have predicted the Arab Spring, Occupy, and We Are the 99% movements of today because it's really about the struggle of the human spirit to remain independent and find love and happiness in the face of adversity, often imposed by a system that favors the elite. Isn't that the essence of truly good fiction that transcends setting, characters, and even time, my friends? I remember liking the movie, but I'll remember Rent and hum its songs forever. There's just something about real people performing their hearts out in front of you, with no tricks of editing and camera angles and spliced in music, that makes theater a more visceral and powerful experience, and ensures live performance, on Broadway or elsewhere, will never die.
My Rating: ***** (If you never see another Broadway play ever, see this at least TWICE before you die!)
TL
R; In short, seeing Rent and taking a trip through Chinatown made for one hell of an unforgettable birthday party and trip to the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. 
