Friday night, Maren and I met Zak for dinner. And where did we meet Zak for dinner? At the Times Square Red Lobster. That’s right, we decided to be tourists and eat at a tourist restaurant, hang out in Times Square and then go see a Broadway show.
Friday was Bye Bye Birdie night. It was in a brand-new theatre that was just built. This made it an odd experience as most Broadway theatres are extremely old. The curtain was so new that it was almost blindingly red. Another odd thing was that as we were walking down the stairs to our seats before the show, there was an old lady who had fallen down on the stairs and was bleeding from her shin. She was bleeding pretty badly but just kept saying, “it’s no big deal, it’ll stop”.
Anyway, the show was great. It was cute and funny and John Stamos rocked. Zak had a friend who also saw the musical on the same night who told Zak it was “the death of American theatre”. Let’s take a moment to calm ourselves down. Was it the greatest show ever to hit the Broadway stage? No. Was it life changing? No. Will it win more Tony’s than any other show ever? No. But will it be the death of American theatre? No. Who says that? What was she expecting? It’s Bye Bye Birdie. It’s a revival of a 60’s musical that Dick Van Dyke starred in. What did you think you were getting into? I tell you what, some of these New York City actors and theatre goers are such theatre snobs and can’t seem to enjoy a show that is light and funny and cute and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Enough of that rant.
