Publishing Contrarian Elbows Past SRO Crowd to See THE HISTORY BOYS on Broadway
At last, a play on Broadway that is something other than pap for the suburban housewives and their nodding, snoring husbands. Of course, I knew my window of opportunity to get tickets would be about thirty seconds once the rave review came out in The New York Times, but a quick call, a hard negotiation over the tickets ($96.00? I think not!) and, voila, I had my two $46.25 “mezz” e-tickets appear on my computer screen.
I also telephoned my English friend Bridget and suggested she join me. (Her manuscript, What’s Mine is Yours, is sitting on an editor’s desk at a major publishing house.) I thought she might enjoy a respite from being on her knees 24/7 and reciting all those Hail Marys about a potential contract that would change her life forever. I was right. She loved the idea of seeing an Alan Bennett play.
What a crowd! What a scramble to push our way to our seats. I cannot think of a time in recent memory when I have seen a “standing room only” crowd in a theatre in New York City, let alone three rows deep. It’s been years, and back then, the SRO crowd was always seedy looking students, waving discounted tickets, and hoping at intermission to slip unnoticed into an unoccupied seat. Not tonight, believe me, every seat was taken. Indeed, the entire crowd was upscale, refined looking and, how shall I say this, clearly very diverse in its sexual proclivities.
It was a good thing Bridget came with me so she could translate. This play was in English, right? “I’m from the south of England, and I’m having trouble understanding these boys.” Throw a layer of schoolboy French onto the north-of-England-speak for twenty-minutes at the near-beginning of the play, and the Wicked Witch of Publishing couldn’t laugh uproariously in the right places, unlike all those guffawing expats in the audience.
How small were people in 1917 when The Broadhurst Theatre first raised its curtain? Not only had I landed us in the second-to-last row of the mezzanine, far right, but the seats were better sized for Lilliputians than the well-fed, much taller crowd that was jammed cheek-to-jowl and knee-to-seat. I’m not sure whose pocket I slipped my hand into—mine or his—while seeking a tissue, but I murmured an apology anyhow, and he accepted it.
Intermission? A madhouse! Let’s go! I clambered over my neighbors and headed into the thick of it, only to be stopped mid spiral staircase by an imperious, ferret-faced usher demanding that people get off the staircase. No glass of wine for the Wicked Witch to while away fifteen minutes while cruising for celebrities and potential interviewees for The Publishing Contrarian. As I pressed my back to the wall and inched my way carefully up the staircase, masses of smartly dressed women elbowed and shoved past each other to reach their ultimate goal–the toilet, loo, WC, powder room in the basement. Casting a glance back over the crowd in the main lobby and then down into the orchestra section where many people were still seated, I had but one thought: firetrap.
I loved The History Boys, even if I couldn’t understand every word of the dialogue. I loved it because it wasn’t the usual, superficial, let’s-aim-for-the-lowest-common-denominator-theatre-goer production. I loved it because I was cast back a million years to listening to recitations of Auden, Hardy and Housman. If the boys had mentioned Chaucer, I would have leapt to my feet and recited the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Yes, the first 18 lines and, yes, in olde English. (Hah! Suddenly, a newfound respect for that decrepid, spinster teacher, Miss Spence!)
A New York City crowd doesn’t waste much time on clapping. Even at the opera, where curtain calls keep going on and on ad nauseam and standing ovations are de rigueur, the crowd is hightailing it from the first bow. We’re just that way! I loved it. Let’s get outta here! At the conclusion of The History Boys, a few people gave a standing ovation, but the majority of us just clapped really enthusiastically and then skedaddled for the local parking lots, limos and subways. (Perhaps the more polite Brits stayed on a bit longer or followed the cast to Angus McIndoe, the Broadway hangout mentioned in The New York Times.) Denizen of the subway that I am, I peeled off from the high-end crowd and hopped the Broadway Local. I headed downtown, clutching my Playbill and recalling memorized verses from Kipling and Donne, and great lines from Shakespeare.
April 26th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Hobnobbing again? Wow. What a life.
Are you sure you didn’t talk to anyone famous and you’re just not telling us?
:>O
April 26th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Well done.
Watch out Page 6 and Clive Barnes!
April 26th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Well, girl, you’re in good company. John Simon loved it and he hates everything. And, concerning the size of the theater seats, would you be so kind to describe your stature? I picture you as petite, perhaps a size 2. Easily fitting into the smallest seat in the house. Am I wrong?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Keep ‘em guessing, I say!
April 26th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Petite is an adjective that I would be loath to use to describe the yummy Ms. Scanlon. But it’s a nice thought. She is quite tall.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
And here I was spending my time watching world championship wrestling….
April 27th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Yes, it was a fun night out. I did get one personal email from a fellow blogger who said I’d do well to tend to my knitting:
“I think this kind of post is tedious. It could have been written by anyone, and I think you know it. You clearly have so much more to offer: professional insight, opinions, and suggestions. So you went to a play — good for you. I’m more interested in knowing what you did at work today.”
Sorry, guy, but I think attending and reviewing the work of Alan Bennett, actor, author, screenplay writer, and a man considered perhaps the “premier English dramatist of his generation” is something the Wicked Witch of Publishing might do while she is covering the “publishing industry,” which would, of course, include published plays. Bennett’s latest book “publication” is Untold Stories, a 672-page, 5-star Amazon book, ranked 739, and published on April 4, 2006, by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. By the way, “The History Boys” is the hottest play in the city right now. Premier seats costs $255.00!
And sometimes “girls just want to have fun!”
April 27th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Come on. I don’t know about the rest of you so-phisti-cates, but this Seattle oaf, and, I daresay, anybody who
camps out here in the provinces (anywhere off-Manhattan), laps up all the first-person accounts of nights out in the big city he/she can get. This review sent me straight to the Alan Bennett shelf. I’ve been away from the theatre for too long. Keep it up, Lynne. You’re my mentor.
April 27th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Very funny… you write good.
April 27th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Yer doing fine, gal. And I don’t expect all posts to be my exact cup of tea, either, but I like to be exposed to variety. So keep providing it. It’s nice to hear parts of a person beyond the keyboard. Life is short, and in a little while we’ll all be dead.
April 27th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I think that kind of comment is tedious (Mr Personal Email) - are you the Fun Police? Is our dear PC not allowed out to Play?
And Lynne, on behalf of a nation I apologise for the idiolect, even we have trouble with it sometimes, but then your Southern accent is sometimes hard on the translation banks!!
April 28th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Your blog is your blog, it is up to you what you put on it. Blimey, it’s a rough old world if you can’t have one little corner of it where you can do what you like without fear of contradiction.
I saw The History Boys in London a few months back. I did really enjoy it, as I like all Alan Bennett, but I thought the first half much better than the second. I didn’t think the denoument worked very well. I also thought the “new labour” prologue/framework were a bit contrived.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining play, full of Bennett’s wonderful quirky and witty dialogue. Who else is writing plays like that these days?
And yes, Lynne, like the New Yorkers we did rush home at the end to catch our train to the styx where we live, clinging onto the edge of the Great Metropolis.
All best wishes
Maxine.
PS I think that trying to translate US into UK english in the many, many US books I read is great fun. Hope you US types enjoy a bit of the reverse now and again!
April 30th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Hi Lynne - Just a quick comment since I’m out of town and using a computer from the dark ages: I believe it is important for everyone involved in the arts - especially a writer or marketer - to be well versed in all art forms, not just literature. Contemporary novels constantly reference music, theater, television, etc.
Since I only get to NYC a couple of times a year, I read everything I can to stay abreast of current entertainment trends. Thank God for The New Yorker and for those cool gossip magazines you find in the dentist’s office!
April 30th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Remember, please, that the person who complained about Lynne’s night-out post did so privately, via email, direct to the WW. She referred to him/her as a “fellow blogger,” suggesting she knows the culprit’s identity. Clearly, Lynne
posted the objection herself, and I think she knew what she was doing on this post, too–her friends and fans flocked in. I should know–I was first. It’s not too late, Fellow Blogger, to come to the Comments section and stand up for yourself. Would a Blogger avoid the Comments section?
I say, Maxine, brilliant post–is that the Styx that flows through Hertfordshire?