On Tuesday night we went to see South Pacific at Lincoln Center. The tickets were a Christmas gift from me to my husband…(I ain’t stupid, who the hell else is he gonna take??) We wanted to eat dinner in the city before the play which started at 7, so leaving at 5 seemed to make sense. It didn’t. We usually eat at Katz’s deli when we go to a play….he likes the ridiculously overpriced, overstuffed pastrami sandwiches and I like the fact that When Harry Met Sally was filmed there and I always insist we sit at the table where Meg Ryan did her famous faked orgasm scene. I am always tempted to recreate it…but I don’t, a coward at heart. Maybe if I looked like Meg Ryan I would. This time though we went up the west side so we decided to find a restaurant near Lincoln Center.
Quite surprisingly we found parking right away. Not so surprising was the fact that we were about ten blocks from Lincoln Center. I hate my husband’s lets-find-a-spot-instead-of-putting-it-in-a-lot logic. Cheap bastard. Since we still had to find somewhere to eat we walked up Broadway looking for something that looked interesting. We found the Midtown Deli….which turned out to be take out only, we found Raw Bar which only serves seafood…..raw….duh!….we found Food Emporium which was an overpriced supermarket and then we found that we only had 30 minutes to eat and get back to the theatre that we had passed some 8 blocks ago. Desperate now, we saw Ollies Noodle and Rice Bar (or something like that). It was a take-out, dine-in Chinese restaurant. Everything in the restaurant was huge, except for the waitresses who all of them combined probably weighed less than me. The menus were huge, the plates were huge, the silverware huge, even the art on the walls were huge, and unfortunately the prices were equally massive. We slurped our soup and dipped our dumplings as a 30 foot painting of Confucius stared down at us. My fortune cookie, which my doctor will be proud I did not eat, said that I was about to receive good news from abroad. My husband thought that it meant that I was going to hear the news from a woman….a broad….good god! After I explained, we paid our bill tipped the teeny waitress and left Ollies and began our trek.
Lincoln Center was under construction. The entrance we had made our way to was closed and so we had to zig zag back (uphill of course) to the entrance on Amsterdam Avenue. We walked thru temporary gates, up temporary ramps, with temporary lighting…it was confusing and dirty and….well, hopefully temporary. Once inside we walked up stairs, only to have to go back downstairs and then finally to the theatre entrance. Up another flight and we were thankfully at our seats which were amazing. After we stopped panting and the palpitations subsided I realized we had just made it. I ballpark estimated that we had just walked 16 blocks, one avenue and three flights of stairs. (There goes my exercise for January and part of February.)
The play was good….not the best I have seen, but then again I have seen many. The songs were all familiar, but not toe-tappers or sing-a-longs by any means. The scenery was well done and the gratuitous naked behinds of a few sailors was a nice added touch. At intermission we discussed what we thought so far and compared opinions, but when my husband said he liked that "he caressed her because the boyfriend died”......I died. Laughing. Caressed? Did he just say caressed? I guess it must be the magic of Lincoln Center that brought out his sensitive side….that or the MSG in his won tons.
When we left the theatre we followed the crowd who obviously knew where they were going and guess what….no temporary lights or gates or even ramps….just a beautiful lighted fountain and endless pool and the front of Lincoln Center in all its glory. It was a good night. Caressed???
No comments:
Post a Comment