Broadway in the Post Covid Era , with Guest Blogger Susan Matysse.

Broadway in the post-Covid era.

Or, my President’s Day weekend in the city!

Saturday, February 19th. We settle into John’s mother’s little studio apartment and have burgers for dinner.  The arrangement was that we would sleep over in her place after the IRTE improv show down on W. 44th Street, so that instead of running back to Grand Central for a late train home, we could have quality time to hang out with our friends.  Friends we haven’t spent much time with in over two years.  This was our attempt to come back out from being shut in through 2020 and ‘21.

New York City is recovering from the pandemic shutdown, but it’s still ongoing and very bumpy.  We are all used to keeping our masks on and presenting our vaccine cards at admission.  One lead actress in this evening’s comedy, called “Tammy’s Bachelorette Party”, tested positive for Covid and had to stay home in quarantine even though she suffered no symptoms, and another actress was just sick with a cold, so that cut two minor roles from the improv in order to promote a cast member to the role of Tammy. The show went on (John and I were on board for box office work, in exchange for free seats at the show!), and the energy was high, the musical guest (folk guitarist John Munnely, from Ireland!) right on point and the comedy flow very effective.

But the hang afterward was cut a bit short. It was a bit too cold in the lounge bar and people were worried about their health and that of their spouses or partners, so we managed some conversation and soft drinks for about half an hour before deciding to head for our homes.

Have I mentioned how much winter sucks in New York? And how much worse the suckiness is when that Omicron variant acts like that party guest who won’t leave until he has just one more drink?

The city itself is still pretty worse for wear.  On every ride on the MTA subway there is at least one homeless man talking and shouting out loud to...nobody. Except whoever exists inside his head. On every street and avenue there is at least one panhandler pleading for my spare change or food.  It is all still quite depressing and exhausting.

But we had a Broadway show to go to the following afternoon: David Byrne’s “American Utopia”.  I figured a show would be fun on the day before my Monday off from work.

Sunday, February 20th. Still very cold, but the wind is calmer.  We took a walk to the Delacorte in Central Park for the first time in almost two years, I think.

We made it back to 44th Street by 8th Avenue without much mishap. Took our place in a LONG line into the St. James theater.  Showed our IDs and proof of vaccination and the required search of my purse.  Took our seats in the far left section but just a few rows from very front!

Except that we had people in the seats on either side of us. Face masks? Yes. Social distancing?  Nah uh.  And given the well known fact that seats in all Broadway theaters are small and pretty well smushed together, I couldn’t help feeling what might be called post-Covid anxiety.

And yet, when the band played the first familiar hit song, “Once In A Lifetime”, and the two singer/dancers made their “stand up and dance!” gestures along with the chorus, we all, indeed, stood up and danced. I mean, I danced a sort of move that kept my feet firmly in place as I did some lean-forward-and-lean-back stuff to avoid all contact with my side-to-side companions. I made it work. Even my Apple Watch registered my moves as “exercise”!  Right? I’m staying healthy!

Halfway through the show, Byrne introduces a song called “Everybody’s Coming to My House”, by explaining that he usually performs it in the anxious mood of someone whose home is occupied by too many people. Here’s the chorus:

Everybody’s coming to my house,

Everybody’s coming to my house!

And I’m never going to be alone,

And they’re never gonna go back home.

Just typing those lines gives me a nightmarish feeling, personally! Speaking as a fellow introvert, I get what he’s portraying: a sense of “are these people ever going to leave?!?”

But then he describes a performance of his song by a high school jazz group in Detroit, who sing those same lines, without changing a word, yet their feeling is undeniable joy at the thought of never “being alone”.

It really made me think.  Especially about my father and how much he enjoyed cooking Sunday dinners at our house for all my siblings and their spouses (and their children when they were little). They would just come to the house for dinner almost every week. And then they’d all go home.  But it hadn’t occurred to me back in the 90s how important it was for him to have this regular amount of noise and conversation in his home. And he knew that food was the way to keep this going.

Anyway, getting back to today’s world; it’s still a rather anxious phase as we gradually get back out of homes, visit each other’s houses and safely re-establish our connections with each other. And when the time is right, we go back home.

It’s getting better.

- SKM