This weekend, which has totally been given over to household reorganization, has been heavenly. I’m still deXmassing – the tree is down now, but I have to get all those ornaments back in their little boxes. That’s OK, as I said to Susan, I have until November, when it all comes back out again. I’ve also continued with the office cleanup, and finally got our maintenance guy to look at the light fixture/ceiling fan in the maid’s room, which has not worked for weeks. Turns out it was not the fixture, but the switch. There’s a temp switch on there now – I need to look and see if I have a real switch (I probably do), or buy one, and then he’ll come and swap those out. But it’s been really frustrating not to have an overhead light in that room during the shortest days of the year.
Basically a normal (and short!) week, but I had an eye doctor appointment on Wednesday. I’ve only been to this eye doctor once – he operates out of an office in Forest Hills (one express stop away), but the office is a mile south of the center of Forest Hills, where the subway stops. Annoying, but I like the doctor, and I only go once a year, so… and it’s actually a really nice walk, through a classy suburban neighborhood. I spent the walk dodging ice on the sidewalks and listening to the new Merrily We Roll Along recording, which is fantastic.
And after all that, it turns out that my eyes are quite healthy and my prescriptions didn’t even change. So there you go.
Thursday I went into the office, with a plan to grab a TKTS ticket over lunch. Pretty sure I wanted to see Spamalot, and that’s what I got. The friendly TKTS guy was like, ‘oh, there are good tickets to Spamalot’, found a great one in orchestra center, then found a 99% equally great one a row back for $15 less, so I got that one.
Between work and the show, I went to ‘bear happy hour’, which is most Thursdays and rotates around different bars, but this week it was close to both the office and the theater. Had a nice time – need to get the ursine wildlife accustomed to my presence so they’ll come closer and closer…
Then off to the show.
I am a Monty Python fan, certainly, and had enjoyed, but not loved, the show in its original Broadway run. This time we had a more diverse cast (Black men as King Arthur and Galahad, for instance), and some great names: James Monroe Iglehardt (Arthur), Tony winner for Aladdin’s Genie. Michael Urie as Sir Robin (this was his last week before going over to the Encores Once Upon a Mattress, and I’d wanted to see him), and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as the Lady of the Lake. (Did you see the last episode of Mrs. Maisel? She was Carol Burnett.)
So the show itself is still not great – the music is lackluster, and some of the scenes don’t land. The whole “you can’t go to Broadway without Jews” just isn’t inherently funny, and the Prince Herbert scene (which is inherently funny), which turns into a male romance, just isn’t played with enough heart to make it more than a ‘haha men in love’ thing. Although a lot of the Python schtick (the French guards, etc.) was really great.
The production looked wonderful and the cast was clearly having a blast. JMI as Arthur was funny and loose and sexy. Michael Urie was a lot of fun, but unfortunately, he bowed out at intermission and we saw his understudy do the big song (very well, and the audience was totally supportive). One of the other characters actually riffed (in dialogue) that Sir Robin was now the understudy and he does ‘breathing work’ training and listed out his website, it was pretty funny. Leslie Kritzer was hilarious and quite wonderful, riffing on a lot of big-lady personas and giving yet another parody Elphaba ah-ah-ah at the end of a number. Christopher Fitzgerald (Patsy) is always terrific. I didn’t get to see Ethan Slater, he was out. But the guy playing Galahad was really something special – Nik Walker. Talented and hot, he was great fun to watch.
So, bottom line, a great deal of fun and definitely worth the trip, even though the show itself is not one I’d really ever want to work on.
I’ll be seeing Hamilton in February (finally) and will probably grab tickets to Sweeney soon.
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