Dear All,
Thank you to those who sent me birthday messages, which lent a whole new
feeling to a birthday -- greetings from people one has never met in the flesh.
I do appreciate your kindness.
I hope all is going well with you and those you are supporting. On a personal
level, I have nothing to complain about on a day-to-day basis other than
exhaustion and slight dizziness. The strange thing about leukemia is that how
you feel doesn't necessarily indicate how you are. You have to get a blood
test to find out! And this evening I am having another of those.
I have to say that I had wondered how I would handle my birthday evening with
the Phantom. I am always tired these days, and an evening in the theater can
be overwhelming at the best of times. (By the way a friend tells me she just
received a John Hopkins publication about tiredness following chemotherapy,
which says this tiredness can last for a few months, so what is happening to
me is not unusual, although my doctor said he thought this exhaustion should
have ended by now.)
We walked down from my block (55th Street), to 44th, down the used-to-be seedy
(and still on the seedy side with some sex shops, about which I could care a
whole lot less, so long as they are neat and keep their products tucked away
inside) Eighth Avenue, which now, like everything else in the theater district
and mid-Manhattan, is undergoing a face lift. Construction is taking place
with a vengeance, and there are corners I just would not have recognized if
you had somehow taken me there wearing a blindfold. It was great to see all
the people winding their ways to their various shows. Going to a Broadway
show, unless it is an opening, is not exactly a dress-up event these days.
Jeans and open shirts are the order of the evening, with a few glamorous
dresses and gents in ties, though I think they are in the minority. Of course
by now Phantom of the Opera has become a tourist attraction, and even gentle
little moi felt like assaulting the family group that sat directly in front of
us, who seemed to think they were at home in Italy (my friend said they were
speaking in Italian) watching TV. They excitedly leaned toward each other and
away from each other throughout the show, as though they and the production
were alone and those around and behind them had not paid $75 a seat to spend
an evening at the theater.
We grabbed a very small bite before the show, and went to the Marriott Marquis
on Times Square for our supper afterwards, where, incidentally, we were served
by a waiter who could have been a double for Keanu Reeves. When I say that our
meal at the Marquis was the highlight of the evening, you will gather that our
reaction to the Phantom of the Opera was less than enchantment. I think those
of you who wrote me yesterday saying how much you had enjoyed it were lucky to
have seen the production away from Broadway! It had a tired look about it, and
the sound system was execrable, and all those operatic voices -- opera voices
should not be amplified -- came across like needles in the ears. As for the
special effects, to which I had looked forward because I love theatrical
carryings-on, were totally uninvolving and disappointing. During the beginning
of the first act, my friend managed to fall asleep. Of course the screeching
soon woke him up. Even the famous falling of the chandelier came across as a
travesty. The darn thing didn't fall from the ceiling, it slid at what looked
like an angle of 45 degrees and proceeded in excruciating slow motion. I had
expected it to look real, and had thought it would fall into an area of the
auditorium with a mighty crash. Here was one moment when huge sound was called
for. Instead, it began falling above the audience and then slid sideways onto
the stage, and the loudest sound you could hear was the screaming of the cast
in what was supposed to be abject terror. And it was not a sparkling "crystal"
chandelier, as I had expected, but one of those barroom-type things with
spheres all over them. Of course, maybe that's what the chandelier in the
Paris Opera House looked like. Anyhow.
The second act picked up, and the last few minutes of the show were actually
moving. The young lady lead was the best thing performance-wise. The phantom
was OK, I suppose, but he did more than his share of screeching. Here of
course one has been spoiled by the recordings by Michael Crawford and the
original Christine. You don't have to scream on a recording, after all. There
are four or five gorgeous songs, but the rest of the score leaves me dead
cold, although I have to say that when they began playing the opera the crazy
phantom had written I thought the music took a distinct turn for the better.
So there you are. Sorry, friends, but the production of Phantom we saw last
night had nothing much going for it, except the audience, which actually stood
up at the end when the Phantom came out to take his bow.
I have to be honest and to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber is not my favorite
show composer, though he did write one show that had me in tears and that I
went to see three times just to see the role performed by different women:
Sunset Boulevard. I have also seen Cats a number of times, mainly because that
is the classic show to which New Yorkers take visitors to town. And anyhow, it
happens to be interesting from beginning to end. Most Lloyd Webber shows,
though, to me at least, contain some really rotten songs. There is a love song
at the end of Boulevard that always had me shifting in my seat and hoping it
would soon be over.
I had expected to enjoy Phantom, because I thought it would move me as
Boulevard did. After all, it has some gorgeous melodies, and I had expected
breathtaking sets and effects. What I did enjoy, though, was actually going
out, having an evening on the town and getting into a theater. I last went to
the theater in June, I think, when my sister and niece were here, and we went
to see Whoopi Goldberg in A Funny Thing Happaned on the Way to the Forum. Now
Sondheim is my composer. I want every second to be interesting. I want every
word to be worth hearing, and I am willing to pay total attention (which is
necessary is most of his shows). Enough show biz.
We finished supper at around midnight and took a taxi home. Rain had been
threatened, but didn't happen. I was just too tired to walk the 13 blocks
home. I hope the threatened rainstorm holds off until late this evening,
because at 7 p.m. I have one of my twice weekly visits to the oncologist, and
await with interest to see what these pills have done to my white bloodcount.
Lowered it, please. Oh please let there be good news about my blood levels in
general.
There is a quite different atmosphere in town now when you go to the theater.
Very soon it will be like stepping out of a theater into Las Vegas. I love the
theater, and living in a town with so much of it. I want to see the revivals
of Chicago and Cabaret, though I have to say the rivival of The Sound of
Music doesn't exactly make me want to whip out $60. Anyhow, this town is a
show in itself.
I have received quite a lot of mail, and will do my best to answer it, and
those lovely birthday greetings, in the next few days.
There has been so much useful information on MOL in the last week. I would
like to comment on it all, but how do you do that? But I have to mention the
stuff about hair and hats. I was delighted to see the candor with which wigs
are worn at the hospital. One lady had her elaborate hairpiece draped over one
of those head-and-shoulder models smack opposite her door. It was the first
thing you saw on looking into her room. I notice that men are less inclined to
use a piece. There is something about total baldness that makes a man's wig
obvious. Although I suppose it depends on how much you are willing to pay for
it.
With hair or without it, feel at your very best.
God bless you.
-- Ron
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