New York offers big theatrical feast

Press, 6 January 1987, Page 19

New York offers big theatrical feast

SUSAN KUROSAWA

finds the “Big Apple” entertaining

after dark.

If the golden age of live theatre is dead, then the news is yet to hit New York. Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” (the latest in the “Biloxi Blues” and “Brighton Beach Memoirs” trilogy) has just opened at The Broadhurst on West 44th Street to capacity crowds. Maybe the magical Simon name does ensure a sizzler, not a fizzler, but elsewhere on Broadway, big, frothy musicals and skittish comedies with top-line stars are buoyantly alive and well. The latest from Marvin Hamlisch (of “A Chorus Line" fame) is “Smile,” a perky musical satirising teenage beauty contests, at The Lunt-Fontanne on West 46th Street Hamlisch’s “A Chorus Line” is the longest-running show in Broadway history and even in its twelfth year you need to book seats at The Shubert on West 44th Street

Visiting New York and not seeing a Broadway show is about as unreasonable as going to China and excluding The Great Wall. It’s the buzz of Broadway that gives New York its sting Even if your experience of live theatre has been confined to nothing more adventurous than school plays and club revues, you simply must catch at least one Broadway curtain. “Me And My Girl” is the inaugural show in the dazzling new Marquis Theatre right on Broadway. Nearby, at The Palace, the campy “Cage Aux Folles” is doing big business, and the long-running erotic musical “Oh! Calcutta!” is still wowing ’em at Edison Theatre on West 47th Street

Although big performers such as “Cats” are supposedly sold out months in advance, cancellations and spare seats are often available at the box office. Many New York hotels have theatre ticket desks in their lobbies and most concierge will chase bookings for you.

There is a Chargit telephone reservation service (call 944 9300 or 944 9669) for credit card bookings, and the Times Square Theatre Centre (known as TKTS) offers half-price tickets to certain Broadway and off-Broadway shows on the day of performance only. Tickets go on sale for matinees from noon and for evening shows from 3 p.m. The TKTS offices are located at 47th Street and Broadway, and at the World Trade Center mezzanine level. Discount tickets known as “twofers” are available on a first-come, firstserved basis from the New York Convention and Visitors’ Bureau at 2 Columbus Circle (call 397 8222 for details). These coupons are exchangeable at box offices for two tickets at reductions of 30 to 50 per cent. If you’re serious about your seating requirements, best to pick up a copy of

“STUBS” magazine at a news-stand. This publication carries the floor plans of all major theatres, arenas and concert venues in New York. Off-Broadway shows are staged at smaller theatres in Greenwich Village and the Upper East and West Sides. The fare usually runs to experimental plays and new-wave revivals of the classics. The cream of the current crop includes “Angry Housewives” and the outrageously titled “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom.” Both plays are being staged in Greenwich Village; the fcimer concerns a group of bored housewives who form a punk rock band and the showstopper number is called “Eat Your F g Cornflakes” (the audience is pelted with breakfast cereal). The latter play is a super spoof on Dracula and has been met with rave reviews from even the

sternest New York critics.

A third category of New York theatre embraces off-off-Broadway shows.

These performances are usually held in spaces accommodating less than 100 seats. Venues are often lofts, basements, converted churches or warehouses, and bars. The productions can be very avant-garde so rely on word-of-mouth recommendation otherwise you may find yourself stuck with some fairly indigestible fare. The hit plays this season, as opposed to lavish musicals, are “Social Security,” “The Front Page,” “The House of Blue Leaves,” “I’m Not Rappaport,” “You Never Can Tell” and that perennial favourite, “Arsenic And Old Lace.” And the curtain still goes up on The Rockettes, those shapely highkickers of Radio City Music Hall. Whoever thought the era of excess has turned anorexic should check out the Christmas spectacular at Radio City. There are cattle, donkeys and camels on stage for the nativity scene, and the whole extravanza ripples under more tinsel, glitter and festive frills than all of Fifth Avenue’s department store windows put together. Don’t attempt to rush dinner before an 8 o’clock curtain. New York is a late town and the accepted schedule is to eat supper at, say, 10 or 11. If you’re in the mood for a little night music, have a late dinner at the Oak Room in the legendary Algonquin Hotel and hear big-voiced Julie Wilson belting out a tribute to the tunes of Harold Arlen. It makes a superb dessert for a feast of theatre in The Big Apple.

Susan Kurosawa, a Sydney-based travel writer, flew to New York as a guest of Continental Airlines.