Until such time that I can afford a Rolex or the antique car that Andy deserves actually arrives, he will have to make do with birthday gifts such a preview performance of the new musical ‘Death Becomes Her’ and a night in New York City. Reviews from their Chicago run sounded promising, and since Andy has always been a fan of the movie this sounded like a perfect gift; we hadn’t been to NY for a show since seeing ‘Come From Away’ with my parents in the year before COVID. Given the way all scheduled things have gone since the pandemic, I didn’t plan anything too extravagant – not even dinner reservations, figuring that we would find a place if we started out early enough.
The ride down along the Hudson was pretty and uneventful, following a brief delay (there is always – always – a brief delay, sometimes not-so-brief, in the trains between Albany and NYC). We arrived to a splendidly sunny day, with a lovely cooling breeze, and rather than fight for an Uber and get snarled in midtown congestion, we walked to our hotel, with a stop for lunch along the way. After we got checked in (the City Club Hotel has seen better days and we’ll leave it at that) Andy took a brief siesta, while I embarked on some cologne sampling and shopping.
While I’ve never been a big fan of New York, once in a while there is a visit that reveals the prettiness and charm of this place that has so captivated the adoration of so many of my friends. As I stepped through the jewel-box-like rooms of Bergdorf Goodman, and approached the quaint little cologne bar in the center of their fragrance room, I felt this charming magic again. A friendly older gentlemen, decked out in marvelous fashion, asked if I was looking for something, and after mentioning the new Tom Ford he steered me to a line from The Harmonist – a French perfume line that I was not looking for but turned into being precisely what I loved. The two offerings I sampled ‘Magnetic Woods’ and ‘Hypnotizing Fire’ were exquisite – and I’ll have to see about their discovery sample set as a Christmas gift.
Pausing at a vintage shop where Pucci and Valentino paraded their colorful wares on rows of rolling racks, this little dachshund came up to me and followed me around for a bit – as if Gram was saying hello to me here. Mom said she would visit the city in October with my grandfather, and it was true that the weather was often beautiful at this time of the year.
We headed out for an early dinner along Restaurant Row since there was always space and something simple available there. After lunch neither Andy nor I was exceedingly hungry, so we kept it casual and small, trying for a seat at Joe Allen’s, which was full, then finding a new spot called Backstage Tavern a few doors down. The man at the door called us in and asked us to check them out, and he was so insistent in his indeterminate accent (Andy said he reminded him of the charismatic Emcee of ‘Cabaret’) that we took a gamble and sat down. This mocktail spritz was brilliantly bitter, and the burger and sandwich that followed were perfectly serviceable for an easy and quick dinner.
The show itself was magnificent – opulent and excessive in the best possible way – with a quartet of stellar leads to lead the charge (sadly Megan Hilty was out for a second day; Kaleigh Cronin did amazing work in her stead). The somewhat-expected revelation was Jennifer Simard as Helen Sharp, who had the greatest character evolution and earned the heartiest laughs. Seeing two strong female leads is a tradition in shows we have seen and loved – ‘Wicked‘, ‘Side Show’, ‘Grey Gardens‘ – and ‘Death Becomes Her’ joyously joins that pantheon.
It’s also, quite literally, very much for the gays (or ‘For the Gaze’ as the early number indicates) – with winking references as broad as Judy Garland, ‘The Wizard of Oz‘, ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Meet Me In St. Louis‘ along with numerous others that will take repeated viewings to fully encapsulate. While mostly campy fun that stays true to the movie, the theme of friendship, and what it means to be someone’s true person, resonates a bit deeper by the end of the story; the brilliant 11th-hour barn-burner ‘Alive Forever’ ties all the trauma and drama of the preceding romp neatly into an emotional resolution amid a soaring blending of two magical voices.
It was a happy reminder of how wonderfully escapist the best of Broadway could be, and as we walked through a train station filled with the dour red-hatted hate cadres of Trump supporters filing into Madison Square Garden the next morning, I realized we might need this sort of escape more than ever.
A box of macarons helped extend the magic for just a bit longer too, as did a sleepy husband beside me on a trip I usually make on my own.
