Day I, a Muppet Double Feature
Our first evening in Manhattan is pre-planned. We have dinner reservations at Sardis and tickets for "Avenue Q."
Web reviews for Sardi's are mixed. So is our food. My salmon appetizer, with roe, is wonderful. Monica's Caesar salad has too much lemon. Monica's entree, with asparagus, is wonderful. My steak is just average, and I could have done without fries. Neither of us complains about desert. (We don't even share.)
The really cool thing about Sardi's are the characatures, which are three high along the walls. Monica tells me the plot for "Muppets Take Manhattan." She has actually heard of this place! Carl Reiner, just to my right, looks younger than he was as a character in the original Dick Van Dyke show. In our room, there do not appear to be any characatures newer than the 1970's. I figure the artist has died long ago, which is wrong. I learn in the playbill for Avenue Q that Vincent Sardi, for whom old-timers had signed the drawings, died earlier in 2007. The waiter tells us that a characature party is going on right this moment for an actor from "A Bronx Tale."
Avenue Q, our Broadway play, is a grown up of version of Sesame Street, featuring actors, muppets and Gary Coleman. Opening in 2003, it is the longest running play ever at the Golden Theater. Do we enjoy it? Absolutely! From "It Sucks to Be Me" to the end. Some of the music feels very much like Auto Body Experience, and if I did not know better, I would figure Scott Yoho to have written the "Schadenfreude" song. Three minutes before the end, where they tug the heartstrings the most, I want to cry. (Truth be told, there is a mathematical formula for script writing that always makes me cry.) The people who sing and handle the Muppets strike me as extremely talented.
Web reviews for Sardi's are mixed. So is our food. My salmon appetizer, with roe, is wonderful. Monica's Caesar salad has too much lemon. Monica's entree, with asparagus, is wonderful. My steak is just average, and I could have done without fries. Neither of us complains about desert. (We don't even share.)
The really cool thing about Sardi's are the characatures, which are three high along the walls. Monica tells me the plot for "Muppets Take Manhattan." She has actually heard of this place! Carl Reiner, just to my right, looks younger than he was as a character in the original Dick Van Dyke show. In our room, there do not appear to be any characatures newer than the 1970's. I figure the artist has died long ago, which is wrong. I learn in the playbill for Avenue Q that Vincent Sardi, for whom old-timers had signed the drawings, died earlier in 2007. The waiter tells us that a characature party is going on right this moment for an actor from "A Bronx Tale."
Avenue Q, our Broadway play, is a grown up of version of Sesame Street, featuring actors, muppets and Gary Coleman. Opening in 2003, it is the longest running play ever at the Golden Theater. Do we enjoy it? Absolutely! From "It Sucks to Be Me" to the end. Some of the music feels very much like Auto Body Experience, and if I did not know better, I would figure Scott Yoho to have written the "Schadenfreude" song. Three minutes before the end, where they tug the heartstrings the most, I want to cry. (Truth be told, there is a mathematical formula for script writing that always makes me cry.) The people who sing and handle the Muppets strike me as extremely talented.
posted by David Rasmussen at 10:38 AM
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