ONLY IN NEW YORK

I’ve never understood people who have never been to a movie by themselves and realize some people want to share the experience. So, excuse my judginess, but to me, it’s a sign they don’t enjoy their own company or are afraid people will think they are lonely, couldn’t find a date or don’t have any friends. But living in these narcissistic times, nobody notices or cares if you’re alone sitting in the dark watching a picture on a wall. Needless to say, I enjoy my own company (perhaps too much) and going to a movie alone is one of my favorite past-times. Even going to the theater alone can be a treat.

While living in New York, I would think nothing of going to a Broadway show by myself. Walking home through Times Square I’d pop over to the half price TKTS booth at 7:30 and grab a single ticket to a show. And often, going alone makes it easier to engage in the sport of finding a better empty single seat at intermission.

Manhattan was in the grasp of a brutal heat wave and I was sweating in khaki shorts, a white t-shirt and sandals. On my way home from my midtown job at HBO I decided to catch air conditioning and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

Yay! I scored a single front row ticket at the half price booth. But when I got to the Walter Kerr theatre my seat was so far over on the side I was almost in the parking lot. I was not only looking way up at the stage but craning my neck to see center stage. As always, I scoped out the Orchestra for a better seat and spotted a perfect single ten rows from the front, center. The row was filled with theatergoers but I carefully counted the seats for my intermission dash.

Intermission. When the lights came up I saw that the entire row had quickly scooted out to the lobby and I made a beeline for the empty seat. I waited there in the best seat in the house guarding my upholstered turf amidst the rustle of programs and the chocolate maracas of Junior Mints. Slowly, the theatergoers in my row began to trickle back in. Wow. They were all formally dressed in gowns and tuxedoes and here I was in the middle of them, a low-rent shlub wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sandals. A lovely blonde middle-aged woman in a green gown and white arm-length gloves sat down next to me. So to relieve, any under-dressed disdain I started chatting with her. “Are you enjoying the play?” I asked. “Oh yes, it’s lovely,” she replied with a mild Irish accent. “How do you like New York?” “Oh, I love it, yes.” “You know there’s a White Sale at Bloomingdales,” I advised. She nodded and smiled politely. I looked along my row to see who was in her theater party and noticed that the burly man in a tuxedo next to me was wearing an earpiece and so was the stiff man in a black suit on the other side of the woman. I leaned over to the guy next to me and asked, “Who are you people?” He whispered and pointed to the woman in the green dress sharing my armrest, “This is the president of Ireland.” Yikes! I had inadvertently crashed their theater party. It was during the I.R.A. conflict and obviously, a short Jewish guy in shorts and sandals didn’t appear to be a threat. When the curtain came down I wanted to ask, “So now where are we all going?” Who knows? Maybe she was going to catch the White Sale at Bloomingdales.