A few weeks ago, I hit up one of my favorite New York City pastimes: dressing up like royalty and going to see a show at Lincoln Center. Growing up, I always thought that there was something major about going to the New York City Ballet– and I am still very right about that– but I thought that it was something that only elite people got to do, that going to see the ballet meant that you were a MAJOR deal.
There’s something about taking in a show at Lincoln Center that makes me feel like “The Talented Miss Raquel,” a faux posh person in a very posh environment.
I bought ballet tickets several months ago, purchasing literal cheap seats that veered far enough to the right that I couldn’t always see the action that was happening on stage. Standing there, holding a $45 ticket that I’d purchased two months earlier, I no longer felt like The Talented Miss Raquel.
Cleaning up nicely for one night and one night only, I left my house on what wasn’t exactly a warm and cozy night, in heels that I couldn’t walk in, and attended the ballet.
I spent the evening watching Swan Lake and thinking to myself “wow this is nothing like Black Swan.” (Which is a good thing for those who’ve never seen the movie).
I know that I’ve said it before on this blog, but I am always blown away by how effortless ballet dancers make it look, standing on the tip of their toes like it’s nothing. The human body is not meant to bend that way.
I’m not sure why half the characters were dressed like court jesters and the other half were dressed like flocked pine cones, but I think it absolutely worked. It was a beautiful performance.
Before going home for the holidays, I watched my first ever burlesque show at The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side.
It was a festive holiday burlesque show, presided over by a woman wearing a thong and knee-high socks, who was ready to show us “the reason for the season.”
This was not the kind of burlesque show where the women wore Santa hats and have tassels hanging from their nipples, but the kind where the women do trapeze stunts over the audience.
I spent the evening with a good cocktail and a nice date, watching half-naked women fling themselves through the air like it was nothing and then unravel onto the stage.
My favorite performer was a woman who was dressed like Eve, which is to say that she was in a nude bodysuit wrapped in fake ivy, as she swung from the rafters with an apple in her mouth while the song “MOTHER ATE” played. For those unfamiliar, MOTHER ATE contains the lyrics “crazy how the very first sin was a woman who ate” and “devoured, no crumbs left in sight.”
Another woman hung from her hair and acted like it was nothing, even though I had a headache just looking at her.
I felt like I did when I was 14 and watched a street performer in Italy hula-hoop with a ring that was lit on fire. I was impressed by the talent and the artistry, with a dangerous sense of “I could do that.”
“I could wind up in the hospital” is more likely.
There was a puppet show. The poodle puppet was wearing cheetah print pants, a cheetah print coat, and black, knee-high boots. I have that exact outfit at home.
I’d had other plans for the night and seeing the burlesque show ended up being my back up. It’s not often that you think you’re going to see a movie and then end up watching women hanging from silks while a Chapell Roan song plays.
I can officially say that I’ve been to the one place in town where the audience can chant “Chug! Chug! Chug!” while watching a Shakespeare play.
Technically, I suppose, that you could chant that at any Shakespeare play, but it’d be frowned upon and you’d probably be asked to leave.
At Drunk Shakespeare, however, it is mandatory.
You’re greeted with a double shot of a fruity cocktail and then get to sit down and order more alcohol, while you wait to watch some professional actors *sort of* do Shakespeare. As they would say, “we are professional actors, with a Shakespeare problem.”
Drunk Shakespeare goes as follows: a company of actors perform a Shakespeare play completely sober, except for one of the actors who takes on a principal role while super drunk.
The rest of the actors are bullshitting their way through it while the one actor is fighting for their life.
An actress took four tequila shots back to back and instead of being on the floor, as I would be, she proceeded to play Lady Macbeth. A bachelorette took a shot along with her in order to prove that she was in fact doing hard liquor.
From there, madness ensued.
A black actor who was wearing a white sheet as one of the ghosts, pulled up the white sheet to form a hood and declared “look, I’m Clarence Thomas.”
One actor was told to deliver his lines through the medium of various different impressions, including, Jim Carey, Jack Nicholson, Hannibal Lecter, the woman from the porno, every MTA worker ever, and my personal favorite, John Mulaney.
In case you were wondering what the “woman from the porno” and “every MTA worker ever” sounded like, just know that the actor did the first one by moaning in a high pitched voice, before flinging water in the air, and did the second one by delivering his lines directly into a drawer so that they were completely muffled and incoherent.
At times they had to dip into the audience for their props, which created the iconic line, “Is this an inhaler I see before me?” followed by the actor mumbling to himself, “you did four years at Carnegie Mellon, you can do this,”
Some not at all blurry pictures from someone not at all drunk
Likewise, Macbeth broke character again to address the audience by asking a woman to please stop clapping by hitting her ring against her wine glass, because, and I quote, “this is not a wedding in Vermont.”
Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, did at one point take an audience member’s head in her hands and press it against her chest while delivering the line “come to my woman’s breast, and take my milk for gall,” or whatever she thought the line was in her inebriated state.
Drunk chic on the left
Jokes aside, one of the most impressive things about this is seeing how much work these professionals actually put into their craft. It shows how much work actually goes into putting on a performance like this, because it was apparent that they all knew the play backwards and forwards.
The actress playing Lady Macbeth, who was mild to moderately wasted, still managed to pull it together enough to deliver a perfect monologue from Julius Caesar, and then later another one from Hamlet.
Anytime the audience chanted “chug, chug, chug,” she had to imbibe some more. Again, I would have needed the emergency room.
Subjecting yourself to a pretty nasty hangover, which would possibly involve rushing to a toilet as soon as you wake up, to entertain a room full of people, shows some kind of crazy level of dedication. I hope she earns a fat check for regularly doing this.
I had loads of fun watching a sloppy drunken Shakespeare play, as the bard intended, and I think you should all do the same.
The Tragic Queen 