Time for New Yorkers to reach across the aisle — in the theaters

NYC & Co. predicts 6.5 million individuals will go to the Huge Apple earlier than New Yr's.
Getty Photographs

When my brother Will, a Louisville semi driver, rolled into the Huge Apple this 12 months, recent off of hauling bourbon and spaghetti sauce by means of a pandemic provide chain, I insisted we see “Into the Woods.” There, he rapidly acknowledged depraved witch Patina Miller from tv, hollering “Candy, Madam Secretary!” and cracking up neighbors. At intermission, he was chatting up Higher West Siders about inflation, tattoos and lengthy hauls, illustrating the plotline of fellowship himself.

Ever since Jan. 6, I’ve been looking for alternatives — like theater  — to pop partisan bubbles and interact in our polarized nation. After a 12 months of shuttered pandemic theaters, I’d scamper down that Yellow Brick Highway with hordes of returning vacationers any day.

Now’s our probability, New York. NYC & Co. forecasts that 6.5 million individuals will go to the Huge Apple earlier than New Yr’s. That’s 85% of 2019’s document tourism ranges — with people from crimson, blue and purple states settling into plush seats from Broadway to Carnegie Corridor. Time to enter the woods collectively.

Alas, I worry the nation has forgotten its strains. A rising share of each Republicans and Democrats view not simply occasion however individuals as dishonest, immoral, lazy, closed-minded and unintelligent. Slightly than spend our time tweeting our issues and hatreds, and particularly with the cousins on the town, we have to attain throughout the proverbial aisle and meet the oldsters we discover there.

Patina Miller has returned to Broadway with “Into the Woods.”

Reuters

It’s straightforward. New Yorkers are naturally nosy.

At “Coal Nation,” in Greenwich Village, my cousin Greta, an Appalachian nurse who’d pushed 800 miles to see the present, blurted out, “I'm wondering what number of of those people are mountain individuals?” “Do the Catskills rely?” chuckled a Jewish grandmother close by.

Greta scanned the auditorium because the viewers started singing “Union, God and Nation.” By no means thoughts we weren’t in a Harlan County VFW corridor.

She and her aisle-mate rapidly in contrast notes on COVID, elder care — and lust for guitar-wielding nation boys. Quickly, the offspring of Appalachian miners hummed in concord with a daughter of the Borscht Belt to “The Satan Put the Coal within the Floor.” After the efficiency, Greta and pal gleefully tugged musical director Steve Earle’s tangled beard. There’s gotta be an enormous musical quantity in that. 

A current examine discovered medical worth in such connections. It famous that “fostering the creation of cross-partisan bridges with strangers primarily based on focused nonpolitical affiliations may fight polarization.” 

Translation: Search out empathy, storytelling and non-political shared expertise — with people proper there within the fold-down seats. 

Too “Kumbaya”? Do not forget that performances soothe nationwide wounds. Assume Paul Simon singing “The Boxer” on “Saturday Night time Dwell” after Sept. 11. Or members of the family of World Commerce Middle victims attending the Broadway opening of “Come From Away.” Some fretted that reenactment of jetliners mustering at Gander, Newfoundland, would inflame uncooked wounds. However Broadway soared. Damaged souls cheered in unity.

You already know what’s not a home divided? The “Candy Caroline” viewers singalong at Neil Diamond’s new jukebox musical “A Stunning Noise.”

In our seats, we writer the narrative of our American expertise. In a nation ripping aside, we nonetheless management the soulful tales we inform one another whereas rubbing shoulders within the viewers and gathering within the aisles.

We will all be the usher. I willingly provide visitors — and most of mine are nation kinfolk New Yorkers hardly ever meet — my quilted futon and loaded fridge. OK, I’ll skip their go to to the Macy’s Santa and Rockefeller Middle tree, however I’ll gladly escort them to the reveals. 

I’ve seen the “The Lion King” 5 instances now and “Hamilton” 4. With cousin Logan, sporting his junior ROTC haircut, joyously rapping within the $10 standby line. Or with cousin Winston, dizzy with Broadway goals from “College of Rock.” All of us sharing our pleasure with strangers. Isn’t this why we stay right here?

Our fairy tales work greatest after we watch them with others. If not for ourselves, then for the subsequent viewers. As my brother’s favourite witch warns us in “Into the Woods,” be “cautious the story you inform; kids will hear.” 

Subsequent week, cousin Greta’s returning.  I’ll vacuum the air mattress. We’ll enterprise manner out on Flatbush Avenue to the Brooklyn Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” with its subway units and hip hop Herr Drosselmeyer. I can’t await that viewers to fulfill one another — a vacation reward good all 12 months lengthy.

Caroline Aiken Koster, a New York legal professional, is writing an essay assortment about being a Southerner within the Huge Apple.