An Odorous Broadway Play

Chris, my son, and I planned to attend a Broadway Play. Earlier in the day, we visited Greenwich Village and Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleeker Street. Murray's is the place to find the best cheese in New York. It is also one of the places I have seen a famous person. This famous person is an actor who was on the COSBY SHOW and was in the movie, THE PRINCESS BRIDE. Chris got all excited and tried to remember a line from the movie, THE PRINCESS BRIDE to repeat to this guy. He even tried to call his brother Doug, who remembers every line from every movie. I swear, Doug and Chris have entire conversations made up only of lines from movies. Anyway, Doug was not available and it was just as well since the poor actor probably just wanted to get home with his cheese, without somebody noticing him. It is without a doubt the world's best cheese shop. Chris and I bought some treats for after the theater including a bleu cheese for me, a Camembert for Chris and a brie to share. We also bought a small baguette from Amy's Bread, a bakery down the street also on Bleeker. Anyway, after that we went to the theater. This play was a dark comedy, set in Ireland. We had really inexpensive seats and believe me there is no reason to get any other kind in a Broadway Theater because all of the theaters are small and the acoustics are wonderful. You might pay $75 more to get closer to the actors and you might see them better, but you will not hear any better. Any way, in this play, the characters spoke with heavy Irish brogues. It took a while to get used to listening to the brogue so that you could understand what the actors were saying but you could eventually understand them. There was a lot of drinking going on in this play, after all it was about the Irish and it was very entertaining. There were people sitting on either side of us and those on one side were Russian. Now, I have to tell you about Christopher. Ever since he reached adolescence, he has had a problem with foot odor. I believe he has a handle on washing his feet, but sometimes his shoes smell. On this particular occasion I determined that Chris's shoes were smelling. I didn't say anything, not wanting to distract him from enjoying himself at the Broadway play. Chris is an English major and Dramatic Productions are the height of entertainment for him.

At intermission we took our separate breaks and returned to the theater to find ourselves sitting alone. The Russians had left. Chris said, that he could understand the Russian people leaving since they probably could not understand the Irish brogue. It was a little strange though when the couple sitting next to me never returned from intermission either. Before the play began Chris asked, "Mom, do you smell something?" I said that I did and that I thought it was his feet. I smelled his shoes but they smelled fine. We then commenced to smell our clothes and could not find anything smelly on either of our persons. Christopher carries around a backpack which is good for storing everything including the books he travels with so that he is never bored, always having something to read. When we were sniffing each other in search of the bad smell, Chris noticed that the smell was actually coming from the backpack. We opened it up and low and behold, realized the source of the smell was non other than the Camembert. At the same time, we realized that the reason our neighbors had left was the odor coming from Christopher's backpack. How can something that tastes so heavenly smell so rank? When it costs $20 per pound. Well, since we knew that neither of us was the source of the odor, we went back to enjoying a fine Irish Tale, with plenty of room to spread out. And when we got home, we feasted on that delicious stinky cheese.

Big Broadway Musical Productions are outrageously expensive. But great theater can be had for under $50. Even better bargains are available for Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway. By the way, whether or not a theater is Off Broadway or Off Off Broadway has nothing to do with where it is located but rather the number of seats in the theater. The larger theaters are considered Broadway.

During the summer there are great theater productions all over the city for free. Hey, its New York