Luck be a Lady of the Lake

There's a traditional Jewish folk song that usually gets busted out around the Passover seder table called "Dayeinu" (that's pronounced die-AY-nu for the many Gentiles in the audience), which translates roughly as "It would have been enough." The lyrics are like "Even if God had only brought us out of slavery... dayeinu. Even if God had only brought us out of slavery and given us mannah to eat... dayeinu." Etc., etc., etc.

Passover is still a long way away (thankfully, since it's one of my least favorite Jewish holidays), but I had Dayeinu in my head a lot last night. My mom had been babysitting Julia in the afternoon, and the original plan was for us to pick her up around dinner time.

Even if we had just picked her up as planned and spent the evening hanging out and watching TV... dayeinu.

Then my mom offered to keep Julia overnight, and even if we had just gone to a holiday blockbuster movie at the local multiplex... dayeinu.

Then Marian suggested we take advantage of the mild weather and go into Manhattan, and even if we had just gone in and taken in a more obscure movie ("Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was our target) or gone out for a fancy dinner... dayeinu.

Any or all of those activities would have been just fine and dandy. But we had time to kill before the movie was going to start, so we wandered over to Marian's favorite Italian restaurant, Carmine's, and when we saw the huge line at the door, our eyes wandered across the street to the Schubert Theater, where "Spamalot" was playing. Now, I've been dying to see that show ever since Eric Idle announced it, but between huge ticket demand and the matter of the small child who needs us to take care of her 24-7 for some reason, it hadn't happened, and I figured it wouldn't happen at least until the original cast was all gone.

But we still had time before the movie, and it was about 15 minutes before the opening curtain, so we wandered over, and while Marian talked to an usher, I got on the end of the Cancellations line. There were at least a dozen people ahead of me, and I assumed we had no shot at getting in. But a minute after I got on line, a woman walked up to me and offered to sell me two orchestra seats, face value, that she couldn't use. And after I got my heart started again, I said "Um, how about YES?" and waved Marian over.

So while getting out of Egypt/the house was swell and all, I got to go all the way to the promised land of "Spamalot," with kick-ass seats for one of the silliest and most entertaining times I've ever had at the legitimate the-ay-ter. (And, appropriately enough for this particular theme, the show has a song where David Hyde Pierce explains that you can't succeed on Broadway "if you don't have any Jews.")

As we've already established on this blog, I'm a giant dork, so I've seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" a few dozen times and know most of it by heart. So as cool as it was to see the French Taunter or the Knights Who Say Ni (both played so well by Alan Tudyk that I can't imagine Hank Azaria, who had Tudyk's parts originally, being any better), my favorite parts of the show tended to be the original material, like the aforementioned song about Jews, or the Andrew Lloyd Weber parody "The Song That Goes Like This," or Lancelot's expanded encounter with limp-wristed Prince Herbert.

So, all in all, this Nov. 26th went a hell of a lot better than the last Nov. 26th (see below). And if I don't get to Broadway again for a while... (say it with me)... dayeinu.