Phantom goes dark, but not memories
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- April 13, 2023
- 460
My first trip to New York City almost did not happen. It was my sophomore year of college, and my roommate and I made plans to travel via Greyhound Bus from Akron to Port Authority with what felt like 2,458 stops in between. My brother moved to New York City a year earlier to pursue a career as a writer. He set a goal, giving himself six years to see how things worked out in the literary world. If he did not publish within those six years, home he would come to pursue a different path.
Selfishly, I knew I had six years worth of free lodging on any trip to the Big Apple; I needed to take full advantage of that.
About three weeks before we were to depart, a group of terrorists drove a van into the underground parking deck of the North Tower, detonating a bomb that ultimately killed six people, injuring over a thousand. However, it failed to do what they had hoped. (Sadly, that day would come a little over eight years later.)
On that day my brother was working in a building directly across the street from the North Tower. Given his location, thus knowing he was completely safe, I knew the inevitable parental phone call would come.
“You sure you still want to go?” my mother asked, no judgement in her voice, just understandable parental concern.
“I think so,” I replied. And so our journey commenced.
For anyone who has been to New York City, the sensory overload one feels on that first visit never really leaves. It is overwhelming and all-encompassing — for many, either frightening or intoxicating or maybe a bit of both.
Upon arrival, the walk my roommate and I made from Port Authority to my brother’s apartment on West 44th Street, wearing our college “Orientation Assistant” jackets and dragging our suitcases, was a comedy of errors, but a trip Dustin Hoffman’s “Ratso Rizzo” would deem perfection.
As we made the turn off of Eighth Avenue to head up 44th— let me rephrase that, after we turned ourselves around to head the correct way on 44th— we stumbled upon the reason for our trip, The Majestic Theatre, home to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
With marquee aglow, displays of the soft white mask floating gently above the singular red rose and “Winner of 7 Tony Awards Including Best Musical” plastered all along the theater’s façade, out came the disposable camera and the quick understanding that New Yorkers do not stop for naive tourists, including those who were attempting to get a picture taken beside the Mark Jacoby posters (the actor portraying the Phantom at the time) all along the theater’s windows and doors.
In the world of NYC vulgarities and genteel finger gestures, it was a necessary lesson if my roommate and I were to survive the week. And survive we did.
The highlight of that trip, aside from seeing my brother, of course, was taking in my first Broadway show on our last evening in the city.
It was immediately apparent there is something about seeing a musical on Broadway, and while maybe not his best, musically speaking — for me, that is “Jesus Christ Superstar” — “Phantom,” with its insane staging, splendor and spectacle, is everything one’s first Broadway show should be, and the Shubert Organization, when making the bid for the show, knew it, so much so that when the respective parties agreed on the lease, the Shubert Group invested $1 million in stage renovations alone (or $2.5 million by today’s standards) to allow for the technical needs to produce the show.
As my roommate, brother and I nestled into our right-side orchestra seats, the excitement was palpable, and for the next 2 1/2 hours, I am not sure I blinked because, as cliched as it will sound, seeing is believing. When done with the precision and talent of those performers, crew members and musicians, one discovers that magic is real.
The chandelier rising, then falling and then rising again. The Phantom and Christine’s leveled stairway journey into the Phantom’s lair while brilliantly singing the show’s title song. Various pyro effects, the heat of which could be felt midway through the house.
In its earlier productions, Raoul, in an attempt to save Christine from her fate, jumps from a bridge, easily elevated 20 feet off the stage, into a moat. I vividly recall my roommate and I looking at each other with mouths agape when we did not hear the actor actually land on the stage, wondering where and for how long did he fall.
These memories and this show are NYC for me, mostly because its presence has been the one theatrical constant every trip back. I do not head to New York without at least taking a stroll down 44th Street and walking by the Majestic, reflecting on how that theater experience changed so much of my musical theater outlook and the memories the show provided. But now, after 35 years, the Majestic stage, at least for the “Phantom,” is going dark on April 16.
With 35 years, over 13,500 performances in front of 19.5 million attendees and grossing over $1.3 billion, it employed 6,500 artists during its run, providing job stability for many in an insanely competitive field. But, until it announced its closure, ticket sales could no longer sustain the cost to produce it, which producer Cameron McIntosh told The New York Post, post COVID-19, was $950,000 per week.
I do not doubt the “Phantom” will continue to tour and a Broadway revival, years from now, might be the safest bet one will ever make, but for now it feels like a theater landscape and city, really, will be forever changed.
Maybe, however, the Phantom himself provides some theatrical solace.
There comes a heartbreaking moment toward the end of Act I where the Phantom acknowledges his next steps are going to be destructive and deadly. A lyric from this scene is sung: “I gave you my music. Made your song take wing.” Out of context it encapsulates so wonderfully all that the show has given us for 35 years.
Brett Hiner is an English/language arts teacher at Wooster High School, where he also serves as the yearbook advisor and Drama Club advisor/director. If he’s not at work or doing something work related, he is typically annoying his children and/or wife. He can be emailed at workinprogressWWN@gmail.com.