Arts Brief: Plenty for Twenty
Its back! screams the promotional material for 20 at 20, a twice-annual bargain-basement sale of tickets for more than 20 Off-Broadway showsyou can pay $20 for any seat still available at the box-office 20 minutes before the curtain risesthat runs from Sept. 2 through Sept. 14. This deep ducat discounting is a good thing, of course, but what does $20 get you? Surely it cant get you the whole show, right?
Its kind of a scary idea. Lets say you decide to stop by New World Stages 20 minutes before the lights rise on Naked Boys Singing! For $20, do you get to watch the full warbling monty? Yes, no matter how cost effective it would be to use a mute waif with a fig leaf.
And while this blowout does offer full shows for $20, it would be easy to imagine what a lesser event might provide. Picture a ride on the subway down to Webster Hall to catch a performance of The Awesome 80s Prom, for example. Would you enter, for $20, a world of new wave and retro? No. Youd bump into a 40-year-old Madonna wannabe with an asymmetrical fade haircut. Walk over to the Orpheum Theatre for a $20 ticket for Stomp, and youd watch a severely undernourished illegal alien thwacking a Nerf ball against a floorboard. Head back uptown to the Snapple Theater Center for a $20 ticket for The Fantasticks, and after you cough up $25 for a lukewarm Snapple, youd get to watch the opening numberTry to Rememberbefore being forcibly ejected by the same mute waif wearing a fig leaf that you saw earlier. Mildly poetic, that.
For $20 at Altar Boyz, you would get a tranny in a tank top explaining what vespers is. For $20 at A Brush with Georgia OKeefe, you would get a coloring book and a copy of Freuds The Interpretation of Dreams. And for $20 at My First Time, instead of watching actors recite tales of people losing their virginity, the crumpled-up program would omit the cast list and all other members of the creative team. Instead, a single sentence in a large font would encourage you to become reacquainted with your right hand. For $25, however, a fine-looking toothless gentleman in the lobby would be available to assist you. Repeatedly.