As the pandemic was creating pandemonium, Broadway was pretty quick to close. Rightfully so, an early epicenter was Manhattan. It would have been impossible to keep everyone involved with the show safe, and perhaps even less possible to keep the audience safe. It was a no-win situation. They closed for nearly 18 months. The first show to reopen was "Perfect Crime." Technically on off-Broadway, this is New York's longest running play. It stars Catherine Russell, who has been described as the Cal Ripkin of theater in that she has only missed a couple of performances since it opened in 1987, garnering her a Guinness World Record. The few performances she missed were due to family weddings.
We didn't get tickets. Instead we waited for Broadway to reopen and saw "Pass Over" instead.
It was still in the back of my head that I'd like to see "Perfect Crime," after all it has been on stage nearly 40 years it must be good, right?
<<Insert smirk here>>
Don and I were in New York City celebrating my birthday on Labor Day. There are not many theaters with Monday night shows. Currently it is Six, Caberet, Chicago, and The Great Gatsby. We had just seen Gatsby. Saw Six in 2021. Saw Caberet at Rider and found it gut wrenching. For some reason we have not seen Chicago. Then I noticed Perfect Crime offering rush tickets for only $30. Why not?! We were already in the city and had no early morning plans for the next day.
After a lot of walking around it was show time.
The theater is a large room taking up most of the fourth floor in a building filled with similar theaters. It says it seats 200. Perhaps if every seat worked it would seat 200. We were in the middle of the theater. Not much of a pitch, making it hard to see around those in front of you.
The best laughs came from reading the reviews. Seems Ms. Russell owns the theater and can also be seen cleaning the bathrooms and selling tickets. It had the feel of a community theater production. Some reviews said she was barely calling it in, and was just going through the motions -- answering the phone before it rang, being drunk even before her character was to act drunk. I'm happy to say that's not what I saw.
It has been playing since 1987, the year I graduated from high school. Much has changed in that time, but has the play updated? Not really. They used a circa-1990's cordless phone (similar to the one we recently threw out when we went with a landline). The biggest update was the use of Alexa to turn on music. It seemed forced as if they were trying to bring the play into the 21st century. What it did instead was point out how dated the plot twist was.
It is such a classic I stand by my decision to see it. That said, don't pay full price or anything close to full price. It wasn't worth the $30.
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| Advice for committing the Perfect Crime |
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