Three hundred and eighty-seven days after Broadway went darkish, a faint gentle began to glimmer on Saturday.
There had been simply two performers — the faucet dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane, each of them Tony Award winners — on a naked Broadway stage. But collectively they conjured up many years of theater lore.
The 36-minute occasion, earlier than a masked viewers of 150 scattered throughout an auditorium with 1,700 seats, was the primary such experiment because the coronavirus pandemic compelled all 41 Broadway homes to shut on March 12, 2020.
Glover carried out an improvisational song-and-dance quantity during which he appeared to summon specters of productions previous — “A Chorus Line,” “The Tap Dance Kid,” “Dreamgirls,” “42nd Street.” He additionally made a pointed reference to Black life within the U.S., interpolating the phrase “knee-on-your-neck America” right into a tune from “West Side Story.”
Lane, considered one of Broadway’s greatest stars, carried out a comedic monologue by Paul Rudnick, during which he portrayed a die-hard theater fan who goals (or was it actual?) {that a} parade of Broadway stars, led by Hugh Jackman, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, arrive at his rent-controlled house and proceed to vie for his consideration whereas dishily one-upping one different.
The St. James, a metropolis historic landmark inbuilt 1927, was chosen partly as a result of it’s huge — and empty. The theater additionally has a contemporary HVAC system, and its air filters had been upgraded through the pandemic in an effort to scale back the unfold of airborne viruses.
The occasion, whereas free, was invitation solely, and the invites went principally to staff for 2 theater business social service organizations, the Actors Fund and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
