This past Friday I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to fly out to New York City for a little weekend with The Magyar. She knew that I wanted to see Point Break Live!, and that this week was purportedly the final week of it playing. That information, and being long over due for some time away from San Francisco was all we needed to get out and play in New York for awhile.
Of course, the best laid plans of men are nothing for the ever revolving machinations of the heavens.
Saturday we woke up in New York to nice weather and went to a lunch with the girl's friend. Very nice. We ate a lovely vegetarian meal at Zen Palate on Union Square. This place was a fave of mine when I lived in New York, and I was glad to see that it is still alive and well in that location.
That night we made our way to the L.E.S. for the actual show. It was at some crazy little art space cum theatre on Suffolk St. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that we had a blast there. Point Break Live! is a live action rendition of the film Point Break, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (it also has Gary Busey in a fine role as an older, drunken cop).
The real fun thing about the show is that they choose a random Keanu from the crowd each performance. I didn't travel all the way from San Francisco to not at least get on stage and try to be Johnny Utah, so of course I hauled myself down to the stage to be subject to the cruel appraisal of a drunken hipster crowd.
Turns out that for me standing in front of 75 (or so) of these folks was a little intimidating. I don't really have any theatre experience, but I gave it my best (which is to say, not much!). I guess I was hoping that my vague resemblance to Keanu might swing the crowd somewhat in my favor (since the Keanu is chosen by audience applause). Alas, I was wrong. There were 4 of us up on stage, and the guy to the far left of me won out, although I think that this was partially attributable to the fact that he had a posse in the house (hence, more applause for him) and I think he knew some, if not all, of the cast. Damn you, Indian Johnny Utah.
However, this experience worked out in two ways: for starters, by not being selected I was able to sit back, drink Pabst and watch this hilarious show unwind before me. Truly entertaining stuff. Secondly, I now know exactly how to play this Johnny Utah thing if/when Point Break Live! comes to a San Francisco theatre. I'll know to bring a group of friends and to totally play up the character (as in, use the surfer dude accent).
