Why Trump Tower is Amazing

This weekend I didn't do a whole lot since I was pretty sick (and still am, although it's getting a bit better). I did make it to MoMA, the Natural History Museum, a show, and a little shopping over the course of the two days.

Yesterday, Sunday, I decided to take a walk up 5th Ave., and I stopped in at Trump Tower and had a delicious ice cream sundae as I have done in the past with my family. Trump Tower is crazy and definitely makes my list of favorite places in the city. However, unlike most of my other favorite places (Natural History Museum, MoMA, Times Square), I love Trump Tower because it is the least "New York"-y place in New York. In fact, if I didn't know better I'd swear it exists only in Las Vegas. Inside it's really gaudy and obnoxious, with a gold-colored wall that's a waterfall about three or four stories tall, and the whole place smells like the distinctive chemicals of an indoor fountain. The first few floors are shopping and there's a starbucks, expensive clothing, and even an entire Trump store. One level down from the street is food. There's a trendy little bar/cocktail-looking thing that I've never seen open since I usually go there during the day, a food-court type place to get lunch food, and an ice cream counter. The ice cream sundaes are overpriced (of course, it's Trump), but they're delicious and it's a great place to go to sit down for a bit and escape New York when the city starts to get to you (as it often gets to me).

I also went to the dress rehearsal of "Road Show," which I talked about earlier, but to those who haven't been reading along, it's the new Sondheim show and the dress was open to the staff of The Public. The show was not as good as I'd hoped, I'm sorry to say.  However, I'd been led to believe that it had the potential to be catastrophic, and it was DEFINITELY nowhere close to that.  But the story isn't very emotionally gripping and the characters aren't terribly likeable by the end, and sometimes a show can make up for things like that with a lot of flash (i.e. "Legally Blonde"), but unfortunately that's not the case here. It doesn't help that the book is written as more of a light work, but it's staged by John Doyle as a heavy drama, and ultimately it does not have a happy ending and covers some serious topics so it would really be better served by a more serious tone throughout.  This incarnation is darker than previous versions, which is good.  Michael Cerveris is good, though not as awe-inspiring as in "Sweeney Todd" or "Assassains," but the character is a little more overtly sleezy (although not a killer, so less psychotic than the other two roles), and those two roles (Sweeney Todd and John Wilkes Booth) were very commanding characters whereas Wilson Mizner is a charmer, not a force of nature. The direction is actually quite clever, but doesn't suit the lighter style the book is written in. And a lot of the music sounds like less clearly melodic versions of themes from "Assassains," and I haven't looked it up but I'd bet he worked on them originally at around the same time.

Today I was stuffing envelopes for important people in the arts whom The Public is inviting to the Native Theater Festival in November, and one of the envelopes was for Philip Seymour Hoffman, since The Public has a relationship with his theater company. I thought that was cool.