The Lion King and I

This post is about the fourth day of my New York City trip, which was our third day in the city.

On Saturday, we woke up very excited because we were going to see two musicals that day: a matinee and a normal evening show. The matinee was The Lion King and the evening show was The King and I. You will notice that I have combined both of these names to title this blog post. I hope that you will leave comments telling me how clever I am.

We all got up quite early and accompanied Glory uptown to the Manhattan temple, because she desired to worship there. While she did that, my sisters and I ate breakfast at Starbucks (I wanted to order a bagel with lox, something that New York is known for, but they were out of lox) and then scouted out the Lincoln Center, the home of The King and I. Our excitement to see this classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical grew.

We also stumbled across Central Park, but we didn't go in because we had plans to spend most of the next day there.

When Glory came out of the temple, we all headed to the American Mvsevm of Natvral History. At least, that's what a sign on the outside of the building looked like it said. It was an engraving in stone that looked pretty old, presumably from a time period when it was fashionable to write pointy "u"s that look like "v"s.

In any case, the American Museum of Natural History was a very interesting place. It's the museum featured in the first Night at the Museum, but beyond that, there are some seriously cool exhibits there. Of course, we were only there for a few hours, so we didn't get to see everything. Not even close.

This is where a big difference between my sisters and I and Glory can be found. We Obnoxiouses, realizing that we only had a few hours, immediately planned out the exhibits we wanted to see and began to power through them. Glory, on the other hand, wandered aimlessly throughout the museum as if she had all the time in the world. I wouldn't say that Glory is necessarily more interested in natural history than we are, but I would definitely say that she is much better at living in the moment.

Anyways, there were lots of interesting exhibits. Like there was this one exhibit replicating a burial site from some culture I can't recall. It was the burial site of some guy, and then around him were laid some women and a few other guys. Then there was another guy who had been set cross-legged in a niche in the wall. Some cultures, like the Ancient Egyptians, believe that you take what you're buried with into the next life. In that case, I can understand wanting to take your women and a few manservants with you. But I cannot for the life of me think why you would want a guy specifically sitting cross-legged in a wall.

Another exhibit was about the people of the Caucasus Mountains, otherwise known as the group white people are supposedly descended from. I showed Little Sister the exhibit, and she said, "So we're all descended from Jedis?" and pointed to the clothing in the exhibit. It was very Jedi-ish.

The Lion King started at 2:00 p.m., so as it neared 1:00 Older Sister hustled us out of the museum.

We'd made a plan to get lunch from one of the food carts in front of the museum. All said food carts were called "Halal." I don't know if that's the name of the type of food or just the brand of the cart, but we saw tons of 'em all over the city.

Please remember that the night before we ate a light dinner at Pret a Manger and that the day before that we'd had no breakfast, a sandwich apiece at Junior's, and no dinner at all, just cheesecake. Amazing cheesecake, it's true, but still cheesecake.

See, I am like Ron Weasley. As long as I am fed three good meals a day, I can withstand anything and crack jokes the whole time. But if I have to skip a meal or don't get enough to eat, I am not a happy camper. I become grumpy, succumb to the whisperings of a Horcrux, and/or abandon people in the woods.

So I was pretty excited about the chicken over rice I purchased at the Halal cart. It looked like the most substantial thing I'd eaten in days, even counting when I was back home in Utah. Meat, vegetables, some carbs for energy--perfect.

"Let's find a place to sit down," I said, balancing my container of food and my grape soda and my purse in my hands.

"We can't sit down," squawked Older Sister. "We have to eat while we walk!"

"We can sit down for fifteen minutes," I said. I guess Older Sister saw in my eyes that I was about to succumb to the whisperings of a Horcrux and/or abandon someone in the woods, because she quickly acquiesced.

We sat and ate. The spices on my chicken were unique but amazing. What really made the dish was what the vendor called white sauce. It was, indeed, a white sauce. Possibly yogurt-based? It was very good.

Feeling much fuller and happier, I continued on to the Minskoff Theatre for the matinee performance of The Lion King.

Y'all know I love Disney. So it pains me to say this, but I've seen the Broadway touring company of The Lion King before, and I was just as disappointed that time as I was this time. The added music in the stage version gives you chills, thrills, and everything in between, and there are some fun puppets, but other than that I think it's somewhat inferior to the movie. The musical is overburdened with special effects that distract from the action and make the storytelling uneven instead of supplementing it. It's still a good time, though, and if you're looking for pure Broadway spectacle and don't mind shelling out $100+ per ticket, be my guest. Whoops--wrong musical.

Anyways, after that, Glory and Older Sister went to the hotel while Little Sister and I went back to Junior's and obtained these strange things called black-and-white cookies that New York City is famous for. White frosting on one side...chocolate frosting on the other...I don't know why this is a thing, but they tasted okay. Not amazing, though.

We all met up again and headed uptown to this place called Ed's Chowder House. It was deceptively casual on the outside, but pretty swank on the inside. There we had another New York dish--Manhattan chowder, a seafood chowder with tomatoes in it. I'd had it before but never, of course, in Manhattan.

Then we went to the Lincoln Center for The King and I. And wow.

Wow.

If The Lion King was a disappointment, The King and I was whatever the opposite of a disappointment is. It exceeded expectations. Tremendously.

I've seen The King and I before: one high school production, one community production, and the excellent though much-altered Rankin and Bass cartoon production. It's a musical I really like, and when Older Sister proposed we see the new limited Broadway revival, I agreed immediately. I just didn't expect so much...magic.

Was it the actors? Kelli O'Hara, noted Broadway soprano, and Ken Watanabe, whom I recognized as the Japanese businessman from Inception? Was it them that made the musical so much better than usual? Or the adorableness of the royal children? Or the talent of the kid who played Louis, who charmed me within the first few minutes of the show?

Was it seeing Oscar Hammerstein's book and lyrics delivered as they were meant to be, by trained professionals? Was it, for the first time, fully understanding the subtlety and beauty of the story? Marveling at the way he presented this story as a love story using entirely subtext and no declarations of love at all?

Was it hearing Richard Rodgers' score played, as it was meant to be played, by a live orchestra? Was the difference in that added fullness and sound?

Or was it being in a theatre, on Broadway...with amazing actors, on Broadway...performing an amazing show with amazing music on Broadway? Was it that in the space of a few days I'd already seen revolting children and squeamish singing murderers and singing lions and now I was watching a musical with one of the most iconic moments in musical theatre history where a tutor does a polka with a king and who even thought of that and was there ANYTHING this town COULDN'T do?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know! But I do know as we walked back to our hotel, there was a song in my heart and a polka in my feet.