When my 53rd time seeing a show is really my first

There are a handful of New York shows I've seen multiple times: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, just because it made me so happy; Lestat, because I was fascinated by how entertainingly, stunningly bad it was in some respects, while simultaneously containing such incredibly wonderful acting performances, and ultimately making me FEEL as much as I have at almost any show I've seen (and, going along with my post from last week, isn't that ultimately the real goal of live theatre?  If it makes you feel and fills you up, then isn't a show full of plot holes and ludicrous dialogue ultimately more successful than one that makes complete sense and is completely believable and you admire but leaves you empty?); Bridges of Madison County, because it made me cry like a baby for the last 20 minutes and feel a whole rainbow of colors; NYU Grad Acting's recent multi-version production of Three Sisters, which, through setting the show in two different time periods, remarkably created two entirely different shows....  What all those shows had in common, regardless of the subject matter or writing, was that the actors made every performance fresh, and no two performances were ever identical. There were always new moments, new beats, new discoveries that made me keep coming back, eager to unearth more layers or details that I had missed the previous time.

But no show have I seen more than The 39 Steps.  I ushered it when it was on Broadway, and if I remember correctly, I saw it 52 times... sort of.  The unique thing about those 52 performances is that not one of them did I see all the way through, due to my ushering duties and breaks.  We would rotate who was in the lobby, who was in the mezzanine (where if I sat I could hear but not necessarily see -- a very interesting way to experience this show in particular, as four actors play about 150 characters), and who was in the orchestra.  And of course I'd have to leave to take care of late seating and intermission duties.  Due to its "four actors play every role in the play, sometimes multiple roles at once, switching back and forth at lightning speed" nature, the show is highly choreographed... meaning that, at least on the surface, there would seem to be less flexibility for the actors to make every show its own fresh, living being.  Yet, through all those performances I ushered, I never got bored, the show never got stale, and I never tuned out during the parts of the show I was able to watch (or listen to).

 

So when I heard the play was being revived Off-Broadway, complete with original cast member Arnie Burton (whose transformative and comedic abilities are amazing), I jumped at the opportunity to see it... in an actual theatre seat, without a headset on.  In preparation, I watched the original Hitchcock film of the same name (on which it is based), and in the process I realized that there was actually one scene I had never seen at all.  And so my 53rd time seeing the show last weekend was in some ways my first time seeing it.  Though the current Off-Broadway production is the same production of the show that played on Broadway and toured, and though as I watched it I remembered most of the gags and jokes, I laughed every bit as genuinely at every single delightfully funny moment as my fiancé, who was seeing it for the first time.  I commented afterwards to him that it was difficult to believe that Burton in particular, who must have said those words and performed the exact same staging hundreds of times by now, wasn't experiencing his characters for the first time.  Every moment seemed boldly and energetically alive and fresh.  When a cast can somehow find a freedom even within strict choreographic and delivery requirements to make every performance seem organic and full of discoveries, not only does it make me forget that I know what's coming next, but, well... it just might make me go back for a 54th time.