A Trip to New York with a Stopover In Israel

Fall is a busy time for pediatricians. Law requires that students have received age-appropriate vaccinations, and often a physical examination as well, before they are permitted to attend school. Every year it's the same thing!--Many parents wait till the last minute or even after the last minute. As soon as school starts, there is a respite--until the colder weather comes.

Nirmala needed a break, so we decided to take a day trip to New York on August 29th, 2018.

1. Getting There

There are, of course, many ways to get to the Big Apple from Baltimore, bus, train and car are the usual modalities. We used to drive often to New York--we were younger then, and had family--including a mother whom I sorely miss--in Union City, N.J., just across the Hudson River from New York City. We would drive up on Friday after work. Once we arrived, my stepfather would come down from their tenth floor apartment, and let me into the multi-level garage, the open balconies of which afforded, and presumably still afford, a spectacular view of the New York City skyline. Nirmala and I would push off to Manhattan the following day, and usually attend a performance at the Metropolitan Opera in the evening. My mother and stepfather would entertain our son, Philip, in the meantime. We miss those fun times. They will never come again.

If I had shone a flashlight into the heavens on the first night after my mother passed away, the photons thus released would have been traveling at the speed of light for over seventeen years. They would have passed by now a few dozen stars that are our closest neighbors; they would soon be approaching, if the flashlight had been pointing directly toward it, a star called Sigma Draconis, a sun about 77% the size of ours. It possibly has at least one planet, estimated to be the size of Uranus. It's as if part of me lives on that planet, receiving the news of my mother's death as if it happened now. Fond memories ride those photons; perhaps imagination will receive their dismal message on a planet an additional ten or twenty light-years away, who knows? I, however, know this: The photons must eventually become riderless, as I and my memories turn into interstellar dust.


I apologize for the diversion; let's get back on the bus.

After a three-and-a-half hour journey spent reading on a luxurious bus, we arrived in Manhattan; on Eighth Avenue between 45th and 46th street, to be precise. We immediately headed to Times Square, a.k.a. Duffy Square, on 47th and Broadway. Under the red steps of the square, as the advertisements have it, the line for discounted tickets for Broadway shows forms every day.

An aside: When Nirmala and I lived in New York years ago, we never knew that the name of this square was Duffy Square. The large bronze statue at the center is of Chaplain Duffy, who served in World War l. Before that statue was dedicated in 1939 by Mayor Laguardia, a hideous fifty-foot statue occupied its place, which depicted a fiery angel with a shield. It was called The Defeat of Slander. Standing at the heart of Broadway for years while listening to the idle gossip of passers-by, the poor thing must have admitted defeat of its Defeat well before it was razed in the 1930s. At the front of the square George M. Cohan looks out into the distance, remembering himself, presumably, to Herald Square.

The line moved rapidly. Young assistants, whose day job is to hand out leaflets of various shows and to answer our questions, while dreaming, no doubt, of a night job in a Broadway theater for themselves. One of those very pleasant young persons gave us a leaflet advertising a musical--there was only one choice for a play available, namely Straight White Men--which didn't sound  interesting. We intended to watch the confirmation hearings of Judge Kavanaugh, during which we will undoubtedly get our fill of the machinations of (presumably) straight white men. The musical we chose was The Band's Visit, which received an array of awards.

Our enormous bus driver had made several infelicitous jokes during the trip about New York City, predicting that it would be a Baked Apple during our visit, due to high ambient temperature. We usually do a lot of walking, but it was just too hot to walk about on the day of our visit. We had a few hours to kill before the show started; we found a fairly good Chinese restaurant on 47th Street, a few blocks north of Times Square. We had a tolerable lunch of Ma Po Tofu and eggplant with garlic sauce. The waiter, who spoke little English,  did, Holy Cow!, finally understand our vociferously expressed demand of No Meat! No Meat!

2. Our Stopover in Israel

Shortly after our meal, it was time to enter Israel, where the musical we attended, The Band’s Visit, takes place. Nirmala and I were soon delighted that we took the flight to Zion; in this case, the journey consisted of a few steps off 47^th Street into the exquisite Ethel Barrymore theater. Before the show began, the scrim over the stage announced that we must switch our cell phones onto vibrator mode—in English, and presumably, in Arabic and Hebrew as well.

I can write in all sincerity that The Band’s Visit was one of the best musical experiences I’ve had in a long time. The book, based on a 2007 eponymous Israeli film, was written by Itamar Moses, who was raised in California; the fabulous music and the impressive lyrics are by David Yazbek, who hails from New York City.The venue has been the Barrymore since the musical's Broadway premiere in November of 2017. Every member of the cast was first-rate. The Band’s Visit has won many Tony Awards, including best musical, best book, best score, best actor in a musical, best actress in a musical, and best director.

First, a brief summary of the plot. The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, consisting of about a dozen Egyptian musicians, has arrived in the tiny desert town of Bet Hatikva. They are in the middle of nowhere, as it were; they ask directions on how to get to the local Arab cultural center, at which they are to perform the following day. Due to the thick Arab accent of the band member who bought the bus tickets, they wound up in Bet Hatikva instead of their destination, Petah Tikvah. They will have to wait until the next day, when there will be a bus to take them to Petah Tikvah.

Dina, the owner of the only café in town, invites some of the members to stay overnight at her place, and helps arrange accommodations for the other guests as well. In one sense, nothing really happens as we follow how the band members share an evening with their Israeli hosts; in another sense, the spark inside everyone ignites and rises to a crackling fire, before receding to embers by the next morning. This is especially true of Dina, (played by the fabulous Katrina Lenk), and Tewfiq, the leader of the band.

What moved me so much is that the theme of the musical is music's ability to provide us with a sense of wonder and even with a sense of fulfillment—at least while the music lasts. I see the desert town as a metaphor for life without music in the broadest sense; a life without art, a life without love, a life without life.

The book centers on the relationship between Dina and Tewfiq. Both have had unhappy lives; the childless Dina was once married, a marriage that dismally failed. Tewfiq once had a wife he adored and a son whom he adored as well, although he regretted never having been able to show it. He confesses that he had never appreciated his son, who was good, gentle and kind—and as one suspects, gay. The latter, Tewfiq informs Dina, committed suicide; his wife died of a broken heart a little later.

Dina reports that she and her mother would often listen to Egyptian television during Dina’s childhood. She loved listening to the famed Egyptian singer, Umm Kulthum—whom one wag described as an Egyptian Ella Fitzgerald with the stage presence of Eleanor Roosevelt—mother and daughter loved watching Omar Sharif movies as well. In her song, Omar Sharif, she described how those movies and music had often moved her to tears, briefly transforming her drab life into the Garden of Eden.

During their evening out, Dina takes the shy, broken Tewfiq to the "local park,” which consists of a park bench in the middle of town. She admires Tewfiq, who lives a life of music. Does he like anything else? Yes, fishing. He invites Dina  to imitate his arm movements as he conducts an imaginary concert, which she does with great animation. Tewfiq proceeds to sing a classical Arab song.

At this point,Dina sings a very beautiful song, Something Different. “Is this Hafez", she sings, "is this Rumi, is this my Omar Sharif?" Is he singing about love, she wonders—or is he singing about fishing? In any case, it’s Something Different, a joy-bringing dove flying over the desert with an olive branch in its beak.

Fire is now burning inside Dina; fire, perhaps at a somewhat lower pitch, is now burning inside Tewfiq. But they are broken vessels--Their internal flames are unable to pass through the shards, sadly incapable of passing from one broken vessel to another. The song is not only beautiful, but a beautiful symbol of life as well: Fulfillment occurs, but often only while the music lasts, as it were. After the music is over, Paris turns into Bet Hatikva once more.

The music sounded a deep chord within me. I understand very well the contrast between the over-the-rainbow Ozworld of music, compared to the black and white doldrums of Kansas.

On more than one occasion, I have imagined traveling back in time to Saint Thomas’s Church in Leipzig during the eighteenth century, listening in ecstasy to a performance of a Bach cantata. While the music lasted, all my questions were answered, and all my doubts resolved, that is, there was no longer an I to seek answers, just music listening to music. Then, after the cantata finished, the Lutheran minister would begin his sermon. “What the hell is he talking about? I gotta get outta here!,” I would say to myself and wake up. The magic was over, replaced by hackneyed prose.

There is an absolutely glorious chorus which begins Bach’s Christmas Cantata; Bach, however, had not originally composed it to a text celebrating joy becoming manifest inside us, but to a text honoring the visit of a local politician! I thought of this as Dina sang, Is this a hymn, is this a love song, is this Hafiz, is this Rumi—or, as she later muses, Is this a song about fishing?

Music is poetry; it has its own language, independent of prose. If Tewfiq’s words centered on love or fishing for trout, the emotional effect of the music would remain largely undiminished. (There is nothing comparable to the marriage of great words and great music, however). 

Sometimes it’s best to forget the words. I understand German, and sometimes think it’s better not to know the meaning of the words of certain Schubert songs, where the music is a soaring eagle and the words are an aleatory scattering of murine scat.

After Dina and Tewfiq part the following morning, the band plays a brief concert of classical Arab music. It was an electrifying performance; it almost moved me to tears. Music thus got the last 'word'.

Music provides hope, music provides ecstasy. We glimpse eternity, however, only while the music, in the broadest sense of the word, lasts--and, alas! it almost always doesn't. This is both the glory and tragedy of life; this is also the theme of one of the best musicals to have come to Broadway in a long time. It should not be missed.