way over yondr

Shane Mungitt (Michael Oberholtzer) has a rude awakening in store in Broadway revival of Take Me Out (photo by Joan Marcus)

We’ve all had enough with changing mask mandates and vaccine rules, especially since Mayor Adams lifted the Key to NYC program so indoor entertainment venues can set their own policies. Most concert halls, sports arenas, and restaurants no longer require proof of vaccination or the wearing of masks, but patrons still have the option to put on face coverings if they so choose.

When I went to a Rangers game last October at Madison Square Garden, you had to be vaccinated but masks were optional; about ten percent of the crowd wore them, except when they were eating and drinking. When I saw Trevor Noah at the Garden in January, the same rules were in effect but more than three-quarters of the audience kept their masks on, and one hundred percent did so entering and leaving the building on the escalators.

When Bob Dylan brought his Never Ending Tour back to the Beacon in November 2021 after a two-year Covid hiatus, fans needed to be vaccinated and masks were optional, and about half the crowd kept them on. However, it was a different rule that thwarted some people: No photos or videos were allowed, and ushers wandered up and down the aisles throughout the show to make sure no one was sneaking their phone or camera out. Nearly everyone obliged; if you search the internet, you’ll find a few audio recordings, a partially blocked two-minute live snippet, and less than a handful of images.

That rule has been in effect at Dylan shows for years. But for so many people, events in their lives don’t count until they’ve been shared on social media. In August 2019, I went to United Palace Theater to see the elegant Bryan Ferry play songs from Roxy Music’s Avalon album and solo tunes. There were dozens and dozens of signs everywhere announcing that, “at the request of the artist,” no photos or videos were allowed. Ushers walked up and down the aisles to enforce the edict, which was meant for the audience to just enjoy the show live and in real time, to be immersed in the performance.

But all over the venue, people were taking photos and videos anyway. A few rows in front of me, a man who appeared to be in his fifties — Ferry’s audience skews older, since he’s been around since 1970, well before anyone ever thought much about taking pictures at concerts, as cameras were almost always prohibited — kept a close watch for the ushers; whenever they were not looking at our section, he would lift his smartphone and start taking photos and videos, like a little kid who didn’t want to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar — but who still wanted those cookies. Not only was it a slap in the face to Ferry but to us as well, as his phone distracted those sitting behind him. I asked him a few times to cut it out, but when he didn’t stop, my extremely nonviolent, peaceful wife pelted him with a few peanut M&Ms. When he looked back at us, I used a few curse words as I asked him to put his phone away. At last, he listened.

Which brings me to dance, theater, opera, and classical music, all of which still require masks and proof of boosters for in-person attendance. Thus, I can go to MSG and sit with twenty thousand unmasked, screaming, unvaxxed hockey fans eating and drinking, but at the 268-seat Weill Recital Hall, masks and boosters are a must for a quiet crowd. My thinking is that the rules are to protect the artists themselves; if a performer contracts Covid, the show might have to be canceled or postponed, while an athlete with coronavirus has to follow certain protocols but can be replaced by a teammate.

For example, Candace Bushnell’s one-woman solo show, Is There Still Sex in the City?, had to close seven weeks early when she got coronavirus, and the Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite had to shutter for more than a week when both Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, who famously portrays Bushnell’s alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw, in the Sex and the City cable series and films, each got sick. The show was prepared to use an understudy for one of them but not both. Among the other stars who have missed Broadway performances due to Covid are Daniel Craig (Macbeth) and Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster (The Music Man), while many other shows have experienced cancellations and postponements and can’t afford the lost revenue.

Bruce Springsteen asked for everyone to get their phones out during Broadway encore (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

When I saw the return of Springsteen on Broadway last summer, the first show to open on the Great White Way since the pandemic lockdown of March 2020, you had to be vaccinated, but masks were optional, and most people chose to leave them off. Photos and videos were strictly prohibited, and Springsteen’s worshipful audience were fine with that. (The mask mandate was reinforced later in the limited run.) However, Bruce added a special encore that night because his wife, Patti Scialfa, was not there to sing two songs with him, and he announced that everyone could take out their phones and snap away at the bonus finale. Immediately there were 1,710 phones in the air, as if we had been freed from a two-hour time-out.

When I caught David Byrne’s American Utopia at the outdoor Forest Hills Stadium in September 2018, photos and videos were allowed; when I saw it again in December 2019 at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, they were forbidden. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine caught the show, which had reopened at the St. James Theatre, and posted photos and videos on Facebook; when I asked her if she had to sneak them, she said, “There was an announcement from David Byrne before the show asking people to keep photos and videos to a minimum and to enjoy the show rather than watch it through their phone. The guy next to me filmed two or three complete songs. I only caught a few snippets because I took David Byrne’s advice, lol.”

At On Site Opera’s superb production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at the historic Prince George Ballroom, phones are a necessity if you want the English translation of the Italian comic opera, as the company has developed an app that replaces more expensive supertitles that are not a viable option for them. However, the unmasked performers weave in and around the seated, masked audience, and the orchestra in the back is mostly masked, except, of course, for the wind and brass section, who require their mouths in order to play their instruments.

Take Me Out had special rules for phones (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Which brings me to Take Me Out, the terrific revival of Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning play about a baseball superstar who has come out of the closet. As at all Broadway shows, masks and boosters are required, and all phones must be turned off. But this show really means it: Upon entry, audience members must place their devices into a Yondr pouch that the staff seals and only opens for you on your way out. Why the strictness? There’s quite a bit of full frontal nudity in this show. In 2003, when the play debuted at the Walter Kerr, taking cellphone pictures and then putting them on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram was not an issue because the technology wasn’t there. But in 2022, the producers and performers, understandably, are far more concerned with potential leaked nude photos.

Most people were fine not having their phones available. Before the show started, I noticed there was more conversation, as audience members had to talk to one another instead of fascinating themselves with tiny screens, desperate to squeeze in that last oh-so-important text as the lights go down and the curtain rises. During the first act, to the joy of everyone, there were no annoying ring tones disturbing the action, no one obsessively checking their messages, no bright rectangles of blue light distracting us as we all paid firm attention to what was happening onstage.

At intermission, if you wanted to use your phone, you exited through a door onto West Forty-Fourth St. to enter a small, cordoned-off area where about a dozen people typed away furiously, a few of them smoking as well. The scenario could have been used as an ad for preventing addiction. “Phone addiction is the obsessive use of a smartphone. The behavioral addiction is often dubbed as ‘nomophobia,’ or the fear of being without a mobile device,” the Addiction Center notes. “The rise in phone use seems like a natural necessity for modern life; however, it can also cause concern and negative consequences.” Nicotine has competition these days, it seems.

Following intermission, the woman sitting next to us somehow had her phone back and checked it a few times during the second and third acts. She did not try to sneak a photo. My wife and I felt a tinge of both jealousy and anger: If she could have her phone, why can’t we have ours? We each admitted later that we had thought about telling an usher, but citizens reporting on fellow citizens opens up a whole other can of worms; just ask the Stasi. But at the same time, we were happy that we had followed the rules and respected the actors and felt sorry for the woman, who just couldn’t be without that phone for another minute.

On the way out, I saw two women taking pictures of their Playbills, with the stage in the background. Maybe the staff opened their Yondr packages and let them back in? I also heard a man tell his friend about Yondr, “I wish they would do this for every show.” I have no problem with that. (And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of ice in the drinks already, okay?)

Way, way back, when camcorders became affordable to the general public, I attended the one-year-old birthday party of the daughter of one of my best friends. The second half of the party consisted of watching the first half of the party on video. Do we so need personal photographic evidence in order to validate our experiences? If we can’t post it on social media and have friends and colleagues comment on how cool we are to have seen this or that event, did it ever happen? I’m as guilty of that as the next person, despite not owning a smartphone until August 2021. But I do long for those glory days when the play was the thing.

Take Me Out is a show that I will remember for a long, long time, especially since I’m a baseball fan. I certainly don’t need a bunch of photos of bare Johnsons to prove it to everyone else.