Sometimes I take a taxi home from the theater. Sometimes I take the subway or even the 104 bus. And when I am on mass transit, I carry my Playbill proudly. "Yes, I've just come from a Broadway theater," that little magazine/ program says (in my voice). "I'm one of the lucky ones."
But one Thursday night earlier this month, I found myself behaving oddly. After the show, as I stood on the subway platform waiting for the uptown train, I hid the Playbill cover. Important point here: I was alone. My handsome 13-year-old guest for the evening was on his way home to Brooklyn on a completely different line. Without him, I realized, I didn't want my fellow subway riders to see the show's title. In big yellow capital letters.:
It could have been much worse. At least there was no illustration of the title character. No grinning, rectangular yellow kitchen sponge with boyish features, suspenders and just a hint of brown trousers, wearing a toothy smile as big as the Great Barrier Reef. The Playbill cover showed only a gleaming golden pineapple, which, as Bob's fans know, is the architectural style of his home in Bikini Bottom, the town he's called home for so long. But the name was a dead giveaway.
I had thought I was proud of my knowledge of this particular cartoon character and his underwater world. At a party over Thanksgiving weekend, when I mentioned the show, a woman my age asked who or what on earth a SpongeBob was. When I explained Bob's wardrobe choices, his housing and his longtime employment as a fast-food fry cook (he makes a mean Krabby Patty), the parents of young children smiled and nodded and added their own comments. The women my age said, "How do you manage to keep up with this stuff?"
I chose not to mention that "SpongeBob" had been on television since 1999. When Bill and Hillary were still in the White House. When Richard Gere was People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. When "The Sopranos" was the hot new show on HBO.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (1999- ) Birthplace: TV (Nickelodeon). Creator: Stephen Hillenburg, a marine-biologist/animator. Hometown: Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean. Employer: Krusty Krab, a fast-food establishment. Net worth: $13 billion (merchandising revenue).
So. I was glad not to be as out of touch with pop culture as some of my peers. But how could I justify interest in a two-hour Broadway musical about a talking sponge, one that was surely intended for children? Clicking on a half-hour cartoon while you're at home, emailing, drinking wine and ordering from Seamless is one thing. This was another.
At the Palace Theater, I ran into an old friend-colleague, SG, whose eyes widened in surprise (and disdain?) when I said that yes, I was familiar with the character and his milieu. She, my friend announced proudly, had never seen a single episode.
Was I wrong to think that the show was adorable?
I'm one of those people who believes that the more Broadway becomes like Las Vegas, the more likely we all are to burn in hell. But there's a big difference between just mindlessly filling a stage (and sometimes the aisles and the rafters) with lights and noise and peacock feathers (Vegas) and filling that same stage and surroundings with lights, noise and sparkly things that make a statement (even a blatantly silly one), that constantly surprise, that seem to be born of real enthusiasm and even joy.
Last season the unofficial outstanding achievement award in staging-with-substance or whatever you want to call it went to "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812." This production of "SpongeBob" sometimes makes "The Great Comet" look like "Our Town."
LOTS OF FISH IN THE SEA The "SpongeBob SquarePants" gang includes Ethan Slater (center, leaping like Baryshnikov) as Bob, Lilli Cooper (in white) as Sandy Cheeks, Danny Skinner (in colorful shorts) as Patrick Star and Brian Ray Norris (in red boxing gloves) as Bob's boss, Eugene Krabs.
There's a situation-dramedy plot, of course. Kyle Jarrow, the book writer, gives us a volcano on nearby Mount Humungous that is going to blow sky-high tomorrow at sundown, destroying Bikini Bottom and all of its inhabitants. So, when the world is going to end tomorrow, some people behave badly, some rise to the occasion, and some inspire cults.
Intolerance and species-ism rears its ugly head when people turn against Sandy, who is a squirrel from Texas, a scientist and martial arts expert who lives in a special dome in Bikini Bottom. Yes, I knew all of this before I saw the musical. Anyway, Bikini Bottomers decide to blame the outsider ("She has lungs. This is a gill town," they whisper among themselves), but lessons are sure to be learned.
After a while I began to feel sorry for audience members who didn't know anything about Bob or his dim best friend, Patrick, a starfish; or Squidward and his personality problems. Then I realized that it might be fun for them to see Gary, Bob's pet snail, for the first time. I knew Gary was going to meow, but they didn't.
The show has pirates (even at intermission). It has Rube Goldberg contraptions that drop what look like boulders onto the streets of Bob's town. No character walks when he or she can slither, cartwheel or fly. There's confetti and glitter, plastic beach balls to bat around, a chorus line of sea anemones. And if you are too mature for that sort of thing, rest assured that the script takes adults into consideration.
I heard the child next to me ask his adult companion what a "bender" was. One fish character announces that she's going on one -- if the world is going to end tomorrow. When Squidward -- who sometimes seems half Sean Hayes and half Tommy Tune -- gets his hopes up about performing at the big save-the-world benefit and speaks the grateful words, "I'm a pretty squid, Mama," only musical theater geeks may get the joke.
So I'm sorry that I was embarrassed by my "SpongeBob SquarePants" Playbill. I hid it from the doorman too and the people in the elevator. But just between you and me, I think the show was a feast of intellectual stimulation.