One block of sex shops remains on Eighth Avenue, one block north of the still-frightening Port Authority Bus Terminal. But in the Giuliani era, the homeless and the drunks have been swept away from the theaters, removed to who knows where. Gone is the opportunity for tourists and suburbanites to sense the city as the one place that accepts any and all. There's time to peer into the orchestra pit to see the musicians readying themselves for their selfless duties. At the Martin Beck, one of the older houses, the ceiling is a majestic sky, stars twinkling even by day.
Church bells peal and already the children are rapt.
For Julia, even the three hours of this production were not enough. For days thereafter, she devoured the Playbill over and over. She recalled scenes, dialogue, moments of romance and excitement, the von Trapp children jumping on Maria's bed, the way Maria and the Captain danced, the vision of little Gretel walking down the aisle of the theater, two seats away from us, as she accompanied Maria to her wedding. But what has stuck most clearly in her imagination is a sudden and startling set change in which the von Trapp children are in one moment rehearsing at home and in the next instant are performing onstage in their final show in Nazi-occupied Austria. Nazi flags appear from out of nowhere, jackbooted storm troopers take the stage, the children in a flash lose their innocence.