When I initially read the description of the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe show “Rock Never Dies”, I did not expect my review to be too much plot.
Had the show simply contained a loose plot of a time traveler going year by year, visiting great musical performances while out-of-work Broadway actors portrayed them on stage, that would have been enough. Had they removed the plot entirely and simply had a cover band with reasonable impressions of famous rockers, that would have been enough.
Instead, the audience received a melodramatic, plot-intensive weave through a young woman’s relationship troubles, the death of her father, her ouster from a rock band, her Scrooge-like visiting of historical female rockers, and a Prince who cannot play guitar. At one point during the show, stagehands deliver small lunch boxes to the tables. In these lunch boxes are multicolored ping pong balls, which we are encouraged to throw at the performers. I do not know how the performers feel about this. Perhaps they are excited to be involved in any sort of theater at all. I imagine it’s quite nice when you are an actor to have a job. I also imagine it is unenjoyable to have ping pong balls thrown at you.
When I was 15 years old, a friend and I used to play a game called sting pong. The game is played much like ping pong in that it starts with a point of ping pong. However, after the point, one player whacks the ping pong ball as hard as they can at the other player’s chest. Did I mention the game is played shirtless? It leaves welts. What can I say: we were teenage boys.
During tonight’s performance, the engenue protagonist, named Caroline, boasts four impressive features. The first is her singing voice, which is stunning. The second is her makeup, which is striking. Not striking in a good way, necessarily: simply striking, as though it is made to appear to an audience member in the 60th row and no one considered that the farthest audience member is only ~10 feet from her. The third and fourth are her left and right breasts, which are displayed before her in a clearly-intentional boosting.
During the ball-throwing, one audience member was clearly attempting to land a ball between her breasts[1]. Another audience member commented how this was rude. I studied philosophy in undergrad. One key part of philosophy of ethics. One topic that we never discussed within my ethics schooling: If you are tasked with throwing ping pong balls at actors during an immersive theater event in Times Square, is it more rude to aim at the performer’s cleavage? In fact, I suspect it would be preferable if I were on stage to have someone throw said ping pong balls at any part of my body other than my face, and if the protrusion of my breasts attracts them to select this fleshy and soft part of my body rather than, as they say, the money maker, I would appreciate that selection.
At the end of the show, I told the master of ceremonies – Egbert – that he had done a great job and suggested to him that he had been my favorite performer. He said thank you and that I had brought an incredible energy. It’s true: my table had been the most fun. First was me (always game to sing rock songs and throw ping pong balls at performers), then the four drunk women in their sixties, visibly on a girls’ trip together to New York City, who yelled “Boo!” and “Leave him!” at various points of the show as though they were heckling at a melodrama. The third most passionate was a man whose response to each performer mentioned was to tell us “I saw them live”. Least joyful was the woman one table away from us, who not only shot my table dirty looks but also threw the plastic ping pong balls at us rather than the performers.
I received the tickets at an incredible discount, and it was worth every penny. Where else can you get a three-course meal, two ample breasts, and an egg-shaped maraca with which to demonstrate your enthusiasm?
Plus, I can now say I’ve eaten at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. I hear that is how one becomes a New York City local.
[1] I recall teenage friends of mine playing a similar game at ~age 15, and dubbing it “boobsketball”.
Julian Wise 