There is no live entertainment institution in New York City better known than Saturday Night Live. SNL is where comedy was first reintroduced to television after the mourning period following the 9/11 attacks. It’s where a particular sector of the population catches up on news and current events. And, it has one of the fastest on-air responses to changes in the culture or the shifting political winds.
Lorne Michaels called an audible, stripped down the annual Christmas show, and went live from New York with only Tom Hanks, Tina Fey, Keenan Thompson, Michael Che and for the 5th time Paul Rudd as host. The house band was reduced to two players. Tonight’s show which was expected to be the usual Christmas spectacular turned out to be a mélange of pre-taped videos, reruns of Christmas segments from the past and one truly sloppy chair reading of Weekend Update in which the usually unflappable Tina Fey repeated stepped on her punch lines.
SNL’s return to extreme Covid protocols comes at the end of a week in New York which saw the audience for Moulin Rouge sent home from their seats in the theater just minutes before curtain time due to an incidence of Covid within the show, while Hadestown, Hamilton, Tina, MJ The Musical, Mrs. Doubtfire and Jersey Boys similarly cancelled shows, and both the Radio City Rockettes and Alvin Ailey American Dance theater canceling the remaining shows in their run.
Covid infections are increasing rapidly in New York, with today’s count at a pandemic record of 21,027. The speed at which live events are being canceled and postponed is stunning and disappointing after the careful way events resumed after going dark in March 2020 and only slowly resuming in late 2021. Nobody yet understands just what the Omicron variant means as a public health risk, other than it is astonishingly efficient at spreading.
I was in New York this time last week. This is how Times Square looked on Saturday December 11th, just one week ago.
There were swarms of people out, few of them masked, and most having a great time taking in the holiday spirit. The city was full, there were decorations everywhere and the world felt like it had mostly returned to how it was before the pandemic.
The foot traffic was so heavy in mid-town that cross traffic was blocked in and around Rockefeller Center between 5th Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, creating a pedestrian oasis in which thousands roamed between staring at the sound and light show emanating from the façade of Saks 5th avenue, took pictures in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, or lined up to get into Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockette’s annual holiday spectacular.
On Saturday I saw one of the last performances of the wonderful Lehman Brothers Trilogy in a sold-out theater, before heading down the island to Katana Kitten, perhaps my favorite bar in Manhattan and currently anointed 10th best bar in the world. Katana Kitten is where Masa Urushido creates his magic which includes his Amaretto Sour, their house favorite drink. Today, Katana Kitten announced it too will remain closed for the foreseeable future because of the Covid surge.
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