Two Legs Up
The scene outside of Radio City Music Halls Christmas Spectacular is enough to force a bah humbug! out of even Tiny Tim. Patrons picking up their tickets at the box office are herded into snaking lines outside, before having their bags inspected by a security guard at a checkpoint. But before being allowed the privilege of stepping foot in the lobby (no cell phones allowed there, by the way, a rule that is strictly enforced), one is told that only the ticket purchaser is allowed inside to deal with the box office. Credit card and photo ID required!
By the time you have picked up your tickets, wormed your way out of the lobby to find your companion and then walked halfway down West 50th Street to enter (after another bag search), the whole idea of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular seems ridiculous. Sure, any excuse to go into Radio City is a valid one, but the crowds! The sloppy organization! The lemming mentality that convinces everyone to enter the theater through the same double doors, despite the presence of entrances all along the lobby!
Stepping foot into the actual theater is somewhat soothing. There are few places left in Manhattan that still feel like a piece of authentic New York City history, and Radio City Music Hall is at the top of that list. And as the lights go down, despite the battering one has just taken merely trying to get inside, theres a flicker of anticipation. By the time the Rockettes have finished their first kickline, that flicker has been fanned into a roaring fire.
The watchword for the Christmas Spectacular is precision. Not just for the Rockettes (though surely that word must be scrawled across the mirrors of their rehearsal hall), but for the entire lavish production. The sheer logistics of staging this show once, let alone the multiple shows a day available, is staggering. Props, costume changes, flying harnesses, camelstheyre all adroitly employed to maximum effect.
A mélange of scenes and songs (mostly from the 1996 and 2006 editions), the Christmas Spectacular also now features a 3-D tour of New York City from Santas sleigh, a surprisingly effective way to stoke the audiences enthusiasm. And The Parade of the Wooden Soliders, which finds the Rockettes falling backwards into each others arms, has remained a holiday classic since the first Christmas Spectacular in 1933.
Alternating between songs from performers dressed as ushers (you know theyre performers because they dont seem surly) and high-kicking routines from the Rockettes, the entire 90-minute production puts to shame most Broadway shows. The bare-bones story line, which is little more than Santa hosting the worlds sparkliest variety show, is only slightly thinner than the plots of some Broadway musicals. But everything has been polished to such a blinding gloss by director-choreographer Linda Haberman that flimsy plot points seem sturdier than they have any right to be, including a segue into Santa convincing two young boys that he does, in fact, exist. Even the Living Nativity feels like a cozy, slightly un-P.C. throwback in an era when we say Happy Holidays as a matter of course.
And then there are the Rockettes, one of the few glamorous entertainment jobs still available since the Depression. We no longer have Ziegfeld girls or cigarette girls or nightclub performers, but we still have the Radio City Rockettes. With 160 gams kicking while kilowatt smiles flash out at the audience, 80 dancers tap, twirl and sing their ways past Christmas jadedness and offer a glimpse of a New York holiday tradition that has existed for almost a century. When the cast sings about New York Christmases, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular is what theyre singing about.
>> Radio City Christmas Spectacular Through Dec. 31, 1260 6th Ave. (at W. 50th St.), 868- 858-0007; $45–$250.