Crowds Line Up For Meryl Streep Play
'Tis the summer of Streep.
With Meryl Streep's huge success in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada," crowds began lining up in Central Park before dawn Tuesday to nab free tickets to see Streep and Kevin Kline in the play "Mother Courage and Her Children."
Just after 1 p.m., when the box office first started distributing tickets, nearly 2,000 were gone. The last ticket went to a fan who got in line at 9:15 a.m. — for an 8 p.m. curtain at the park's Delacorte Theater.
Hundreds of people walked away empty-handed into the Manhattan sun. Fifty others left with vouchers for a possible pair of tickets each in place of last-minute no-shows.
But the die-hards stayed on — a waiting line for a waiting list to see the two Academy Award-winning actors in Tony Kushner's adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht anti-war drama.
"It's like a cluster of shooting stars," said Alison Wonderland, a young actor who sat on a blanket opposite the box office, busy scribbling a love song for a cabaret show.
She shared the designated waiting space with several dozen others — from New York, Florida, Oregon, even Israel.
At 6:30 p.m., the first standby tickets were doled out to those with the vouchers.
Varin Ayala, a 20-something Puerto Rican-born New York actor, sat in Central Park for more than eight hours straight for a chance to see the three hours-plus play.
"This is like a comet in the sky — everyone stays to watch. It's an event," Ayala said.
There was plenty of entertainment before the show, from card tricks performed on a Frisbee to yoga on the grass.
Ayala and his newfound friends got a menu from the box office to order lunch — from a local pizzeria that knew exactly where among the tall Central Park trees it was to be delivered.
Ayala is a big fan of Kushner, the Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning playwright of "Angels in America" who adapted Brecht's work from German for this Shakespeare in the Park production. The play is directed by George C. Wolfe and features original music by Jeanine Tesori.
The drama by the 20th-century playwright about a 17th-century war among Europe's big powers in which children are victims of war, hit a nerve with Gal Cohen, visiting from Israel. The 18-year-old, who was finishing a three-week vacation in New York, is to report for military duty in Israel upon her return. She wanted to see the play, which she had studied at her Jerusalem high school.
Waiting for a ticket "is like 'Survivor' — we're the strongest ones," she said.
Persistence paid off for Wonderland, Ayala and Cohen. By the time the sun set in Central Park, all had gained admission and sat in the dark watching Streep live.
In the past two decades, New York audiences have seen Streep mostly on screen. At 57, she's the most-nominated actor in Academy Awards history, with two movies out last month: "A Prairie Home Companion" and "The Devil Wears Prada."
Streep last appeared at the Delacorte in 2001 as the extravagant Arkadina in a production of Chekov's "The Seagull," with Kline as her lover.
Kline has had a long association with the Public Theater, having played in such Shakespeare plays as "Hamlet," "Richard III," "Henry V," "Measure for Measure" and "Much Ado About Nothing." During the 2006-07 season at the Public, he will play the title role in "King Lear."
Besides Streep and Kline, the cast in "Mother Courage" includes Austin Pendleton, Alexandria Wailes, Frederick Weller, Geoffrey Arend, Jenifer Lewis and Jack Noseworthy.
"Courage" is the final offering of the Public Theater's Free Shakespeare in the Park this year, following "Macbeth."
Tuesday was the first preview performance before the official opening night on Aug. 21. "Mother Courage" is scheduled to run at the Delacorte through Sept. 3.
By Verena Dobnik