Tonight thanks to the magical website known as twitter I was able to finally see The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway. The show’s actually finished its run, having just closed up on January 2nd, and although the wife and I had talked at length about seeing it life got in the way, as it often does. The show closed, and besides two nights of taping for an HBO special there would be no more Pee-Wee in NYC.
But Pee-Wee loves social media and decided to give away loads of tickets over Twitter, Four Square and Facebook. Not only did I manage to snag a pair to the very last showing but they ended up being Orchestra seats, right to the left of the stage. These were the pricey seats!
As for the show, it was a complete blast. It’s the kind of experience that’s helped immensely with a large heaping dose of nostalgia, of that there’s no doubt. But when the show begins in darkness and the neon highlights of the room flare up and the lights come on and you see the full Playhouse recreated right in front of you- well, it’s like being put in a time machine right to my childhood. Tons of double entendres and bits of silly humor follow, most of them resting on the thin plotline of Pee-Wee trying to get his house hooked up to the internet, to the chagrin of his old-school buddies and gadgets.
Fortunately it was filmed by HBO and will air sometime in March (that’s as much as Mr. Reubens let us know) so that everyone can see it. It will be interesting to see if the show can capture the mad energy in the air during the performance. The night ended with the audience being put in the spotlight, the cameras turned around and gags repeated as we all whooped and laughed and had a good time remembering things that had happened not an hour before- a pretty good summation of the night.
But still, an absolute blast. Congrats to Paul Reubens for fufilling his dream of ending up on Broadway, and I hope his HBO special is as much of a hit as it should be.