New York City is more than a place. It’s a mood. It’s a state of being.
Or so it has seemed to me, from the first time I visited during a high school chorus field trip (imagine a few dozen teenagers belting “Seasons of Love” atop the Empire State Building, in the rain), to my most recent stop just last month. It’s a place where things happen, and I can’t help but be caught up in that energy.
Perhaps that is why I never stay long in New York. Seventy-two hours is about my max. Then my need for solitude – or at least, the absence of a crowd – becomes so acute as to become a craving. Walking in Central Park or across the Brooklyn Bridge sometimes helps. The exercise and being out-of-doors typically buys me a little time. I can drift among strangers, cloaked in anonymity, and lose myself in my thoughts.
I did no such pensive walking on my last visit. It occurred in January, and the itinerary was decidedly indoorsy. ’d come to New York on a mission to see Keanu Reeves in Waiting for Godot. He was headlining a production at the Hudson Theater along with Alex Winter, and the opportunity to watch the stars of the Bill and Ted franchise in real, live, serious theater was one I couldn’t pass up.
I’ve been absolutely fascinated by Waiting for Godot for years. Decades, even. Admittedly, I’d never seen the show – I’d never even read the play – but I was well aware of its cachet as a touchstone for the theater of the absurd. The very first days of 2026 seemed as good a time as any to ante up.
And so Peter and I found ourselves queued up on sidewalks still covered with paper confetti from New Year’s Eve, waiting among the closing weekend crowds. Then we were in our seats, the house lights dimmed, and the curtain rose.
I realized my mistake immediately. In our haste to leave the hotel, I’d forgotten my glasses on the bedside table. I could see the stage, I could see the set, and I could make out the actors’ movements. But I could not see their faces. At least, I saw them only in a somewhat blurred, Impressionistic painting kind of way.
I squinted my way through the performance. By paying close attention to gestures and tone of voice, I followed what was going on. Not that there’s much of a plot in Waiting for Godot; that’s part of the point.
The irony of it struck me. Here I was, finally witnessing a piece of theater that had lived on my bucket list for years – in NYC, of all places. On closing weekend. With a celebrity cast. And I could not see the actors.
I like to think Samuel Beckett would have laughed. I did. Both at the situation, with all the ridiculous little tragedy folded into it, and at the play itself. Yes, it’s dark. It’s stark. Sometimes the language cascades into hopelessness, and the audience has no choice but to go right along with it.
And yet I could not say it was a sad play. Of all the emotions I witnessed on stage that night, fear was not among them. That fact whistled itself through my consciousness like a signal beacon. And with it, a whisper of hope.
I knew what it was to live with fear. And I knew what it was to live without it. I nodded, as if Samuel Beckett sat right beside me. I looked at the stage, smiling. I laughed again.