Legions of donuts swirl in winding screen crawls, anthropomorphic candy mascots jump up and down on gigantic digital billboards, smoke from vendor grilled sausages impairs even more the already blurred from the unbearable steamy heat vision, and, as I'm praying not to faint while waiting for the green light at the final crossing that will lead me to 48th Street and Broadway, I ask myself for the nth time why on earth mid-August finds me in the middle of Times Square and not on my Cycladic island. The answer is not simply “because my collaborators and I have rehearsal”; it's “because my collaborators and I have not had a rehearsal in New York since 2019!”.
In principle, New Yorkers go to great lengths to avoid the chaotic emblem of superficial consumerism, yielding the square condescendingly to the hordes of tourists. However, most studios for theatre, dance or any other type of rehearsal are located in exactly that area, making it impossible for anyone who has some sort of rehearsal to avoid the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and the human swarms that stroll around, hang out, eat and shop, while the continuously multiplying advertising billboards spurt like waterfalls from the surrounding “mountain chains”, bathing pedestrians in colored lights day and night.
I artfully maneuver, avoiding Spiderman, Mickey & Minnie, and several other cartoon characters that want you to have your picture taken with them and whom I don't even recognize (clearly, I'm not in the target group), yet I almost get emotional when I bump into the Naked Cowboy. The muscular blond-maned troubadour and guitar player, dressed rain or shine only in his cowboy hat, boots and white briefs, seems unchanged to me since I first saw him in 2005 (so much so that I wonder if it's the same guy or a successor, like Broadway actors succeed each other in the same character). The only difference is that now another attraction has been added nearby: the Naked Cowgirl.
Upon entering the cool, pristine, minimalist studio, you feel as if transported onto a floating isle, and time seems to come to a halt. Looking out from the big 12th floor windows -and from the safety, the quiet and the distance from the earthly that the rehearsal space offers-, you see the human river down below with new eyes. “Imagine that a string on the top of your head is pulling you upwards...”, calls a familiar acting exercise. In this landscape, where the soaring glass and metal “trunks” disappear higher and higher in the heavens (Manhattan architecture trends have gone wild, with newly built super-skyscrapers rising at, or exceeding, the inconceivable heights of 1,200 feet, and comprising 70, 80, or even more than 90 floors), any height-related image acquires a different dimension.
THE END OF NATURE
The subject of our play is the end of nature, and associations flow in the same way the view extends from one glass surface to the other, and in the same way skyscrapers are reflected on each other's windows. The end of nature is visible and obvious, you would think; and yet, nature (or at least a version of it) seems to be going strong, even here, in the “glass forest”, since several kinds of birds fly in front of us, while the ubiquitous pigeons have, of course, nested in the most unimaginable architectural niches. And some rooftops are green – real trees pop out between water tanks and slices of concrete.
One afternoon after rehearsal I decide to proceed deeper toward the... “reactor”'s heart – to walk in the center of the square. Amidst the usual pandemonium, I discern -to my great surprise- an art installation that looks like a burned forest. As I approach, I realize that these are actually inverted tree trunks - the exposed upside-down roots look like branches. In “Roots” artist Charles Gaines showcases the impressive root system of the American Sweetgum, a native east coast tree (which, perhaps, would have once upon a time dominated Times Square...). Who knew: all these days, high up there in the glass forest, in the building right across, we had been in direct contact with this kindred spirit, down here on earth.
I had said “never again summer in New York”. Never say “never again”.
