On Broadway

On the subway last night I spoke with a waitress who works at a Times Square area restaurant who said that this week was disastrous for NYC restaurants. Her restaurant usually does $20,000 of business a night but this week they made about $5,000 a day. She also told me that a lot of actors and crew from some of the Broadway shows the Republican National Committee bought for delegates were pissed because they ended up performing for empty houses since so many of the delegates didn't use their tickets. Some of actors apparently even threatened not to go on, although I don't think it ever came to that. There was a lot of talk that the RNC made a point of picking these 8 shows that would be palatable to Republican audiences -- no vulgar puppets, no gay Australian showman, and no anti-war tale told in dance. But as Time Out New York amusingly reports, their vetting of the shows may have been flawed:

Time Out New York breaks down the subliminal liberal messages in these shows that slipped under the GOP's radar:

Aida
A pouty, ruling-class scion screws over a slave in order to screw a soldier. The encrypted critique of Bush's tax cuts and reducing of veterans' benefits couldn;t be more obvious. Don;t even get us started on Elton John's wedding plans.

Beauty And The Beast
Again, Disney pimps out its class-struggle propaganda (hideously ugly aristocrat lusts after peasant girl.) Also, the dancing silverware and candelabra mock the robust materialism that the GOP stands for.

Wonderful Town
Two sisters from a swing state (Ohio) discover how much more fun it is to live among artists, intellectuals and deviants in New York's Greenwich Village. The show's shrill, feminist heroine "finds" herself after a night of wild abandon with a fleet of Brazuillian sailors.

42nd St.
A rich, know-nothing Texan interferes with the arts, ensuring that an unqualified but well-connected star be cast in the lead role of a theater production. But a poor girl takes over the part, and the cast sings a number celebrating the "naughty" and "bawdy" streets of New York.

The Phantom Of The Opera
The monster terrorizing a snooty opera house turns out to be a sensitive soul who just wants to be loved, but who has been discriminated against because of his physical deformity. Take that mandatory-sentencing laws!

Fiddler On The Roof
Jews. Need we say more?

Bombay Dreams
Economically disadvantaged ethnic types defend their urban housing against fraudulent rapacious and finally homicidal land developers, whose plot is opposed by a leftist filmmaker, a movie star and a drag queen. (Mitigating factor: The drag queen dies.)

The Lion King
The callow son of a deposed ruler leaves his hard-partying lifestyle behind in order to defend traditional values against a coalition of homosexuals and inner-city blacks. Okay this one seems pretty safe. But who knows what that monkey is chanting in Zulu?