Wife’s Birthday Celebration: Meeting Clay and Eating at Mario Batali’s

If I do say so myself, Wife had a pretty good birthday celbration. Over the last 36 hours, we saw a Broadway musical, met Clay Aiken, and ate at one of Mario Batali’s restaurants.

Last fall, we heard the news that Clay Aiken was joining the cast of Spamalot. Wife, being the energetic teeny-bopper that she is desperately wanted to go see him. In her defense, we watched Season Two of American Idol together years ago, she became a fan then. The past few months, she has been watching for a special to come around for tickets to go see Clay in Spamalot, but there were absolutely no deals to be had. Lo and behold, tickets did show up on our list – for the performance the day before her birthday. It took right about two seconds to decide what to get her for her birthday.

Spamalot was a better show than I expected it to be. We have become quite the Broadway experts in the last two months (we have seen the Farnsworth Invention, Phantom of the Opera, Is He Dead?, Pirates of Penzance, and a Tribute to Eugene O’Niel). Shockingly, wife says that Spamalot was her favorite. Spamalot was definitely the funniest. The humor, while not exactly doctoral level humor, was actually rather sophisticated (well, most of it was).

Clay Aiken did a decent job in his role as Sir Lancelot. Frankly, I am sure that the former actor, David Hyde Pierce, undoubtedly did a “better job.” However, the roll is designed for a goofy, nerdy, wimpy knight that loves to sing. Really, this is a role that is perfect for Aiken. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Clay – this is simply a role that he plays very well.

For the most part, the cast was exceptional. Personally, my favorite part was looking at the cast members and trying to remember which Law & Order episodes they appeared in. However, there was one notably weak cast member. For our showing, the understudy for the Lady of the Lake performed. She seemed like a fine actress, but could absolutely not sing. Her lack of singing talent was the talk of the theater during intermission. For a woman staring in the performance of a musical, I would think that a prerequisite would be the ability to sing – clearly, I am completely mistaken.

After the play, I suggested to Wife that we ought to go the cast exit and wait to meet Clay. Wife rolled her eyes at me and responded, “I’m not a twelve year old girl.” I take full blame, insisting that waiting outside in the cold to meet Clay would make her birthday very special. And it did, Clay came out, introduced himself to us, signed autographs for us, wished Wife a happy birthday, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Ok, I’m making a lot of that up. We did meet Clay and we did get his autograph. Wife said to him, “Good job tonight,.” After about a ten-second pause, Clay responded, “Thank you very much.” He was clearly completely out of it. As Wife commented, “He’s still performing.” In all fairness to Clay, he was the first star that came out. Though he was rather aloof, he was extremely polite and was willing to stay out and sign autographs for anyone that wanted one.

To finish off our celebration for Wife’s birthday, we went to dinner at Mario Batali’s restaurant, “Otto.” Without a doubt, this is the “trendiest” activity that Wife and I have done since we have been in the city. Otto is incredibly crowded with a young, very hip New York crowd. In a way this is the perfect restaurant for Wife and I: all of the entrees are extremely reasonably priced at just about ten dollars each. The restaurant makes it’s money on the wine, which goes for up to about $350 a bottle. Since Wife and I don’t drink, this is a very cheap priced dinner at a trendy hotspot.

During dinner, we had some great entertainment at the table next to us. This fellow and his date, who clearly enjoyed the wine WAY too much, decided to pull a stunt to get a discount on their meal. Together, they split one of the unique pizzas. They devoured the pizza, except for one tiny morsel of crust (seriously, above the last half-inch of crust on just once piece). The fellow decided to proclaim that the pizza was “burnt” and “practically inedible” to everyone that would listen. It worked – they received an apology and their bottle of wine was on the house. I can’t figure out why the restaurant gave them the bottle of wine for free instead of just giving them the $12 pizza, but I’m just a simple minded fellow.

All in all, I would say that Wife had a rather good birthday.