I realized right quick how ridiculous it was to even consider investing in the idea of the fourth wall, when the very act of watching a show outdoors at the Central Park bandshell becomes its own participatory theater. The inline skaters swerving around their tiny orange cones, the loud skirmish between two leashed dogs; the insistent pssht of someone’s can of bug spray; the unsupervised toddler with blonde ringlets running between people’s blankets until he knocks over a parked bicycle into an Upper West Sider with a noticeable face lift, which finally prompts his weary father to scoop him up; the enthusiastic Puccini fan with the fanny pack who kept springing to his feet, really feeling Musetta; the dive-bombing insects, the guy with the green do-rag conducting the opera for himself, standing under an elm tree.
Yet the music never fails to produce some lip-trembly moments, despite the distractions, while we wait for Mimi to croak, and getting choked up when she finally, inevitably does.
