Romantic Comedy(36)

As I walked toward the spot under the balcony where I usually watched the live show, a no-man’s-land quite separate from Nigel’s cave, and without rosé, I passed Viv, who was about to play Comey’s book editor in the cold open. In the seconds before a cast member went on, when they were surrounded by a makeup artist, a hair stylist, and someone from wardrobe all making last adjustments, the clusters always reminded me of when the mice and birds in the original Cinderella movie dressed her for the ball. I didn’t want to get in the way, or to call out Dr. Theo’s name, so when Viv’s eyes met mine, I merely held up my right hand, first with the thumb up, then with the thumb down, and raised my eyebrows. She nodded and held up her own thumb. I wasn’t sure whether I’d been asking if Dr. Theo was there or if they’d spoken, but, either way, the confirmation seemed promising. “Awesome,” I said, and kept walking to take my place next to two other writers, Patrick and Jenna. Unless things went awry during the show—if another sketch went way over and I was told by a producer I needed to make more cuts—this was where I’d stay. Even on nights when none of my sketches were in the lineup, it was thrilling to be in the studio seeing the cast members perform and knowing the sketches were appearing on television screens all over the country. Like Noah and millions of other people, I too had once been a kid who lived far from New York and watched TNO and was electrified.

And then it was 11:28, 11:29—one of Nigel’s pearls of wisdom that people outside TNO borrowed was “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. The show goes on because it’s 11:30”—and I could hear Penelope saying, “Thirty seconds to air, people, thirty seconds to air. Keep moving, everyone.” The cold open started, and Oliver was smarmily self-righteous as Comey, and Viv was impatient as his editor and Lynette came onstage as a world-weary Hillary Clinton and then there was the moment at the sketch’s conclusion when they broke the fourth wall, leaned their heads in, looked at the camera, and shouted in unison, welcoming viewers to the show just as TNO cast members had been doing since 1981. Hearing the famous line never failed to release something in me, some ecstasy that was like lifting the tab on a soda can, or maybe like having an orgasm, or maybe like knowing I’d have an orgasm in the near future—some excitement and anticipation and nervousness and delight. The essential thing I’d failed to understand about TNO before working there was that, even though there were flubbed lines and late camera cuts and sketches that bombed, the live part wasn’t the show’s weakness; it was its strength. And really, so was the way all the preparation had to be crammed into a week. These were the things that made us inventive and wildly ambitious, that gave the show its unpredictability and intensity and magic. Though, oddly, even after thirty-seven years, plenty of viewers still didn’t realize the show was live.

By this point, I’d been around Noah enough that I could tell he was nervous during the monologue, but in an endearing way—that he was both happy and jittery. When Elliot came out for their faux-misunderstanding, Elliot’s comparative stiffness—and frankly, his comparatively mediocre looks—amplified Noah’s charms. And then Noah was saying, “Our musical guest is, well, also me, and we’ve got a great show tonight, so stick around and we’ll be right back,” and it was all spinning forward, with Peggy whisking Noah offstage （another of my all-time favorite moments had been the night when a petite starlet in extremely high heels finished her monologue and Peggy simply hoisted the starlet into a piggyback to get her from Home Base to her first sketch）。 I often thought that TNO was like a sped-up version of life itself, and that whether something proceeded magnificently or disastrously, time always kept rushing by and the next moment was happening. During commercial breaks, or as other sketches unfolded, the swarms of techs in all black were calmly moving set walls and unrolling rugs and carrying sofas and desks, and before each sketch started, Penelope was saying over the speakers, “Ten seconds,” and then, “Three, two,” and then we were live again. After Noah’s monologue, the commercial break, and Tony and Lianna’s digital short, the Cheesemonger killed （of course the sketch I’d cared about the least killed, and the one I’d cared about the most had been cut, even if I’d been the one to cut it）; then there was the Medicine Cabinet sketch that had replaced The Danny Horst Rule, which was both clever and a little soft still, not as sharp as it would have been if it had been revised more; then the overhauled Sister & Father, which made the audience roar as soon as Noah appeared in his white cassock and skullcap and in which Viv as the nun innocently spouted filthy double entendres that prompted me to scan the backs of the heads of the audience in the floor seats for Dr. Theo; then Noah’s first musical act was being introduced by his sister, Vicky, and it was “Ambiguous,” the song I’d watched him rehearse. This time around, it made me unexpectedly sad and then made me think maybe I should end things with Gene and try, after all this time, for a real boyfriend. Not anyone from TNO, certainly, and not Noah Brewster because he was Noah Brewster. But someone, someone whose eyes I’d want to gaze into and who’d want to gaze into mine while we lay on a huge bed with a million pillows. Then it was News Desk, in which whatever mood Danny was in was indistinguishable from his usual deadpan delivery and which, apart from Danny’s current-events jokes, featured Bailey in a cooking segment for Minnesota hot dishes—Bailey was, in real life, from Duluth—and as they dumped a massive pitcher of cream of mushroom soup into a clear glass pan of tater tots, I could already tell this was going to be a recurring bit. Then there was Noah’s Choreography sketch, and I saw the snake handler waiting just off set; I’d expected the snake to be green like the rubber prop, but her scales had a pattern of reddish-orange diamonds over paler orange, and the audience cheered after the handler placed her around Noah’s shoulders then moved away, and my heart thudded, and then that sketch was finished, too, and I’d once again seen Noah’s muscular abdomen and so had many other Americans. Then there was Blabbermouth, and though it got laughs, just as I’d been able to tell that Bailey’s hot dish segment was the beginning of something, I could feel that Blabbermouth had run its course. Then Peggy was pulling Noah from Stage 3 to Stage 2 for his second song, the Cinderella mice and birds were outfitting him in a retro mint-green-and-black bowling shirt and touching up his makeup, Jay was introducing this time, and Noah was singing “Inbox Zero,” and then, after a commercial break, it was already time for goodnights, when Noah stood on Home Base, joined by the cast members and his band, and said thank you and everyone hugged each other. Catchphrase’s Unicycle sketch had been cut, but so had Joseph’s Three Tenors sketch. Danny didn’t appear for goodnights, and the house band was still playing the ending music and the audience was still cheering as I left the studio and walked down the hall toward his dressing room.