Weekend Escape: Century City : They Came to L.A. for a Dinner-and-Play Evening That Included Tickets and a Room With a View of the Theater

For some weekend getaways, Los Angeles is the place to escape to , not from .

My wife and I have always lived on the outer fringe of Los Angeles. We’re dyed-in-the-wool suburbanites who never felt so cosmopolitan as to want to live in the city, or visit it regularly. Instead, we play it as a tourist destination when we feel beckoned to a concert, a play, a museum.

And from where we live in northern San Diego County, it’s more than a night out, both in time and experience; it’s an overnight getaway to the Big City, when I change out of my Levis and boots for a sportscoat and loafers and make sure the Visa card balance is paid down enough so it won’t snarl with each swipe.

The opening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” at the Shubert Theatre in Century City was compelling enough reason to visit L.A. again. The last time we were at the Shubert was for “Les Miserables.” Before that, “Chorus Line.” “Phantom” got us to the Music Center a couple of years ago.

We Webber fans were eager to see the composer’s twist, starring Glenn Close, on the 1950 Billy Wilder story. But when my wife Jeanne saw a newspaper advertisement offering one of those overnight package deals--$275 for a night at the Century Plaza and box seats for “Sunset Boulevard”--it made a getaway to L.A. sound that much more attractive, earthquake-damaged freeway notwithstanding.

We thought of purchasing theater tickets separately (dates into September are now being sold), and then finding a place to stay nearby. But if we’re going to pay $65 per ticket for a 2 1/2-hour play, we thought, why not go top-drawer? Why not really live it up and spend the night at the Century Plaza, where we can ditch the car and walk across the street to the Shubert?

We assumed, too, that the Century Plaza box seats might be especially good, since they’re neighbors and probably worked out a nifty deal. But we’ll get to that . . .

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For an extra $25, we splurged for a room in the hotel’s newer, 30-floor tower. A Friday night show was selected, and the drive that afternoon into the city was nothing short of spectacular. It was windy, almost blustery, and the snow atop Mt. Baldy glistened beneath a sparkling blue sky.

As we crested over Interstate 10 past Claremont, the skyscrapers of downtown L.A., nearly 30 miles away, appeared like stalks of asparagus, shooting up from the basin. It was about 2 p.m. and out-bound traffic heading east on Interstate 10 already was crawling, while we traveled at full speed. By 3 p.m. check-in time we pulled into the Century Plaza and with little fuss were installed in our quarters: a spacious and beautiful corner room on the 11th floor. The king bed--one of the hardest we’ve experienced--was in an alcove, helping to set apart the sitting area and its love seat, coffee table and desk. The room was done in grays, mauves and whites, with the television hidden in the whitewashed armoire. There were three telephones, a wet bar and a spacious bathroom with a double-sink vanity, ample shower and a separate deep tub.

Out the two sets of sliding glass doors was a view of a smog-free downtown Los Angeles out the front balcony, the “Sunset Boulevard” marquee and fountains on the Avenue of the Stars below us and, from the side balcony, downtown Santa Monica and the ocean. With enough wind, the city really can sparkle.

I checked out the goodies in the in-room mini-fridge, and was confused. Among the soft drinks, beer and mini-bottles of liquor (presumably for sale, but there was no price list), there was a carton of rice, another of macaroni and cheese, and a paper bag containing a piece of fried chicken, dated a week earlier. A touch of home? I called the front desk and alerted them, and we changed for dinner.

We could have enjoyed a totally car-less weekend by dining at one of the fine restaurants at Century Plaza or within walking distance nearby. But in my 30 years as a Californian, I had never done Lawry’s. Quite aware of the reputation of the prime rib restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard, we decided to find out for ourselves. We had made dinner reservations for 5:30--plenty of time for a non-rushed dinner before the 8 p.m. curtain.

Lawry’s is an elegant dining room, in a kind of Renaissance-English decor. But this was Valentine’s weekend, and we thought the red-and-white balloons streaming from the recessed ceiling were a little tacky.

You have five choices of what to eat at Lawry’s: four different cuts of prime rib, or fresh fish. When in Rome, do what the Romans do. The Lawry’s cut, please.

Our waitress was efficient, if not a bit Stepford-cool. She spun the house salad, one of their gimmicks, and drizzled the Lawry’s “Vintage” dressing onto it from arm’s height. In due time, the “certified” meat carver maneuvered to our table the stainless steel serving cart--gimmick No. 2, and almost large enough to pass as a techno-age casket. It contained a couple of cooked cows, it seemed, and he sliced off our orders. We took the mashed potatoes over the a-la-carte baked potatoes, and ordered creamed spinach and creamed corn side-dishes (a la carte). So tell me, does anyone really enjoy Yorkshire pudding?

The prime rib was every bit as good as we’ve eaten at a couple of our favorite restaurants back home--where the service and surroundings aren’t nearly as pretentious.

A sign by the front door advised that the valet charge was $2.50. But after a half-dozen parties who presented their stubs after us got their cars before we did, I rebelled and paid him only a buck.

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On to the play! We drove away from Lawry’s at 7:15, were back at the Century Plaza by 7:30 and freshened up. The 10-minute stroll from the hotel to the ABC Entertainment Center is easy enough, through a shopping promenade beneath Avenue of the Stars. We followed directions to the upstairs entrance for our box seats in the mezzanine.

We had front-row seats in the upstairs wing, allowing us to peer almost directly into the orchestra pit. I watched the horn player chat with the trombone player between pieces, like a couple of school kids furtively talking in the back row when the teacher’s not watching.

I had been told, when I booked the reservations, that these would be great seats. Special for Century Plaza guests, the lady had promised. Special indeed. We were so far off to the side that in several critical scenes played upstage, away from the audience, the main characters were totally hidden from our line of sight, and we could only hear them. For the most part, though, we enjoyed the play and admired how Glenn Close must have conditioned herself on a Stairmaster.

The play let out just before 11 p.m., and we considered topping off the evening with a night cap or dessert, but the only place we saw open between the Shubert and the hotel was a subterranean deli that offered sandwiches, ice cream and cappuccino. Jeanne didn’t want to eat beneath a street. We thought about lounging in the Century Plaza’s bar but opted, instead, to buy a couple of sodas and chips from the deli, and retreated to our room to enjoy the night view of the L.A. basin.

The next morning, I complained to an assistant manager at the hotel about our seats and how we felt cheated.

“Remember such-and-such scenes?” I asked him. “Well, we couldn’t see them from your box seats.”

“Oh my,” he replied, sounding genuinely surprised. We were the first guests ever to complain about them, he said, and he promised to pass our grievance on to the Shubert, which had arranged the block of seats for Century Plaza guests.

We ordered room-service breakfast. It was delivered in time, and hot. But our room, despite its swank amenities, had only one chair. I perched on the foot of the bed.

The hotel offers a liberal 1 p.m. checkout, and we took every minute of it. We could have spent the early part of the day walking around the vast Century City Shopping Center across the street, but we figured since we’d spent this much money on a room, we’d soak up every available minute of it.

But we had to get back home to Escondido, which was left in the care of two teen-agers. We collected our belongings, swiped the unused bars of fancy soap, but left behind the rice, the macaroni and cheese and the fried chicken.

Budget for Two

Gas: $ 17.39

Century Plaza/”Sunset Blvd.” package: 300.00

Overnight car parking: 16.00

Bellcap/valet tips: 9.00

Dinner at Lawry’s: 76.01

Midnight snack: 6.50

Room-service breakfast: 31.80

FINAL TAB: $456.70

Century Plaza Hotel and Tower, 2025 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles 90067; tel. (310) 277-2000. Shubert Theater, 2020 Avenue of the Stars; tickets, tel. (800) 447-7400.