Results tagged “2008 season” from Drama Queen
Finally made it to New York yesterday (first time this season) and saw The 39 Steps. The show, a farcical, campy, reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 romance/suspense/thriller, won one of the five Tony Awards for which it was nominated (Best Lighting) and was praised effusively by Ben Brantley in the New York Times. I settled into my seat with high expectations and the lingering frisson of excitement that still hits every time I head into the business end of the Lincoln Tunnel.So all the greater was my disappointment when the production was halfway as good as it could have been, with a set design halfway as creative as several Philly Fringe shows I'd seen, and with a halfway committed cast running on autopilot. At intermission, my companion (and provider of my ticket) St. Paul Pioneer Press theater critic Dominic Papatola, remarked, "Well, this is a strange little show for Broadway."
Strange indeed, and not in a good, gatecrashing, Passing Strange, kind of way. Rather, it was strange that of all the shows in the English-speaking world to choose to pick up and mount on Broadway, why should this bit of West End escapist fluff that seems plucked from the rounds of regional repertory theaters--an Irma Vep with a bigger cast and less ingenuity--be anointed? Mind you, I have nothing against fluff, even if it arrives during an era ripe for meatier fare (witness August: Osage County's success on that front). But this fluff? Really?
Well, guess not. In this weekend's announcement of the closing of Forbidden Broadway, its founder, Gerard Alessandrini cited plain old boredom as the reason for shuttering his nearly 30-year-old star-skewering satirical institution.
"When Broadway becomes too theme-park-like, it makes it difficult, and it just looks like it's becoming overly commercial the next couple of years," he said.
When it's not even fun to make fun of Broadway anymore, something is terribly wrong. Visiting New York should be like opening a compendium of the best new American plays and musicals instead of walking down memory lane, or even worse, walking straight down the middle of the road to Broadwayland. A revival here and there is fine, but you don't end up getting a Gypsy or All My Sons in the first place by only banking on the tried and true. One look at the 1956 Tony nominations (or even the 1976 nominations), packed with original productions of original ideas and well, compared to this season's lukewarm musicals and revivals of revivals, perhaps it's best to avert your eyes. Or hey, look elsewhere--like to regional producers--for guidance.
