‘Tis the season for pronouncements about the perilous state of the Broadway musical. Here comes the annual wringing of hands over the increased dominance of the jukebox musical, the crass European spectacle, the cheap movie spin off, or whatever malaise is proffered by those who love to compare this year’s allegedly cheap-and-tawdry entertainments with the grand art of yesteryear.
A pox on that annual routine.
This year’s decent new crop of Broadway musicals — most of which will be headed to Chicago within the next year or so — reveals two major things about the state of the American musical.
First, this newly burgeoning art form is healthier than at any time in at least the last 30 years. Second, its current aesthetic identity can only be described as delightfully eclectic.
And given the increased segmentation of the theater-going public (as compared with the relatively homogenous group that went to musicals in New York and Chicago in the 1940s or 1950s), that’s the only way the form can thrive and prosper.
If you look to this season for evidence, very few of the recent generalizations about the state and direction of the Broadway musical actually hold up.
The crashing and burning of “The Pirate Queen,” which was more enjoyable in Chicago than in its formatively improved but emotionally panicked state in New York, would suggest that the grand European spectacle has officially walked the plank for at least the next decade. On this side of the Atlantic, at least. (The Brits remain in the thrall of dodgy projects such as “The Lord of the Rings.”) So we can all stop kvetching about that.
Around this time last year, there was much agonizing over the apparent dominance of the jukebox musical — that pejorative term for an existing album or other song-suite retrofitted, “Mamma Mia!” style, around a new plot. But this year, the genre vanished. Pity. Originality isn’t for wimps.
You could make a good case that “High Fidelity,” the biggest musical flop of the season, would have done far better if it had used the jukebox songs of the movie, instead of trying to score points with critics by coming up with an anemic original score that its hip leading character wouldn’t have bought at any price. There’s nothing wrong with a little well-crafted nostalgia involving songs that make up the fabric of our lives; ask anyone who has bought tickets to “Jersey Boys,” in Chicago this fall.
An honorable homage
Ironically, the only major jukebox musical on Broadway this year (if any jukebox ever specialized in the music of Kurt Weill) was “LoveMusik,” the high-art entry from director Hal Prince and writer Alfred Uhry about the tortured marriage of Weill and Lotte Lenya. Uhry wrote a biographical story of their complex courtship and marriage; existing Weill numbers from other shows are used as the score. It only works to a point — the scale of the show feels inconsistent and the characterizations only go so deep — but you could hardly accuse the idiosyncratic “LoveMusik” of pandering to anything except the artistic desires of its accomplished creators. Prince knew Lenya in her later life, and the show is an honorable homage to the artistry and struggles of its dysfunctionally opposite leading couple. Too much so, really. It would have been better if Prince had looked more closely in the mirror and chosen to probe more deeply the timeless agonies of immigration and assimilation — not only of one’s life but also of one’s art.
Movie spinoffs are still around. A transatlantic co-production of Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, the Tony-nominated “Mary Poppins” surely trades on the popularity of the 43-year-old movie. But the whole point of the London stage version was to restore the tale of the original supernanny (or maybe that should be superdevilnanny) to better match the original dark intent of author P.L. Travers. The need to include the Disney name and most of the score first penned for the movie largely scuppered that desire. In London, I was convinced that the result was a show caught in the limbo between two warring factions of treacle and domestic nightmare, but I now think that “Poppins” was already too far gone in the collective cultural consciousness for any wholesale reclamation. This new show is a workable compromise. And, given the Chicago money left on the table by Disney’s “The Lion King,” it’s surely the season’s leading candidate for a long Chicago run in the near future. The Mouse never makes the same mistake twice.
You could hardly argue that “Grey Gardens” is merely a movie spinoff — David and Albert Maysles’ independent 1975 documentary about Edith Bouvier Beale and her wildly eccentric daughter “Little Edie” Beale mostly just turned a camera on the eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and let them talk. The musical invents an entire fictional first act, and the writer Doug Wright and the musical team of Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (who showcased their esoteric but compelling “Doll” at the Ravinia Festival in 2003, back when Broadway wouldn’t give them a look) don’t pander to any mass market.
But aside from handing the remarkable actress Christine Ebersole what must surely be a Tony-winning showcase role, “Grey Gardens” should be remembered for one other great achievement. Perhaps better than any other musical in years, this show charts the fragility of happiness. Often we get but one chance for a tolerable life. If it — or he, or she — goes wrong, we can immediately fall far off the charts. “Grey Gardens” understands this, which is why Ebersole’s performance is not the only reason it demands seeing.
Ironically, a musical inspired from a recent movie now has to cope with the danger of a backlash. For my money, though, a fresh and decent movie spinoff surely beats a tired original work stuck in old Broadway formulas. That’s why “Legally Blonde” is a whole lot better than “Curtains.”
“Legally Blonde,” a kinetic, cotton-candy musical version of the 2001 movie starring Reese Witherspoon, is skillfully aimed at the box-office bull’s-eye of the teen-girl demographic. And thus it was treated by the Broadway establishment — not hitherto known for its dedication to the principles of high art but familiar with jealousy — as radioactive. Jerry Mitchell’s featherweight but nonetheless warm-hearted and artfully staged production was unfairly shut out of the best musical Tony nominations — reportedly for fear that the voting presenters from out of town, who recognize the show’s populist potential in the hinterlands, would sweep it to victory in front of a live TV audience next Sunday night.
Teens and tweens
What nonsense. New York snobs need not fear the teens and tweens of the heartland. They’re more discriminating than some people think. And they’re entitled to this one decent, highly enjoyable show of their own — especially since the cheerfully guileless piece doesn’t add some arch pretension to broaden its appeal. God knows girls and their parents keep a lot of other shows going, even if other producers don’t like to admit it.
“Curtains,” a new show-within-a-show murder mystery and the most overpraised new musical of the season, could have been written in 1959, the year of its Boston setting. This self-consciously retro show has an emotional little history — the co-composer, Fred Ebb, died in 2004 while the show was in development and so did the original book writer, Peter Stone (he was replaced by Rupert Holmes). With a plot that apes the grand old musical comedies of the past, the piece feels steeped in Broadway lore, which makes fans of the form inclined to give the thing a critical pass. But it’s still a flawed show. With the exception of one lovely number, “I Miss the Music” (clearly written by John Kander with the death of his late partner in mind), the show has little emotional oomph or focus. Despite some stellar performances, “Curtains” feels mostly like an overstuffed grab bag.
And that leaves “Spring Awakening,” the best new musical of the season, the freshest and most exciting score of the year, and far and away the best piece of direction.
In what pre-existing category could one possibly stick this show? It smashes them all.
An incendiary subject
A radical, rock-music reimagining of a 1891 Frank Wedekind drama about the sexual tragedy of childhood would hardly sound like a formula for a hit. In the current era, adolescent sexuality is an incendiary subject. The writer of the book, Steven Sater, was hitherto best known for weird little contemporary plays, staged incongruously in Cincinnati. The composer, Duncan Sheik, didn’t come from the Broadway world. There was no source movie, no cultish Disney spectacle, no hot property to be marketed or exploited. With the help of a fresh, ripe cast, director Michael Mayer has reintroduced a note of danger into Broadway musicals.
Sater’s relatively close adaptation of the original play has been overpraised, perhaps. Wedekind’s tricky shifting of time and place in the later sections of the original play comes off here as mostly weird in the musical.
But there’s no mistaking the importance for the future of the Broadway musical of Sheik’s new voice. Finally, here’s a score that might get some airplay. Finally, here’s a score with appeal for the Generation X crowd who can now afford Broadway tickets. And if the show is showcased properly at the Tony Awards next Sunday (which is a big “if”), it might just morph from cult hit to a dangerous, sexy musical that won’t fly in conservative cities but could sit in Chicago — say at the old Blackstone Theatre — for months on end.
If it does, the show will celebrate the regenerative powers of an art form that, like America’s great old cities, has wrestled itself back to relevancy and health.
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When to watch
Annual Tony Awards
Sunday, June 10
7 p.m., WBBM-Ch. 2
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cjones5@tribune.com
