More of the Critic Debate - Now from Down Under

From Alison Croggon's (blogger of theatre notes) review of Jersey Boys in Australia:

"On the morning of the Australian premiere of Jersey Boys, I had an appointment with an osteopath to deal with the Gordian knots in my shoulders.

"My osteo is a young woman from Taylor's Lakes with the hands of a ministering angel. While she was busy with the medical equivalent of breaking rocks, she asked me if I was doing anything special that weekend. With a sigh, I said that I had to see Jersey Boys. Musicals, I explained, are just not my bag. And me, I'd prefer to stay home with a DVD, wearing my fluffiest bed socks.

"She clasped her hands to her breast. "Oh!" she said. "I'd love to see Jersey Boys! I wish I could afford to go! You're so lucky!"

"I felt properly chastened. The privileges of a critic shouldn't, after all, blind me to the naive pleasures of seeing a show."

It's an interesting way to start what turns out to be a positive, if not glowing, review of the production. You may find the exchange concerning her tone and critical assessment in her review (original article taken from The Australian) on Alison's blog to be quite engaging.

Taken from Avi's first comment on the blog:

"I've freely admitted how much I admire you as a reviewer but I cringed when I read the first paragraph of your Jersey Boys review in The Australian. If musicals are "just not your bag", why review them? Surely you're going to be watching music theatre shows with a bias that prevents you from being really objective about the piece?

"The fact that you gave Jersey Boys a favourable review doesn't change the fact that you opened the article by stating that you don't like musicals. Therefore, your review is tainted with your disdain for the form, and no amount of glitzy costumes and showy numbers is going to change that."

Avi goes on to mention her frustrations concerning a stigma against the musical theater art form in Australia among legit theater and artistic communities.

Alison chimes in respectfully. Here's a snippet:

"Aside from having a little fun at my own expense (and hopefully amusing one or two readers, rather than as is my wont enraging them)... there is a serious subtext to my playing about. Yes, I wasn't especially looking forward to it. Yes, I was coming from a place of privilege, and that little conversation made me realise that I was wrong to do so. Do you think that there isn't a divide between a reviewer who gets free tickets and goes to the swisho opening nights, and the punter who just loves musicals and saves up for the ticket? Isn't it better to acknowledge that gap (most reviewers don't but that doesn't mean that it's not operating), and to be reminded that there's a lot of point to what I said were the naive pleasures of seeing a show?"

The rest of the exchange is spirited and reminds me of that ever ongoing debate of the critic's role (see Chris' post What Are Critics Good For?). Thoughts readers?

See the entire theatre notes exchange here.

Note: Commentator Avi owns a blog called Life Upon the Wicked Stage which is invite only. I don't have access to it, but I am curious if any of my readers do.

Tag! I'm It, or: I hated being it as the little fat kid

Oh SarahB. I heart you. Even if it means I'm it. As a child, there was nothing worse than being picked last for the football team, or being the first one out of a cruel game of dodgeball, or (not to say the least) being 'it.'

But there was also nothing better than being an All-State tenor in the ridiculously competitive Texas high school UIL contests, or getting the biggest applause while taking my bows at my first school musical (where I wasn't the lead), or being selected as Thespian of the Year for my alum's local International Thespian Society chapter.

And I imagine, in some other life, if SarahB and I were to be in grade school together, we probably would have been happily married on the playground during recess.

So due to the binding commitment of marriage (not to mention my utter affection for the NYC/TX diva), I will not only happily play along, but I will with great enthusiasm bear the title of 'it' proudly.

The Rules

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog. My tagger was SarahB at Adventures in the Endless Pursuit of Entertainment.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. If you don't have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.

The Facts

1. I am a world karate champion. In 1996, I won the title of World Sparring Champion - Novice Division for ages 10 to 11 in Washington D.C. at the Sport Karate International (SKIL) Super Grands World Games 7. Yeah, I know. I'm a badass
2. I own over 300 DVDs. And I haven't actively bought movies (I hate being poor) for about 2 years. I am also overly compulsive about them being in alphabetical order.
   
3. Although I am not necessarily a devout (or even active) churchgoer, I have a very high respect for Catholicism and will probably always refer to myself as a Catholic (even though I haven't attended Mass in years and don't agree/believe a lot of the teachings).
   
4. I've never owned a DVR (eek!). This will be remedied on Halloween morning. I will have three. Woot woot.
   
5. My 2 best friends now live in New York, New York. Michael has been there for 2 years and Adrianna just moved there yesterday. When is it my turn?!
6. I am an only child from a single parent home. My mother effing rocks. Like uber hard. Just writing that made me get teary-eyed.
7. Will Parker (Oklahoma!) and the Cat (Honk!) are my favorite roles that I've played.
   

The Tagged Bloggers

1. The up and coming Jess at The Resident Artist
2. The always fabulous Joie at So Much To Deal With
   
3. The always reliable (and I know he doesn't have the time for it becasue he's too busy saving the world) Steve at Steve On Broadway (SOB)
   
4. The young and ambitious Katie at Theatreisms
   
5. The uber intelligent (and I know he doesn't have the time for it because he's too busy educating the world - Jekyll does blow hard) Chris at Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals
6. The sorely missed Eric at Man In Chair (please come back to the blog world when you're done being a human being)
7. My Vex and SPP fellow castmate Allsion at The Latest Happenings of the Great You-Know-Who
   

Vice-Presidential Debate as Theatre, or: reason number 5,983,746,510 why I love the movie answer man

I love Roger Ebert for many reasons. His most recent blog entry is one of them. He talks of the vice-presidential debate last night and analyzes it based as theater and not as a political event.

He opens with this:

I have some observations about what we observed Thursday night. They are not political. They involve such matters as body language, facial expression and vocal tone. These are legitimate subjects for a film critic. As Patrick Goldstein wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times: "In some ways film critics are probably better equipped to assess the political theater of today's presidential campaigns, since our campaigns are -- as has surely been obvious for some time -- far more about theater and image creation than politics." I would like to discuss the vice presidential debate as theater.

He goes on to mention how Palin was, based on a theatrical point of view again, "understandably nervous," citing her rapid rate of speech and quite eloquently stating,

Listening to her voice, you could also sense when she felt she'd survived the deep waters of improvisation and was climbing onto the shore of talking points. When she was on familiar ground, she perked up, winked at the audience two of three times, and settled with relief into the folksiness that reminds me strangely of the characters in Fargo.

Palin is best in that persona. You want to smile with her and wink back[...]Palin was persuasive. But I felt a brightness that was not always convincing.

Ebert claims that "she wins high marks for emerging from the debate still standing and still smiling."

He continues with observations on unanticipated moments and improvisation:

One thing a critic of a live performance is sensitive to is any unanticipated moment. There was a famous moment at the National Theater in London when an actor pulled out an automatic pencil to make some notes. It contained no lead. He should have pretended it did. Instead, he said, "There is no lead in my pencil." Then, fatally, he paused to listen to what he had said, and the audience roared with laughter when they were certainly not intended to.

A very different sort of unanticipated moment took place during the debate. Biden said, "I know what it's like to be a single parent raising two children." He did not know if his sons would survive the auto accident that took his wife and daughter. For a moment, he lost his composure. Looking at the moment again I believe, as I did at the time, that it was genuine emotion, and not stagecraft.

Watch the clip and decide for yourself:



Ebert mentions:

It could not have been anticipated by Palin. The next camera angle was above and behind her. She paused. The silence seemed to anticipate words of sympathy and identification from her. But Biden had ended in a sentence using the word "change," and her response, reflecting no emotion at all, cued off that word and became a talking point about McCain. This felt to me, at worst, insensitive and callous. At best, that she had not fully heard Biden. In either event, her response troubled me. If a man had responded in that way to such a statement from a women, he would be called a heartless brute.

Interesting observations. And, like always, very eloquent in his writing. Read his whole post here.

Mr. Cladwell's Thoughts on "Little house on the Prairie"

I love Byrd Bonner. Ever since I performed in Urinetown, the Muscial at the Sheldon Vexler Theatre in San Antonio, (still one of the best productions I've ever had the privelege to be a part of) where I met Byrd (a delectable Caldwell B. Cladwell), the man has been nothing but generous with his time with me. He's one of maybe 2-3 people I know personally who I can divulge in major Broadway and theater talk with and have insightful commentary spewed right back at me. I love the man. Not to mention everytime he visits New York City he brings me playbills from all the shows he saw. Little tokens of love.

Well my good friend Mr. Bonner recently took in the Minneaopolis helmed Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie. In an email sent to a few theater nerds (myself included), Byrd provided his thoughts on the new tuner:

All,

I am in Minneapolis and saw LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, the Musical last night at the Guthrie. I have to say that the Pioneer Press sums it up
pretty well.

The major problem here is the score. Rachel Portman (Oscar winning composer for "Emma") writes beautifully for film. But underscoring does not a musical make, much less a good one. Much of the score for LHOTP is a series of musical themes or elements that never come together in any compelling or memorable way. The only song in which I could discern anything close to an AABA or conventional form was "Wild Child", Ma's eleven o'clock number that should be the heart of the show in some ways. Although Ma is not the protagonist, the song is about Laura and sums up much about her that is important both to Wilder and to us. It is the song in which Melissa Gilbert causes either grimaces or sighs or both. Unconventional writing is fine if it adds up to an appealing whole. Here it comes off as scraps for a quilt, which would have been a nice metaphor somewhere in the proceedings, come to think of it.

Speaking of quilts, I do like QUILTERS a lot; I thought of it a lot while watching LHOTP. It seems to try to approach the scope of QUILTERS without the invention. I must admit to a smile when I read the Pioneer Press review on Wed. I saw the show Tuesday night and stayed for what was not so much a talk back as a 'chat with the cast'. I smiled because I commented to the cast that there were several moments when director Francesca Zambello (director of DISNEY'S THE LITTLE MERMAID on Broadway) evokes conceits or devices successfully used in other musicals. I specifically mentioned the buggy race take of "Ascot Gavotte". I was surprised that there was a noticeable reaction from the cast. Now I see why.... Kevin Massey (a very good Almanzo) fielded my question as to whether the cast or Zambello ever talked about the derivations during the rehearsal period. I swear he said something like, "I have never seen this MY FAIR LADY thing, but....." Interesting. Very defensive. He said that they hope that they have made it their own. I agreed.

The cast, excepting Gilbert at times, was uniformly very good. Kara Lindsay was an ideal Laura. Jenn Gambatese as Mary was warm and sang beautifully what little she was allowed to sing. Much has been made of "I'll Be Your Eyes", the duet for Laura and Mary that closes Act 1. It is only lovely in comparison with the rest of the mess of a score. It does not sore when the audience begs it to...over and over. One musical motif that perplexingly seems to repeat over and over is one about going faster and faster. At the performance I saw, the program insert listing the songs lists it as "Faster" (what else?) and "Faster II" (there you go). The first one established it (early in the second act) as what I thought would surely be a 'theme' for Laura's courtship with Almanzo. But then "Faster II" inexplicably uses the same theme in Laura's school room in Brewster with the students working up a frenzy about learning faster and faster. Looking back at the insert, I am surprised that there is not a "Faster III", since Mary at the College for the Blind then goes into her own version about getting to visit her family....faster. It all seemed to me to become a mish mash of half baked tunesmithing by the time the curtain fell (...quilt scraps). About half way through the second act I realized that the only thing that I wished would happen faster was the inevitable pairing of Laura and Almanzo so we could all be done with it.
What other MT conceits or devices were used, you ask? One that I saw was a clear attempt to derive the opening number "Up Ahead" that seeks to sum up all of the passion around and against homesteading in the 1800's from FIDDLER's opening sequence. It looked like it could have actually been a performance of "Tradition" for a few fleeting moments, with the men of the cast going through their recitation of the joys of land grants, as I recall. Another lesser derivation was the use of Laura's wedding as the final scene. I did actually think about GUYS & DOLLS for a moment, but realized that we would have needed Nellie (a WOEFULLY misdirected Sara Jean Ford who turns Nellie into such a caricature that it is as if Blondie or Lucy Van Pelt or Miss Hannigan or.....Ursula the Sea Witch!...has suddenly been dropped onto the Dakota prairie) to get hitched as well. If this work goes further, someone should give some thought to that...but who would Nellie marry? Now, I see nothing wrong with copying or building off of brilliant devices of musicals of the past. I would do it too, if I were writing or directing something. Here is just seems to happen a bit too much and with a good bit of dullness...pale derivatives. But it does make for some fun "Guess that device" playing when trying to pass the time (which happens a lot in this show). In that way only, it is sort of like watching a good production of URINETOWN.....but not.

I found Donna di Novelli's lyrics to be often just bad, either missing or forcing several rhymes, especially in Act I. Sheinkin writes what you would expect of such an epic based on a beloved piece of Americana, but she doesn't write what you would expect of Rachel Sheinkin (25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE). Some of the book is so prosaic and rhetorical that I assumed that she must be quoting Wilder herself.

I'll close by sharing my overwhelming thought as I walked up the aisle to leave the AMAZING Guthrie after this epic mess: '...my, how utterly brilliant Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens and Frank Galati are....'

Seems Byrd knows of a far superiour musical dealing with pieces of Americana.. I know Esther has been trying to keep a positive outlook on this tuner since its inception. All reviews for the show have been mostly mixed-to-negative, including the aforementioned Pioneer Press' view. I hope for nothing but the best for any creative project, but I doubt this new musical is likely to have a lasting impact on the art form. Right now, though, it looks as if though its negatives far outweigh its positive attributes.

Bummer, man. Bummer.

2008 Tony Award Predictions – Part 3: Who Should Win (the Big Ones)

So everyone is aware that the American Theatre Wing’s 62nd Annual Tony Awards will be presented on Sunday, June 15 at 8/7c on CBS. And if you’re a theater lover, well you’ve probably been blogging away on all things Tony for the past month. Or you’ve been giving your end of the year round-up on your favorite shows of the season.

Well now it’s my turn in the spotlight. Steve on Broadway has done a fantastic job of consistently wrapping-up awards season with an almost daily roll of posts. (That SOB. How do you make the time? Jealous.) Me? I haven’t posted in almost a week.

I’ll admit - I’m not proud. A bit ashamed to be honest. But now all you bloggers can suck it up and get over it and just read who I think should win at this year’s race. This blog is pretty new and I’m still working on a lot of design thingies. So I’m whoring myself out to all the theater blogs. And because I’m a comment whore, I cordially invite you to leave your thoughts and comments. Nay – I DEMAND YOU!! (and scene)

Best Musical
Cry-Baby
In the Heights
Passing Strange
Xanadu

In the Heights was my favorite of these four shows. Cry-Baby was my least favorite (along with everyone else). The 2 best shows here are Passing Strange and In the Heights. And while Passing Strange is getting lots of kudos for its innovative use of story telling and musical funk, In the Heights touched my heart a lot more.

Yes, it has a cheesy book – ok a really cheesy book. But the actors portraying the characters had so much energy and talent; I was touched by all their performances. Maybe it’s because I found myself relating to soooo much of what was happening – I am a Hispanic male lest I try to forget – but I was crying a lot throughout the show. Very sweet and very fun. When the cast begins to dance in ensemble numbers such as “96,000” and the opening number “In the Heights,” it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on the stage – it’s electrifying. Kudos to Andy Blankenbuehler! And Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Latino infused score is nothing short of impressive.

Should have been nominated: Adding Machine
Now that is the best new musical of the season. Too bad it was Off-Broadway.

Best Play
August: Osage County
Rock ’n’ Roll
The Seafarer
The 39 Steps

I’m on board here with the rest of the English-speaking world (minus Ben Brantley; his choice is Rock ‘n’ Roll!) August was stupendous. Great writing, great directing, great acting… Everyone else has talked about this show and its uber greatness, so I’m gonna just gonna relax on this one and let you read the other blogs. But I will admit, The 39 Steps is the most enjoyable time I’ve had at a play all season long.

Should have been nominated: Meh… I’d say these were the best of the season.

Best Musical Revival
Grease
Gypsy
South Pacific
Sunday in the Park with George

You’ve heard me say it before, Sunday is absolutely brilliant. While South and Gypsy have their own beautiful merits, Sunday stood high above any production I saw this year. It was glorious. And mad props to David Farley and Timothy Bird & the Knifedge Creative Network for making the second act of the show a complete success. For once, the show was complete and didn’t suffer from a second act slump. The use of modern technology actually lifted the piece to even higher stakes. Already a masterful work of art, Sunday in the Park with George is now meaningful to the current state of the artistic world and has a lot to say. Brava!

Should have been nominated: Meh… Grease just shouldn’t have been nominated. Leave the category alone with just the best 3 revivals of all time to speak for themselves. By adding in Grease, the nominators have done nothing but allow the inherit badness of the show to be highlighted even more.

Best Play Revival
Boeing-Boeing
The Homecoming
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Macbeth

I adored this show. So cinematic in its staging, Macbeth remains one of the most powerful visual odysseys of a play that I have ever seen. Images from this production are the stuff of nightmares (Hollywood could learn a thing or two about horror from this production. Oooh, who’s gonna make me cream and do a movie version??? William Friedkin? Please say yes.). Oh and not to mention the best Macbeth you’ll probably ever see in Patrick Stewart. And trust me, Kate Fleetwood is an underrated gem as his trophy wife.

Should have been nominated: Top Girls and Cyrano de Bergerac. Sorely missed. Enough said.

Best Original Score
Cry-Baby, David Javerbaum & Adam Schlesinger
In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda
The Little Mermaid, Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, and Glenn Slater
Passing Strange, Stew and Heidi Rodewald

Injecting the Broadway stage with a dose of kinetic energy, Miranda catapulted the current state of music to the stratosphere on the Great White Way. In the Heights has its moments of blandness, but when it shines, it sparkles. The orchestra pit sounds like they are having as much fun as the actors on stage. Miranda’s lyrics are also genuinely smart (“Too darn hot!”) and are an homage to great shows from the past (“L’chaim!”) Stew’s contributions to Passing Strange can’t be overlooked, though. Two fantastic scores. Two fantastic shows.

Should have been nominated: Adding Machine’s Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt. The closest to Sondheim in recent years. Buy the album if you haven’t already!!!

Best Book of a Musical
Cry-Baby, Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan
In the Heights, Quiara Alegria Hudes
Passing Strange, Stew
Xanadu, Douglas Carter Beane

For me there’s no competition. Beane provided such a refreshing and hilarious take on the God-awful movie musical Xanadu and really made the show a success. There is no doubt that show would have bombed if it weren’t for Carter Beane. Now if only his damn viral campaign would just shut the hell up and stop annoying me. Runner up – Stew for his creative story telling in Passing Strange.

Should have been nominated: I’ll give you one guess… it begins with an 'A' and ends with a 'dding Machine.'

Best Actress (Musical)
Kerry Butler, Xanadu
Patti LuPone, Gypsy
Kelli O’Hara, South Pacific
Faith Prince, A Catered Affair
Jenna Russell, Sunday in the Park with George

Yes, Jenna Russell was remarkable. Yes, Kelli O’Hara brought life back into the ingénue. But it’s Mama Rose. And it’s Patti LuPone as Mama Rose. This is legendary. When you can honestly and without hesitation say that Ethel Merman’s claim to this role is forever diminished, you have something to savor. Perhaps the best actress to tackle the role (along with Angela Lansbury), Patti is a force of nature. And no one can act a song quite like she can. Her closing act numbers are a master class in nuanced breaking-downness. Never has “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” been so devastating. Congratulations Ms. LuPone. You will now live on forever.

Should have been nominated: I would have loved to have seen Mandy Gonzalez from In the Heights; but there’s only room for 5. Buy the album and enjoy her gorgeous voice in the song “Breathe.”

Best Actress (Play)
Eve Best, The Homecoming
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Kate Fleetwood, Macbeth
S. Epatha Merkerson, Come Back, Little Sheba
Amy Morton, August: Osage County

While Eve Best remains one of the best new talents to hit Broadway and Deanna Dunagan provides a definitive portrayal of a soon to be classic, my head bows to Kate Fleetwood as the power-hungry trophy wife of Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth. Providing a different take on the character, Fleetwood brings out the evil and humanity in a role too many have attempted (and failed). The best Lady Macbeth I have ever seen. She stands right up to Patrick Stewart and acts the hell out of herself, keeping up with the legendary actor. Her breakdown is second only to Patti LuPone’s in Gypsy. The use of her hands and walk throughout the show was inspiring to watch as an actor. I know she has her detractors, but when I look back at the season, this is the performance in a play that remains with me.

Should have been nominated: Elizabeth Marvel from Top Girls. Gosh, I wish this show would have been nominated for so much more.

Best Actor (Musical)
Daniel Evans, Sunday in the Park with George
Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights
Stew, Passing Strange
Paulo Szot, South Pacific
Tom Wopat, A Catered Affair

Daniel Evans is the only one of these performances that made me forget that I was watching an actor. I was immersed from the start with his portrayal of Georges Seurat and was transported to another world entirely in the second act as George. Never beore have the Georges been so empathetic. Never before have they been so driven. Never before have they brought such humility to a piece that some consider pretentious.

Should have been nominated: Cheyenne Jackson in Xanadu. At least just for his Cubby Bernstein and [title of show] show appearances.

Best Actor (Play)
Ben Daniels, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Laurence Fishburne, Thurgood
Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing
Rufus Sewell, Rock ‘n’ Roll
Patrick Stewart, Macbeth

Mark Rylance provided such a wonderful entertainment; however, Stewart is legendary. Ben Brantley says it better than I could ever hope to:

What makes this one a must-see is Mr. Stewart’s thrilling recognition that his character is as close kin to the fatally introspective Hamlet as he is to
power-wielding men of ill will like Richard III. His performance is the first I
have seen to realize completely what the scholar Harold Bloom means when he
calls this play “a tragedy of the imagination.”

Should have been nominated: Kevin Kline for Cyrano de Bergerac. I mean, come on!!! It’s Kevin Kline!!!

From here on out, I’m gonna try and keep my writing to a bare minimum. My boss is lurking in the dark corners of my office somewhere.

Best Featured Actress (Musical)
Laura Benanti, Gypsy: Her transformation from Louise to Gypsy Rose Lee is the first time it has ever worked for me in a near-perfect show.

Best Featured Actress (Play)
Laurie Metcalf, November: Best thing about the show.

Best Featured Actor (Musical)
Boyd Gaines, Gypsy: Daniel Breaker in Passing Strange is a close second, but Gaines helped to make Gypsy a production for the ages.

Best Featured Actor (Play)
Jim Norton, The Seafarer: My heart goes to Raúl Esparza, but I have to admit that Norton was the best.

Direction (Musical)
Sam Buntrock, Sunday in the Park with George: Yes Bartlett Sher provided an amazing presentation, but Buntrock made Sunday even more meaningful than ever.

Direction (Play)
Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County: Classic in the making.

Whoopi is set to host this year. Hopefully she'll bring in some entertainment to the already boring show.

The Best Musical Revivals of All Time???

The New York Times has a great piece today written by Ben Brantley about the 3 uber musical revivals this season. An excerpt:

It’s rare that the race for best revival of a musical is the sexiest category at the Tony Awards, which will be bestowed this year on June 15 at Radio City Music Hall. But what’s most striking about “South Pacific” (first staged on Broadway in 1949) “Gypsy” (1959) and “Sunday in the Park With George” (1984) is how much fuller and juicier they feel than any of the newer musical fare this season.

How true! These 3 productions were the best musical fare the season had to offer (along with Adding Machine, the only new musical this year that I thought was brilliant. Expect an album review shortly).

Looking back at a list of new productions this year, it's amazng to see there are 3 of the best musicals ever written playing down the street from one another. And what's more, all 3 productions of these musicals are perhaps the best versions I've ever seen of each. Since when have Broadway audiences been treated with so much wonderfulness? I'm sure if I research a bit, there are a few seasons that were just astronimcal in terms of great productions, but nothing springs to mind right off the bat.

Of the 3, Sunday was my favorite. I'm a bit biased though towards Sondheim's creations. But for me, this production was so innovative in its use of technology to foward the art of the material itself that it left me feeling excited about the possibilities of the new era of the musical theater. Minus big star names, it managed to utterly astound me. I only hope that it drew in new crowds of people so they could experience one of the great literary and musical works of all time.

Not to take anything away from the South Pacific and Gypsy, though. The best thing about both of these shows is their direction and superb casts.


Ben Brantley goes onto mention a few other noteworthy musical revivals over the years (Carousel, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd) that he feels were great but for different reasons than the current crop of South Pacific, Gypsy, and Sunday. However, while I loved John Doyle's teeny Sweeney, I still prefer the original. Teeny Sweeney acts as a companion peice to the original production - taking its directorial cues from oustide the source material. It still remains one of my favorite revivals and interpretations of all time, but like Brantley says, these new produtions of Gypsy, South, and Sunday, reach within the text and create fresh mountings out of older shows, further highlighting the strengths of the resepctive source material itself.

It's all very exciting for me! I'm a nerd when it comes to "great art." Of the three shows (once again, each classic masterpieces), South Pacific has the weakest material. Of course this is all relative. However, it overwhelmingly has the some of the best production values to ever grace the Broadway stage. And most people seem to think it's the best of the lot and will win at this year's Tony Awards.

Gypsy provides a legendary performance under the direction of a legendary writer/director. Patti LuPone has taken Ethel Merman's claim to Mama Rose for herself. For me, she is the definitive Rose. And her supporting actors are the definitive cast of Gypsy. By keeping the focus on Rose and keeping that what revolves around her just as magical, director Arthur Laurents showcases the strength of his and Sondheim's own work. As good as Patti is, Boyd Gaines as Herbie and Laura Benanti as Louise are just as superb. It elevates an already classic show to a truly powerful, masterpiece for the ages.


All in all, what a year for classic shows. I only hope the trend continues throughout the following seasons. Broadway goers, relish in this time. It may be a while before we are so lucky again.

Thoughts on your favorite revivals? What was your favorite of the three? Am I full of shit? Let me know.
All photos by Sara Krulwich.