May 28, 2006

More Reflections on the 2006 Broadway Season

May 28th, 2006

With the Tony Awards only two weeks away, in a special to the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Pacheco reflects on the Broadway musicals. Pacheco says, whatever their merits, three of the nominees for the best musical Tony — The Drowsy Chaperone, The Wedding Singer, and Jersey Boys– are in line with the light fare that has been dominant since the 2001 season when Mamma Mia! and The Producers ushered in a new era of musical comedy and jukebox musicals. Even the fourth nominee, The Color Purple, based on the gritty Alice Walker novel and tamer Steven Spielberg film, chose to emphasize the brighter hues of the story — and was rewarded with 11 nominations and grosses of nearly $1 million a week, with the aid of lead presenter Oprah Winfrey.

Indeed, looking at the landscape of jukebox musicals (Jersey Boys), cartoons (Tarzan), self-referential pastiche (Drowsy Chaperone), and those based on thinly plotted movies (Wedding Singer), one has to wonder if Broadway has forsaken a musical tradition that has in the past yielded such classics as Carousel, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret and Sweeney Todd — story-driven shows with complicated characters. “My oh my, we are a long, long way from Guys and Dolls, says John Heilpern, theater critic of the New York Observer. “As much as I admired Jersey Boys and The Drowsy Chaperone, I’m beginning to wonder if there is any room for genuine sentiment and, dare I say it, romance in the Broadway musical.”

Yet as bleak as some critics may paint the musical’s future — and they’ve been doing so for decades — there appears to be little hand-wringing these days among Broadway’s cognoscenti. For one, several pockets are being lined by the boffo box office; two, as Heilpern pointed out, there is real admiration for the skill and savvy poured into the two leading contenders for the best musical Tony: Jersey Boys, which is up for eight awards, and Drowsy Chaperone (with 13 nods), a frothy confection in which a sad-sack theater queen shares his passion for a silly ’20s musical that magically comes to life in his drab New York apartment. Finally there is a cautious optimism that a rising tide will lift all boats, including bold efforts to push against the boundaries of the form.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI

Please leave a comment