Musical Theater! Is it Dead? Should We Kill It?

Musicals are a funny thing.  Some people consider them to high culture entertainment others, the tacky trash of stage medium.  Yes,  there are a great many varying opinions on the quality of entertainment found on the Great White Way, I find it is best judged on a case by case basis.  Or, at least broken down into smaller groups so we can easily determine what should be celebrated and what should be stopped at all costs.

Big Boy's Game?

For about a decade now the popular wisdom regarding Broadway shows is that you need to have name attached at some level in order to be a success.  Whether it is a proven star, producer, or writer if you're trying to put on a show with a bunch of nobodies you might as well schedule the closing date at the same time you do your opening night.  

There are certainly plenty of examples to back this wisdom up. But, shows that received critical acclaim and were awarded with early closes are nothing new.  The same goes for shows that find success thanks in no small part to having a big name attached or popular source material.

Going back decades, The King and I, West Side Story, My Fair Lady are all based on pre-existing material.  Sure it is tough to get smaller productions onto Broadway and onto Broadway for a long time, but that has always been rare.

Money, Money, Money!

Well, its been 2 years, time for another revival of Les Miserables.

The two things that have truly changed about Broadway in the last 10-15 years are extra-long running productions and the revival.  The latter is pretty obviously going to become more common as years go by.  The more big shows there are, the more revivals there are going to be down the line.

When it comes to the Broadway mega-show that lasts and lasts (ala, Lion King, Wicked, and Phantom of the Opera) these productions are the only truly new thing about Broadway.  Of the 10 longest running Broadway productions only ONE closed before 1990 (Oh, Calcutta) and four are still running.  Breaking 1,000 performances on Broadway used to mean your show was a smash hit, now if you don't reach 1,000 many would consider it a failure.

The longest running Rogers and Hammerstein show of all time, Oklahoma!'s 2,212 performances is only good enough for #29 on the all-time list.

This new reality ultimately means less theaters for shows to play if they are tied up in longer engagements.  In spite of this, however, the number of new shows released onto Broadway every year hasn't tailed off much.  This means slightly higher turnover between shows.  This turnover gives the appearance of a lower success rate, but in fact, the exact opposite is true with shows running longer and making more money than ever.

I, for one, have never been a fan of the big "Disney" productions like Wicked or Mamma Mia but just because they're watered down and safe doesn't mean they're destroying Broadway.

Broadway is at its best when it is doing something you can't see someplace else.  This, of course, is a big reason why the returns are so greatly diminished when a classic Broadway show is transposed to another medium (cough*The Producers*cough).

Theater has always been a medium for intimacyy and that intimacy is lost when you pack a theater with 3,000 people to watch Idina Menzel fly around in green makeup.

Adele Dazeem filling in for Idina Menzel.

But you know what, maybe, MAYBE the success of big shows like Wicked help producers make the money to put out the lesser known shows that sometimes turn into greats like Avenue Q (which actually beat out Wicked for the Best Musical Tony).  Maybe, without one we couldn't have the other.

It's not always what we want, but it might just be what we need.  Don't worry about Broadway, it's doing just fine.

Actually, nevermind, screw Wicked.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

The ever rare theater review.

I had seen ads for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson all over the manhattan subways all Fall.  I hadn't heard much about it and I didn't really have an opinion on it except that the tag line "History just got all sexy pants" made me smile, and the label of "The Emo History Lesson", made me cringe.  I saw a few short ads on TV for it and was colored unimpressed.

I don't want to sound like I'm someone who thinks they're too intellectually advanced for Musical Theater (like more roommates, for example), on the contrary, I am a big fan of a lot of musical theater.  I was frequently in musicals during high school and college.  I even prefer seeing a musical over most other plays.

The term "emo", however, I'm a little prejudiced towards.

Then, recently, I saw an article mentioning that BBAJ was already set to close after New Years despite overwhelmingly good reviews.  Peaked by the extremely positive reviews by critics everywhere from Rolling Stone to The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal, and maybe a little curious because I might occasionally listen to emo-rock as a guilty pleasure, I decided to check out the show this past week.

After giving it a day to digest, I can say, if there is only one thing you can spend $40-$120 before Jan. 2nd, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson should be that thing.

There was a lot of awesome in this show.

The show gives a great first impression before it even starts.  The theater is decorated with tons of red christmas lights and ornate lighting fixtures (also with red lights), accented with paintings of historical figures form the early 19th century and full size casts of alligators on the wall, deer heads along the top of the stage, and a cow: hog-tied from the ceiling.  It was like a sort of red-neck macabre.  Very cool.

The entire time, sitting waiting for the show to start, they were blaring alternating Spoon with Tegan and Sara songs over the PA system.  Two bands I happen to enjoy listening to even when I'm not in a theater.  Very cool.

Then the show actually started.

BBAJ is a biography of the life of Andrew Jackson, after a fashion.  It would best be described as a satiric historical fiction.  Andrew Jackson as a rock star.  Riding a wave of fans into Washington to oust a bunch of out of touch elitists.  The show takes more than a few liberties with exact historical accuracy but the story is fast paced, extremely funny, interesting, entertaining, and very, very cool.

This was the first show I think I've ever seen on Broadway with the entire original cast intact (no understudies) and they were all very good.  Lucas Near-Verbrugghe was especially hilarious as an effeminate Martin Van Buren.  There really were so many good scenes and performances I'm not going to try to go through them all because it would just take way too long.

The music is used more as a tool to comment on or explain the goings on in the story than it is to get at the audience emotionally, more in the vain of a Urinetown than a Wicked, but it is very well done in its own right and you will occasionally find yourself thinking "Wow, I almost didn't notice with all that's going on up there, but this song is actually really good!" a few times throughout the show.

And I loved how the "orchestra" was a three-piece punk band on the stage, frequently joined by members of the cast on guitars.

These guys were he-laaar-ious

The most impressive thing about the show was how well it stuck to its surprisingly complex political message.  Perhaps this was my prejudice, but I really wasn't expecting so much depth from a show where the main musical refrain was: "Populism, yea, yea!" 

At first, it is hard to figure out which political party or politician the BBAJ is taking aim at.  There are a few not so subtle shots at George W. Bush, and it is pretty easy to connect the dots to Sarah Palin at several moments, but there is also some pretty clear criticism, if not of Barack Obama himself, then definitely of some of his more vocal supporters.  

Then, it dawns on you: they aren't so much lampooning politicians, as they are criticizing the willful ignorance of the American people, the nature of the political machine, and the failure of either to mature since the early 1800s.

BBAJ nails anyone who ever voted for someone just because they thought they were "cool", or thought "I'd like to have a beer with that candidate" firmly to the wall.  Because while it is fun and easy to vote for someone who reminds you of yourself (not to mention an ego trip), you might want to think about it first, because you probably don't know much about how to run a country.  

So, maybe you should try to learn something about the issues (and not just learn more of what you want to hear) before you hit up the polls next time, instead of just voting for someone because "hey man, we should be able to make socialism work" or their daughter "danced" on a prime time network TV show.  Being president is a really hard job, and it takes a lot of intelligence, patience, tact to be good at.  Not just charisma.

I'd like to think it wasn't the case, but both sides of the political aisle are filled with people who are selfish and spoiled and end up convincing themselves that what ever they want, is what the country should do, rather than the other way around (because, hey, it's like, really hard to understand some of that healthcare shit, okay?).

It's almost like, the adolescent attitude of the music and the show was an allegory for the American people.  Woah, mind. blown.

I don't want to over sell the show too much.  The humor at times is a little sophomoric and the frenetic pacing sacrifices some character development and doesn't afford the audience much of a chance to take in the more tender moments of the show (though, they are few).  Although there are several catchy and memorable tunes, I wouldn't say any really qualify as a show stopper.  Still, the great far outweighs the good and makes the not-so-good seem nonexistent in this show.

An amazing show more than worth your time and money.  It is a shame to see it closing so soon.  Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, you are outstandingly underrated, and gone too soon.  We hardly knew ye.