Talking Back

I'm writing from the gorgeous Caribbean island of Grenada, where I'm visiting my boyfriend who's here for medical school.  Most of the past two days have been spent on campus, which has been great for me because it means I'm getting writing done while he's studying (although admittedly, I haven't been all that productive so far, but I don't leave until Friday and it's only Tuesday, and I've been working like crazy since early July, so this is my vacation, dammit).  

Anyway, I want to talk about this encouraging NYT article on post-show talkbacks.  Like the author of the article, I'm not sure how effective a marketing strategy talkbacks are--I doubt someone who wasn't interesting in seeing Oleanna, say, rushed out to buy tickets once the talkbacks were announced--but I think they're an immensely powerful tool in getting people to think about theatre in an immediate, personal way.  During my college years in Boston, I went to a fair number of talkbacks, including one with Jason Robert Brown after the Speakeasy's production of The Last Five Years and ones after each reading in the Huntington's new play festival, Breaking Ground.  Boston theatre is very, very good about talkbacks, even though they have varying results.  There were definitely times where I found the audience's questions--or pronouncements, as was often the case--frustrating, but overall, I'm glad talkbacks are such a part of the Boston theatre scene, and I'd love for New York theatre to follow suit. 

One of the amazing and valuable things about theatre in general and Broadway in particular is its accessibility.  I didn't grow up watching very much TV or movies, and there are still huge gaps in my pop culture education, to the point where I don't know who the majority of movie and television stars are or what they've been in.  Consequently, I don't really understand idolizing film and TV actors, especially since I'm so used to theatre, where you can see the cast of the show you just saw on the subway on your way home.  But even TV and film stars, who are usually separated from the public by a lens or a bodyguard or the glossy pages of a magazine, are accessible onstage.  There's something special about being in the same room as an actor, about breathing the same air and watching them go through those emotions in real time, right in front of you.  

Talkbacks take things a step further by making not only the actors accessible, but the material, as well.  To stick with the Oleanna example, having experts in fields relevant to the play's subject matter clearly states that the the issues in the play are rooted in the real world.  Moreover--and more importantly--being able to share their opinions with experts validates the audiences' reaction to the play and directly makes them a part of the action.  A lively post-show discussion rife with disagreements and even tension makes the audience more invested in the characters than they may otherwise be, and forces everyone to think more about why they had the reactions they did.  I'm not sure that people are necessarily used to discussing theatre and movies on their way home, or that a lot of people are all that comfortable arguing about what they'd seen.  Some works lend themselves more to post-show discussions, certainly, but I'm hoping talkbacks help create an environment where thinking critically about what you just saw and talking about it becomes the norm for something like Shrek or Julia & Julie (both of which I think are significantly smarter than they're given credit for) in addition to intense works like Oleanna or District 9.  There's always something to say about a story, and every reaction is worth examining and defending.  I don't think any creative experience is really complete without that.  

Just When You'd Thought They'd Gone...

Playbill.com has just announced that the West End revival of La Cage aux Folles that originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory is moving to Broadway in spring of 2010.

I'm thrilled for the Chocolate Factory. I saw their production of tick, tick...BOOM! (with Neil Patrick Harris as Jonathan!) back in June 2005, when nobody had even heard of them. I don't remember how I'd heard about the production since the Chocolate Factory was in its initial season, and since I knew nothing about it, I didn't know what to expect. But since I loved both the show and Neil Patrick Harris (his version of "If You Can Find Me, I'm Here" off The Frogs/Evening Primrose recording had me sold), I figured it was worth the risk. Clearly, it was, since the Chocolate Factory has been having success after success with its musicals--the most notable being its Olivier and Tony Award winning revival of Sunday in the Park with George. In the past few seasons, the theatre has joined the Donmar in providing an intimate space for musicals that aren't exactly commerical hits--something that, in my experience there, London needs.

Consequently, I'm excited that yet another Menier musical is not only on the West End, but is moving to Broadway. But does it have to be a show whose last Broadway revival was five years ago?

I'm worried that the recent success of the 2008 Gypsy revival has set an unhealthy precedent. Since I'd missed the Encores! production the summer of 2007, I was desperate to see Patti LuPone and Laura Benanti's takes on the show, and was ecstatic upon hearing it was getting a Broadway run. Sure, there'd been the revival with Bernadette Peters in 2003, but that was a different production with a different director and a different star. And it was GYPSY. Come on. Who doesn't want that show constantly playing somewhere in New York? I hadn't gotten hooked on musicals until fall of 2003, so while I'd seen that Gypsy revival twice, I'd been too busy catching up on other shows to see it more than that, and I'm not sure how much I'd fully appreciated it, anyway. The Patti Gypsy was my chance to make up for that.

I wasn't too upset with Les Miserables coming back to Broadway a mere three years after the original production closed, either. I like the show well enough; it's got some thrilling moments, and I can understand why it appeals so strongly to so many people (though I'm not one of them). It's not anything I'd go out of my way to see, and even if it was, reviving a show three years after the original production closed is ridiculous any way you look at it. Especially when the show in question originally ran for sixteen years.

But it was easy to justify even this revival. For one thing, it was a limited run of a touring production--not an open-ended run of an entirely new one--and my understanding is that it was filling a house that would have been dark otherwise (correct me if I'm wrong) until the next scheduled tenant moved in. Granted, the revival did extend multiple times if I remember correctly, but it always had an end date in sight.

The other thing about the Les Miz revival was the cast. With Norm Lewis as Javert, Alex Gemignani as Valjean, Daphne Rubin-Vega as Fantine and Celia Keenan-Bolger's Eponine, it was a theatre queen's dream. Daphne and Celia were particularly fascinating. Daphne because her portrayal of Fantine was the rawest I'd ever heard or seen, with her "I Dreamed A Dream" so jagged you knew life had broken this woman beyond repair; Celia because her Eponine revealed in the romantic fantasty she had to actively remind herself was a lie. It's hard to complain with a cast like that.

This 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles, however, doesn't have any of those factors, so it's difficult to see what the point is. I'm sure the West End production deserves to be on Broadway, but I don't see a reason for bringing it over so soon--if at all.

These sorts of things are tricky for me, because I can be far more forgiving when it's a show I love. Or, in the case of Les Miz, when there are cast members I love. When it's a show I don't like, don't care about, or don't know, that's when I can look at an issue without adding "...but...it's [insert show obsession here]." I try as a general rule to think about how I'd feel if weren't Gypsy, if it weren't Norm Lewis in Les Miz.

Now I'm forced into objectivity with La Cage, and I have to say I'd rather forgo Patti!Gypsy than have Broadway houses filled with boomerang shows--or worse, boomerang revivals. I feel very strongly about revivals, especially ones that re-interpret the material in some way; that's how you keep older shows from becoming museum pieces, and how you help a modern audience connect to a world that might otherwise seem dated and foreign. But you need distance from a piece to get something new out of it. That's why I can go for years without listening to my favorite recordings, and why I need to take breaks from the shows I write. If something becomes too familiar, it stops becoming a challenging, living reflection of its audience, and starts becoming comfort food.

That's not good for audiences, and it's not good for Broadway--or for musical theatre as a whole. Longer running shows mean fewer empty houses, and that means fewer new shows. When you can extend a show's life by bringing it back within five years--within a decade--you cut the number of new shows that can open in a given season down even more. That type of environment also discourages a culture of risk-taking; why bring in unknown work when you can bring in a show that's extremely fresh in the audience's memory? There's enough of that going on as it is.

I hope the La Cage revival is nothing like the 2004 revival. I hope it changes how people look at the piece, and I hope it brings even more acclaim (and money!) to the Menier Chocolate Factory. But I also hope boomerang shows don't become a trend.