Arriving in New York last night, I discover its Fleet Week, the annual celebration of the sea services that brings thousands of sailors, marines and coast guardsmen from the US Navy, US Coast Guard and international navy ships to town, that makes it feel like there’s a revival of On the Town playing in every Times Square theatre. New York, New York – as Chip, Gabbey and Ozzie know – is a hulluva town, and they’ve got just 24 hours to explore it.
I’ve not got much more myself this time, but I arrive to the news that just as Fleet Week has come to town, Lestat is leaving it. After a run of just 39 performances, it will close at Broadway’s Palace Theatre on Sunday, May 29: Elton John’s first big Broadway flop. As I blogged here before, the show was in deep trouble during its out-of-town try-out in San Francisco last December, but the producers – Warner Brothers, trying to follow the Disney lead of turning their film portfolio into stage musicals and making their first incursion into theatre – carried on anyway.
It’s been a brutal learning curve, but Warner’s Theatre division vice-president Gregg Maday (whom I previously heard referred to in the midst of the troubled previews as “appropriately named”), sounds undaunted: “We have learned a great deal during this process and remain committed to producing exciting projects for the Broadway stage, adapted from our deep, rich library “
A fascinating feature in yesterday’s Guardian by Mark Lawson spoke of how brand names – whether of titles, producers or star names – have rendered reviews redundant in films, books and even theatre. He refers to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code – a publishing and now cinematic phenomenon – and says it “raises the question of whether printed and broadcast opinion matters at all. Has our culture created a sort of genetically modified turkey – the critic-proof product?”
Lestat, genetically modified or not, was a turkey through and through; not even brand-recognition – the Elton John/Anne Rice axis – could save it; but as Lawson points out, “there is increasing evidence that the Dan Brown curse is extending beyond cinema to the notebook-holding folk at the end of the row. We Will Rock You, the Ben Elton musical based around the songs of Queen, is still running five years after it was rudely rebuked by reviewers. Julia Robert’s current Broadway performance in Three Days of Rain met thumbs jabbed down, but the opinions were pointless; the show had sold out months before opening. Madonna’s West End debut in David Williamson’s Up for Grabs was a similar experience, with touts selling tickets for a show reviewers insisted no one should see.The reason that such shows become criticproof is economic: at best, 40-60,000 tickets might be available for a short theatre run by a major star and an audience of that size is available regardless of one person’s judgment of its dramatic worth. As for We Will Rock You, musicals have always done better at generating greenbacks than newsprint. And, of course, the show’s music was also already well-known. Indeed, all of the works that have proved commercially immune to derisive reviewers - The Da Vinci Code movie, Julia Roberts and Madonna on stage, the Queen musical in the West End - have one factor in common: an element - title, actor, songs - that was already exceptionally well-known.”
That may have been enough to save Queen, but not Elton; right now, all eyes are on how Tarzan – a stage version of Disney’s animated cartoon – will fare, after some hostile notices and only a solitary Tony nomination. The Disney, Tarzan and Phil Collins axis give it triple marketing might in terms of recognition factors. I previously blogged about seeing its first preview, but catching up with it again last night now that it has officially opened, I found a far more confident, coherent (and much shorter) show, that delivers on each of those factors to its audience. It may not be a great stage musical; but it’s a highly effective one, and – as you’d expect from designer Bob Crowley (who also directs for the first time on Broadway) – a stunning visual sense that, within minutes of starting, offers a startling underwater drowning and a perspective of being washed up on the beach from above that is amazingly effective. In design terms, at least, it should have been recognized by the Tony Awards. It doesn’t do anyone any favours to be so snobbish about crowd-pleasing musicals that Disney – now Broadway’s pre-eminent musical provider, with three shows currently playing there – are so adept at providing.
