As the Broadway strike continues to halt proceedings at 27 Broadway houses, displaced audiences – and even critics – have to look elsewhere. And that includes me: I head off to New York this morning (hence the early hour of this posting!). Charles Isherwood, the number two theatre critic of the New York Times, handily addresses precisely my problem in the paper today: “The impact on the ever-fragile theatrical economy has been much discussed, as has the larger influences on businesses that benefit from the thousands of theatergoers who flood Midtown before and after shows. But the trauma inflicted on a very small but, in my biased view, hardly worthless demographic has gone sadly unremarked upon. No one has probed the painful effects of the strike on, oh, a full dozen or so of our city’s citizens: theater critics. What are the suddenly idle Addison DeWitts doing with all the spare time they have on their hands? How are we poor souls managing to fill the lonely hours when we are not sitting in darkened theaters or thinking up soul-crushing things to say about people?”
Charles may be wittily demonstrating a kind of pathological narcissism, as my good friend Dr Barbra would say. She’s a psychotherapist who occasionally posts replies here – and leads her to think that this blog is all about her, proving herself to be a fellow sufferer of the syndrome.
But Charles also offers a personally revealing study in what some of his other interests might be: of a tapesty exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for instance, he comments, “The gigantism that is something of a blight but occasionally a guilty pleasure of the Broadway musical is matched, if not bettered, by the sheer size, scale and grandeur of these big glorious rugs. No, they don’t sing, but on the plus side that means they’re not overmiked either.”
He also gets in a sly dig at Tom Stoppard, saying that he plans to “take advantageof the many hours I won’t be spending watching, say, a Tom Stoppard play, by immersing myself once again in one of my favourite television series, the almost unfathomably wonderful Friday Night Lights”. (Given how little TV I watch in London, perhaps I need a West End strike to find out what it’s all about). You can also, he says, go organic food shopping at Trader Joe’s on 14th Street near Union Square (conveniently close to where I’ll be staying, in fact; thanks for the tip), or drink (I don’t, so that will have to pass me by!). He also recommends an opera (Bryn Terfel in The Marriage of Figaro at the Met is indeed an enticing prospect), a ballet (Balanchine’s The Nutcracker at New York City Ballet), or cabaret. Of the latter, he recommends Chita Rivera, making a rare nightclub appearance at Feinstein’s at the Regency: he says that Rivera, “a vibrantly ageless 74, is, like Barbara Cook, one of the last living embodiments of the golden age of musical theatre who continues to perform”. She is heading to London’s Shaw Theatre for just three nights in February, after a West End season planned for September was aborted by its American producer when funding fell through; but I am indeed planning on seeing her at Feinstein’s on Friday evening – and will be having lunch with her next week to profile her again, too, so the trip is already worthwhile for that alone (I previously interviewed her when she came to do a stint in the London production of Chicago in 1999).
I’ve sadly just missed Cook’s 80th birthday concert at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center on Monday and Tuesday, but I’ll be back in London in time for her appearance at the London Coliseum on December 2 — and, if Stephen Holden’s review in today’s New York Times is anything to go by, should be as unmissable as Cook’s appearances always are. “The concert found this Broadway lyric soprano not only alive and kicking but in great voice and the best physical shape (trimmer, walking without support and breathing easily) than I’ve seen her in many years,” reports Holden. Referring to her interpretation of “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”, he says that she “peered deep into the song and found more than a clever, sprightly ad for positive thinking. Punching out Johnny Mercer’s lyrics, she took the song to emotional boot camp.” He concludes his review by remarking, “That may be a place you have to visit before arriving at the plateau where Ms Cook stood on Monday: a transcendent American voice sharing the wisdom she has gained in 80 well-lived years with a tenderness and honesty that could break your heart and mend it all at once.” So if you’ve not got your tickets for the Coli yet, click here at once.
But even if most of Broadway is still closed for business, extracts from several shows (including Mary Poppins, Young Frankenstein and Xanadu, none of them handily affected by the strike) will be showcased in tomorrow’s nationally televised Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade celebrations. The company of Legally Blonde, however, will have to do so out of costume, as to retrieve those from their theatre would require them to cross the picket line; but even if you can’t see the show at the moment at the theatre, it will also be possible to catch a repeat tomorrow of the televised version of the stage production on MTV. Since Broadway will coming to my living room, perhaps I won’t need to leave the apartment.
The strike is far more serious than we have been led to believe.
Maggie Wirth - barbeque-voiced empress of legendary Greenwich Village spit and sawdust singalong showtune bar Marie's Crisis - was spotted last night singing Fran Landesman songs quietly in a corner of the Groucho Club with Rod the club's irreproachable resident pianist.
It has not escaped Maggie's notice that there is nowhere in London for a boy to go for a Jack Daniels and Sondheim after the show.
Maggie has been threatening to visit London for at least ten years. The strike has, at last, driven her here.
Her passport expires soon. Renewal might mean London's colossal gain and New York's terrible loss.
there was a lot of anger among downtown theatre artists about this article. isherwood missed a great opportunity to use this space to tell people about plays they wouldn't usually hear about, and instead he waffles about trader joe's. sad.