It is one of the greatest regrets of my theatregoing career that I managed to miss the one-night run of Oscar Wilde – the Musical when it came and went from the Shaw Theatre in the space of one October night in 2004. I was in New York at the time, so it passed me by; but in what sounds like a uniquely jinxed opening (and closing) night, the sound itself was partly to blame – according to The Guardian review at the time, “You begin to wonder whether the sound system is being affected by the hefty rumbling of Oscar Wilde turning in his grave.”
Call me morbid, but I love to ambulance-chase dying musicals on their way to the graveyard (I even went to the final matinee of Desperately Seeking Susan to see it once again before it shut shop, just so I could lock it into my memory forever). I am always delighted to be able to say that I saw Carrie both at Stratford-upon-Avon and in its short-lived Broadway incarnation, for which it has become a by-word in musical flops – musical theatre historian Ken Mandelbaum even named his tome about flop musicals “Not Since Carrie”.
But now, having missed Oscar Wilde in London, I may at least get a chance to see it in New York.
According to a report in the Evening Standard, its creator Mike Read is now “set to resurrect the musical with an all-American cast for a run off-Broadway.” According to the story, a successful reading was held last month at York Theatre, and they are now negotiating a start date. According to Read, “The showcase really worked. The audience, which included Broadway writers and producers, clearly loved the show. They were raving about it, comparing the songs to those by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In fact, one lady involved in New York theatre liked it so much that she invited all the cast back to her penthouse suite for drinks afterwards. I was left thinking, ‘We’ve got a hit on our hands here’.”
Of course, musicals are workshopped in New York every minute of every day, it sometimes seems, and few lead to full productions. But if this one does, at least it will give us a chance to see it in the cold light of day, without the problems that apparently attended its London premiere: if in doubt, always blame the theatre, and Read rehearses this well-practiced line. “The Shaw Theatre was an unmitigated disaster. Had we staged it at any proper theatre, West End or otherwise, it would have worked. Indeed, Oscar had previously been well-received at The Old Fire Station in Oxford and The King’s Head in Islington. It was hard to find and contact, and they didn’t have a website. They were utterly ill-prepared and ruined our chances on press night. They’d had someone in the day before who’d totally wrecked our delicate sound balance, so none of the actors could hear anything.”
Read clearly refuses to accept the possibility that his production may have been ill-prepared, but never mind. No one seems to have difficulty finding the Shaw when they actually want to go there, as witness the current success of the Feinstein’s at the Shaw cabaret season. But at the same time, it is true that nothing deflates a theatrical experience quite like a badly-run theatre, and though I counted the names of some 14 individual producers that it has taken to put the off-Broadway musical Make Me a Song into what is London’s only commercially available off-West End theatre, the New Players, it takes just one dodgy experience at the theatre to undermine all their efforts.
My attempt to collect press seats to see and review the show last Friday showed what an amateur affair the theatre itself is. The box office claimed not to have received a ticket request for me from the show’s press agent, but instead of simply sorting it out, merely suggested that I called him to do so myself. Since its not possible to get a mobile phone signal in the vault-like reaches underneath the Arches, I had to go out to Villiers Street to make the call; but the PR’s phone was off, as it had been earlier in the day when I had also tried to contact him. I had to return to the theatre and find the theatre manager instead, which is what the box office person should have done all along.
But it only, of course, takes a hit to turn a theatre’s fortunes around, in every sense. The New London, opened in 1973, never had a hit until Cats came calling in 1981 – and then stayed put for 21 years. And now that Hairspray has taken up residence at the Shaftesbury, Michael Ball said in his acceptance speech for the Best Actor in a Musical Award at Sunday’s Oliviers that “one of the best things about doing Hairspray is watching the Shaftesbury Theatre come to back to life. The last hit they had was Hair - it’s kind of quirky, that.”
Actually, They’re Playing Our Song ran there for some 19 months after opening in 1980, and Follies ran for the same length of time after opening in 1987. The original production of Rent, imported from Broadway in 1998, ran for 17 months there. But it’s true that the Shaftesbury was indeed long regarded as a musical theatre graveyard – think of Out of the Blue (a musical about Nagasaki that bombed, so to speak, so fast that it quickly became rebudded “A flash in Japan”) in 1994, two dreadful biographical musicals Lautrec (that was pure drek in 2000) and Napoleon (the musical that justifiably suffered a Napoleon complex, also in 2000), The Far Pavilions (2005) and of course Daddy Cool (2006) to name a few of its more notorious tenants.
It's good to see that the New Players box office staff are equal opportunity when it comes to being rude and unhelpful. Now to get something done about it.
Ambulance chasers are despicable creatures at the best of times. Shenton clearly has no idea of the immense "against the odds" efforts it takes to stage a musical. There are a myriad factors that can influence whether or not a show has a long run, besides the quality of the show itself. Never forget that Cameron Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber had some disasters before eventually winning through. The odds are stacked massively against new producers, so we should applaud their efforts and support them rather than constantly taunt them with whatever early errors they may make.
No idea? A work-aholic like Shenton?! Get a grip, for goodness sake! This man will travel the world to the opening of a cabaret! I find the concept that Shenton 'has no idea' of 'the efforts to stage a musical' unbelievable. I have known him get through 6 bottles of work-ahol in an afternoon!
Equally unbelievable is the idea that below-the-par tosh reaches the West End with millions behind it before any one of the 12 producers turns around and considers whether it is any good.
Indeed, Paul. O&U, sometimes the reason a show fails is that it actually is crap. Audiences don't pay up to £60 a head or more to appreciate effort alone, still less when it's misplaced. There is no Get Out Of Jail Free card for a show that goes down.
Read's musical was given a reading at the York Theatre in New York as part of their regular reading series of new musicals. It's not difficult to get a slot in the reading series and there have been some rather questionable entries along with promising shows (Avenue Q was first seen as a York Theatre reading). The Artistic Director of the York, Jim Morgan, made it clear that, contrary to reports in the UK press, Oscar is not "in rehearsals" at the York nor is any production of it planned at the York. If some producer is "excited" as Read suggests, it isn't the York.