Only the other day I wrote here about how there’s a line in the new Broadway musical 13, set in Appleton, Indiana, that has one of the kids there referencing the fact that there’s a Broadway musical version of Shrek on the way. As one reader perceptively replied, “The Shrek line in 13 is totally out of place. Kids in rural Indiana, no matter how sophisticated, aren’t going to know or care about the fact that Shrek is becoming a Broadway musical. It’s that kind of self-referential ‘in’ joke that is part of the problem with Broadway musicals. The fans (and I’m one of them) love getting these jokes but what do outsiders make of them? I’ll tell you — nothing. They just don’t get it. Now one ‘in’ joke does not kill a show or an entire genre - but the cumulative effect of all these things is to alienate the audience.”
I’ve reflected here before that “After the age of the megamusical that was patented in London with shows like The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon, we’re now in the era of the meta-musical, as epitomised by The Producers, Spamalot and The Drowsy Chaperone - shows about shows (sometimes, in turn, about shows), in which the fourth wall regularly comes tumbling down and the actors frequently address the audience.”
I wrote that back in May 2007, and since then we’ve seen a show called [title of show], a show about writing a musical that is aiming for Broadway, come - and quickly go from there, though it had an earlier successful off-Broadway run. But even if it was apparently cheap to run - with a cast of just four, including the two authors - you have to ask what its producers were thinking: how did they imagine that this self-referential show, already seen and loved amongst its aficionados, could possibly cross over to a wider audience to sustain a longer run in a large Broadway house?
And I felt much the same impulse last night as I watched another tiny show, What’s That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling, about the writing of musicals - in this case, bad ones - move from a run at Atlantic Theatre Company’s Studio 2, where it premiered in September, to the theatrical multiplex of New World Stages, behind Worldwide Plaza on 8th Avenue. Never mind the popular audience being alienated by this kind of show - a couple seated in the front row last night were quite palpably uncomfortable, fiddling with their coats and exchanging comments until they finally fled the theatre early - but so was I, and I love musicals…. and especially bad ones, which I love to collect.
But bad musicals are, Springtime for Hitler aside, born accidentally, not made intentionally. And this one-joke show about repeatedly writing bad shows wears desperately thin very quickly. There’s quite enough bad ones around already (Zorro and Rue Magique in London, for instance, and A Tale of Two Cities, which closed last Sunday, here on Broadway) without having to create a songbook collection around fake ones.
Yet there’s also a weird kind of critical conspiracy where - ever eager to knock bad shows off the pedestals of their misconceived ambitions - this one that aims deliberately low was strangely applauded. In his review of the Atlantic run, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood turned the whole phenomenon on its head: A season of new musicals looms before us, rich in promise and — let’s admit it — perhaps just a little menace. Soon men and women will be swanning across stages on Broadway and off, bursting into new song as emotion overflows their hearts. There will be good news and bad, songfests to celebrate and to regret, unexpected triumphs and bitter disappointments.” The anticipation of failure - and even the hope for it is - is palpable.
And he finds those hopes fully realised here in taking paradoxical pleasure in the bad: as he goes on to say, “But I’m pretty sure the jackals who cherish a big Broadway bomb will find nothing to match the rapturously awful songs of the composer-lyricist who serenades us with throbbing intensity in the ingenious new show What’s That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling. As Jacob launches earnestly into the signature aria from his unproduced musical adaptation of the Goldie Hawn movie Private Benjamin, it becomes blazingly clear that we are witnessing a master at work. A master of the maladroit lyric, the ludicrous image and all-encompassing bad taste, that is. By rapturously awful songs I should make it clear that I really mean indescribably wonderful songs. For connoisseurs of atrocious musical theater — and/or whip-smart satire — the fictional Jacob Sterling is a godsend to be eternally grateful for.”
Surely, though, great musical theatre is what we should be eternally grateful for, not knock-off imitations of bad musicals. And it occurs to me that the genre is ultimately driving up a particularly dangerous cul-de-sac in doing so, and receiving this kind of slavish critical support. That way lies the death of the musical. More people ask me why The Drowsy Chaperone failed in London than just about any other show; and I’m also wondering now whether it is part of the same trend. The show may have been adored by the fans, but the public want something more than in-jokes about musical theatre. When I first saw it in New York back in 2006, I wrote here, “A musical about taking pleasure in musicals - and specifically, a cast recording of a show that the onstage listener never actually saw but suddenly comes to life in his lounge as we also watch - it strikes a unique chord amongst those, like me, who have found a particular kind of consolation in musical theatre over the years.”
But that unique chord is also part of the problem: we’re a niche audience. And musicals need to have much broader appeal than that if they’re to transcend it.
Writers write about what they know and musical theatre writers tend to know only about musical theatre, at least for their first show. Theatre people love themselves and love when they make fun of themselves so when there are presentations of these "new" musicals everyone has a great time and off they go to getting produced. But one only has to sit through "The Producers" ( the show) with a "civilian" audience to know that these shows won't have the staying power of the great musicals. They lack the emotional resonance of the classic musicals. Musical theatre writers and creative producers need to look beyond their collective navals for inspiration - not just movies or public domain novels but original stories from unusual sources. When they do we'll enter a new golden age of musicals - until then the musical theatre is just another recycling bin.
I live in Elkhart, a town in rural Indiana, and for several weeks now, my friends and I have been following the development of "Shrek" on Broadway. Just thought I'd let you know.
Are you 13 years old and about to be Bar Mitzvahed?
Hi,
I thought you might be interested in another “Tale of Two Cities Musical” that is wending its way to Broadway (Perhaps via Boston). This one has a distinctively low budget so far but a very singable score and an engaging book. You might want to check out some of the songs. http://www.taleoftwocitiesmusical.com/