May 2010 Archives

It’s always nice to be quoted, as long as it is accurately, in support of a show: if you like something, it’s good to able to encourage others to do so, too, so I don’t mind it that critics are routinely part of the publicity process, though it’s an ongoing gripe that some producers choose not to quote with attributions of who actually wrote the quote concerned; so where it says, for instance, The Guardian, it could just as easily come from the theatre blog bulletin board as it does from Billington’s review.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds: when Michael Coveney pointed out in his blog that the producers of Legally Blonde were quoting a four star review for that show from Whatsonstage.com, whereas in fact his review on the site had only been three stars, the producers replied that they were using the star rating accorded in the user reviews. Presumably the same thing would therefore apply if they chose to quote, “Loved it, loved it, loved it!” for Legally Blonde, which is also not from Michael’s review of the show, but those of user Marian Twigg.

Time was that Broadway shows would routinely go out-of-town, to places like Phili, DC, Boston and Chicago, en route to New York, so that producers and creative teams could work on their shows in front of an audience that provided the necessary feedback, but not the damaging critical clout that could derail a project before it was ready for that kind of consumption.

But going out-of-town is expensive; and thanks to the internet, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, so you might as well preview for longer on 45th Street than incur the costs of shipping your show (and company) to points north, south and west. But many still cling on to the romance of the road - and the practical focus that a try-out provides, away from the distractions of New York.

Like an obsessive gambler forever chasing that elusive win, we all chase the big one: that big moment (or it could be a small one) in the theatre where everything else melts into the background and you are suddenly aware that there is nowhere on earth you’d rather be than right here, right now. It’s made even more special by knowing that this moment may never, ever be repeated, certainly not with this audience: theatre lives in the moment of its (re)-creation that night.

The Times has been running a series, “Great moments in the theatre”, and last weekend’s entry saw Benedict Nightingale waxing lyrical about Ian McKellen’s 1976 RSC Macbeth. I’m sorry I missed it, but (a) I wasn’t in the UK at the time; and (b) I was only 14, and the theatre bug was yet to bite (though it was about to do so, of more anon, in the place that I actually was being brought up, which was Johannesburg, South Africa).

But more than that, it is reading things like this that makes me realise how much I am already going to miss Benedict, too, one of the finest of his or any hour, who signed off as chief theatre critic of The Times two weeks ago.

I’ve often had cause on this blog to sadly reflect on how musicals are in crisis, and especially new, original ones. Broadway is the traditional home of the musical, of course, and at next month’s Tony Awards, they have been unable to rustle up four nominees for the best original score category from musicals, but have unbelievably had to include the “scores” instead to Enron (now shuttered) and Fences as well to complete the category. Three of the four nominees for best new musical use previously-written music.

But the ecology of new plays isn’t always in such great shape, either. The commercial sector, either in New York or London, rarely produces them off their own bat now; producers, as a veteran British director of plays recently remarked to me, aren’t so much producers as shoppers, who instead of nurturing and developing plays on their own, merely go out shopping for what’s produced elsewhere.

“You’ll miss us when we’re gone”, I recently warned a West End theatre owner and producer, who was wondering aloud whether there’d be any critics left in ten years time (or at any rate newspapers for them to write in, which is possibly a rather different thing). In fact, The Stage recently did a survey on this very subject, and the overwhelming response was that critics not only still played a valuable role in the theatre today, but also that they’ll continue to be important in a decade’s time.

But nothing in life is certain, not least life itself. I had a sad reminder of that basic fact of life and death over the weekend when news came from New York that Michael Kuchwara, the long-serving drama critic for Associated Press, had died on Saturday night, following what the AP itself reported were “complications from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease that causes scarring. He entered the hospital May 10.”

Mike, or Kuch as he was known to his friends of whom I proudly counted myself, was that rare paradox: the nicest, kindest man on the block who also happened to be a theatre critic, a profession not always noted for its niceness or kindness.

I’ve bemoaned here before that I don’t get out of town much, partly thanks to finances (I’m not funded to travel the length and breadth of the country, alas), and also time (it takes time to get there, and I have to earn a living by the words I write, which I largely have to be in the office to do).

But theatre, of course, doesn’t exist in a London bubble, even if many theatre critics are forced to, where the farthest a regional trip often extends to is the occasional trip to Chichester (as many did last night, for the opening of Yes, Prime Minister there) or Stratford-upon-Avon - though, conspicuously, one of our four daily broadsheets no longer funds its chief critic to go to either of those destinations, so they use a stringer who is going anyway.

Critics, of course, spend our days and nights passing judgment on the work of others; but we rarely have our own efforts professionally judged, by either our peers or those whose work we routinely (often in every sense) review. Sure, any review we write is liable to be pored and picked over - and in the age of the blog and comment board, our readers now have a very public right to reply, which is often exercised.

I recently wrote in the pages of The Stage, in a feature charting the changing place of critics, how I welcome the fact that “theatre critics are no longer the first, last or only word on what they see, but part of a wider cultural discussion engaged in by all stakeholders - from audiences to practitioners - on what people want from their art. But the public are also, for better or sometimes worse, not just taking part in the conversation, but also sometimes leading it - without necessarily having even seen what they are talking about.”

At least with theatre critics, you know that they’ve usually turned up and seen the show.

I’ve regularly charted the various ups and downs of the fate of Pizza on the Park here over the years. As long ago as 2005 I was already fearing for its future, after a change of ownership - and in turn priorities - saw it suddenly close (despite the fact that artists were still booked to appear), and I wrote at the time, “It would be both a great pity and a great relief if it abandoned cabaret; that seemingly paradoxical statement is because I have an inexorably love-hate relationship with this venue.”

As I went on to say, “It was here that I first discovered the joys of cabaret in the mid to late 80s, when a succession of headline acts, from Maureen McGovern to Margaret Whiting, Julie Wilson, Andrea Marcovicci, Mary Cleere Haran, Annie Ross and the late Marion Montgomery and Hildegarde (who has also recently died) brought the best of New York cabaret to London.”

Just yesterday I was writing here about a wonderful and challenging fringe production of the classic Bent, and mentioning its 24-year-old director/producer Andrew Keates, who had pursued a personal passion to put it on there. And it’s just what the fringe is for: to provide a platform for young talent to find their feet.

But it can also be a place for older ones to do so, too. Tonight, as it happens, I am launching an alternative side to my career, becoming a producer for the first time (at least since University days), to put my name - in every sense - to Shrunk, the second play by Olivier Award winner Charlotte Eilenberg.

That’s nailing my colours to the mast(head) - or billing page - in many ways, not least in that it might just reveal to my readers what sort of plays I like, and maybe what sort of person I am.

Hamlet, of course, comes around again and again - we’ve already got Rory Kinnear promised at the National this year, Sheffield Theatres has just confirmed dates for its previously-announced production that will see John Simm in the title role, and now Michael Sheen has announced that he will tackle the role at the Young Vic next year.

Meanwhile, Les Miserables has never been away, and yet is already coming back, too - while the original production continues its record-breaking run at the West End’s Queen’s Theatre, it will be returning to the Barbican Theatre where it was originally premiered in 1985 this October, in a new production that was launched at Cardiff last year and is now touring.

And yesterday, this déjà vu feeling continued for me at the Barbican, where I went to see Peter Pan in the current new touring production from the National Theatre of Scotland.

I have often addressed my fears for the future of arts journalism in this blog and the value of (so-called) expert opinion, even as I realise that being paid for your opinions doesn’t necessarily make you an expert, while not being paid for them doesn’t of course mean that you don’t know what you’re talking about, either. One of the great things about the internet has been the democratisation of the expression of opinion; but in this free market of opinion givers, makers and takers, the precise monetary value that can be placed on this is entirely up for grabs.

Or not. Nowadays everyone wants something for nothing, from the consumer (who doesn’t like to pay for any content, whether it be words, music or video, hence the growth of piracy) to the content providers.

Great strides have been made in the last decade or so in terms of public recognition that there are gays in all walks of life, “not just the obvious professions” (to quote a gay play I once saw that brilliantly subverted this to suggest that straight people can be found everywhere, too!). Now we have gay MPs, even ministers (though I’ve not looked at the composition of Mr Cameron’s senior appointments yet, though presumably any attempt for two of them, if they are men, to check into a bed and breakfast together should be avoided), gay priests and gay street cleaners.

And actors and pop stars, of course. Sure, there are some for whom it has never been much of a secret (think Boy George) or a surprise when it was revealed officially - though even our beloved Elton was once married to a woman, no one was remotely shocked when either George Michael or Ricky Martin finally came out.

No, not Sir Cameron Mackintosh, though lots of my New York theatre friends were wondering aloud how he’d managed to pull that one off. Sure, he’s been party to some coalition governments in his time - most notably with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he co-produced Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Song and Dance, and is even now partner in the collaborative governing of the multiple producer efforts behind bringing both Avenue Q and Hair to the West End from Broadway.

But both Camerons - Mackintosh and now David - are of course unelected leaders in their respective fields; neither has been given a majority mandate to rule, but at least in showbusiness, the public don’t vote for seats but by their seats, and whether or not they choose to pay the money that’s asked to fill them.

Perhaps Cameron Mackintosh can take over at Number 11 as Chancellor the Exchequer: he’s certainly dealing with his own budget deficits at the moment by taking the lead in reducing prices for his shows.

Tomorrow evening we’re going to contemplate the end of the world — and where we’d like to be, and who we’d like to be with, should it come to pass, when the Lyric Hammersmith premieres A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky. (Speaking for myself, I think I’d quite like to be in a theatre, watching a good musical that starred Philip Quast, with my partner Mark, and I wouldn’t even mind if it was at Lyric Hammersmith itself).

But tomorrow’s first night about the last night of the world will, perhaps fittingly, mark the end of a critical era, as one of our own critical stars formally hangs up his pen: it will be the last show that Benedict Nightingale reviews as chief theatre critic of The Times.

There may be more urgent matters of national interest at the moment like being a country without a government, but Saturday’s long-awaited return to the London stage of a woman without a voice, or at least the one she was originally celebrated for, after an absence of over 30 years, is the headline arts story of the weekend.

The woman, of course, is Dame Julie Andrews, now an improbable-seeming 74 years old; but then, as she stated in the show, it was here in London that it all began for her over 60 years ago; and on Saturday, it may well be where it has all ended, too.

She did, early on, warn us that the voice was no longer what it was.

You can run but you can’t hide anymore. There was a time that the uniqueness of theatrical performance was that it existed in the moment only, never to be repeated or replayed in exactly the same way again. It was what you saw on the night and that night alone. Now, however, performances are so often illegally recorded that they can be replayed endlessly in YouTube clips.

And it has a peril for performers, as Patti LuPone, of course, found to her cost, when she stopped the show to publicly rebuke someone for taking photographs - only to have the rebuke itself recorded on audio by someone else who then posted it in all its glorious intemperance on youtube. Ditto Hugh Jackman’s stopping of the show when a mobile phone went off during his Broadway run last year in A Steady Rain, which was also recorded for posterity.

…Or maybe, to quote the character from Monty Python And the Holy Grail, subsequently recycled for a song in Spamalot, “I am not dead yet, I can dance and I can sing, I am not dead yet, I can do the Highland Fling. / I am not dead yet, no need to go to bed, no need to call the doctor, cause I’m not yet dead.”

This sudden bout of optimism is prompted by the results of an online survey of The Stage, which are published in the paper today on how theatre critics are regarded, wondering aloud if the theatre industry or the public even need professional criticism any more, when it can find plenty of opinion on the web? In fact, the answer has come back a resounding yes! Some 89% of respondents think critics still play an important role; and though 46% may think they are less important than they were 10 years ago, 80% still think they’ll be important in another decade’s time.

So critics do still matter.

It was the Menier Chocolate Factory’s day (and night) yesterday. At lunchtime UK time, I watched online as they received 15 Tony nominations for the current transfers to Broadway of their productions of La Cage Aux Folles (which, with 11 nominations, tied with Fela! for the biggest number by a single show) and A Little Night Music (4 nominations).

It was the biggest score for any single London theatre, and even saw the Donmar trailing in its wake, with a still not-shabby reckoning of 9 nominations (seven for Red, two for Hamlet). Then last night, the Menier celebrated the transfer of their latest production of Sweet Charity to the West End’s Haymarket, triumphantly vindicating, as I said in my review for The Stage, their “small is beautiful approach to classic Broadway musicals”.

Seeing Debbie Reynolds at the Apollo Theatre last week made me think that the stars of Hollywood’s golden age may have lived their lives in a different bubble of self-absorption than do actors today, but there’s still the same old bubble.

It’s just that the terms of engagement have changed: whereas public figures would once have hidden themselves behind a wall of carefully-controlled artifice - the kind that allowed Rock Hudson, for instance, to secretly live the life of a gay man while pretending to be the heterosexual Lothario of his image - nowadays the mystique is largely stripped by performers themselves allowing a public dialogue to take place with their followers.