BYE BYE BROADWAY

HOWDY FOLKS! on AUGUST 31st, 2021

It's taken me a bit longer than a week to "git" writing this because our country has been in Free Fall (gotta better name for it?) and I've been busy as a beaver reordering our lives for some big upcoming changes.  However…if you soldiered through my last posting you'll know that after 30+ years we're getting' outta town (go ahead and hum: I'm grabbin' my hat and coat…I'm leavin' the cat a note…).  "Headin' for the hills" as granny would say. Let’s say it’s in the works — Sic transit gloria New York…

So, today's post is a downer AND an upper too.
BROADWAY IS DEAD / LONG LIVE BROADWAY

I'm so sorry to report this grim proclamation and its twisted refrain as if it were about a fallen ruler—but it is what it is, so proclaim it I do.  I'll add that indeed and also THEATER LIVES yet… and will live…elsewhere.   It WILL rise again like Oscar from On the 20th Century.  (It'll rise again, full size again, and [will] give those doubting Thomases a walloping surprise again!)  It will honor tried and true "old" Broadway traditions (when writers were writers and other such).  Mark my woids.

Where the heck it'll end up is anyone's guess but it WILL happen.  It may not be in the majestic gilt and cherub-encrusted spaces with red-velvet seats that have welcomed many a tuchis for at least a good century.  Those spaces are already on the chopping block (all 9 Nederlander theaters are up for sale—I had a great Aunt that once worked for Joey back in the day).  It may rise from the ashes in glorified barns with folding chairs… but rise it will like a happy yeast in a warm kitchen.  I'm conjuring up the makeshift monkey-shine matinées from Little Rascals for starters—on the cheap but heartfelt and featuring some genuine talent, if you recall the bedspread curtains, kid siblings in crowd scenes, and the tin pan thunder. But it can and will be better than that, I know. Over time comes backing. (We may then ask for some real “Angels” in America —aka benefactors.)

To wit… A few weeks ago I read that a bunch of canceled Broadway actors AND the brave Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe were doing Oklahoma in Virginia.  He was Curly! Well bust my britches, I had no idea he was an actor-slash-singer.  THIS is where hope comes in. THIS is how Broadway will be saved – off site AND by those of us un-jabbinated (and/or "un-wokeinated") outcasts who yet hold theater / musical theater near and dear to our hearts. 

And maybe one day—should we indeed prevail and save the great tradition of GREAT Theater--we will be forgiven for our sins of not following the crowd, of not covering our faces, of not avoiding other humans at an arbitrary six feet of distance, of not permitting pseudo-officers of orifices to shove long fuzzy sticks into our heads to swab our mucus, of not taking experimental mad scientist clot-cocktails into our bloodstreams. How opting out of these mad-scientist protocols killed grandmothers in Peoria I never “got” because if you want to kill grannies you lock them up with people who are very sick and then give them toxic drugs that kill them (Remdesivir is one) and put them on ventilators—all which Cuomo did, that guy with the Emmy (talk about acting a part). He didn’t save NY, he saved the government having to pay Social Security for about 10-15K people—that’s what the Emmy is for I dareseay. But okay. Whatever. We opted out and as payback for making such choices (which may have saved OUR lives), we’re considered selfish baddies.

Yet maybe (maybe?) we'll be forgiven, some of us, for our health choices

Will we also be forgiven, when the time comes, for not bowing to the false Gods who rail against cultural appropriation in the arts as if it were some unpardonable sin—because frankly, it’s not only exhausting but it’s lousy to attempt to avoid it—to create art in a VOID where you can only create “what you know” according to your “identity.” This way of thinking is whack. Art, literature, theater, music—all involve some pretty joyful cultural appropriation and should. Removing it ALL (like zero “covid”) is impossible—and why remove any? So there’s that… Which brings me to a related topic—

ON IDENTITY CASTING and the sorry pall that all this new-think wrong-think (imho) has placed on casting and on putting together a show team in choosing creative behind-the-scenes positions as well…

Look, if you're gonna save theater and you're stuck in the woodsy boondocks where there are not an abundance of authentic Pacific Islander thespians… you may just have a white Bloody Mary (a lead role in that beautiful Rogers & Hammerstein musical, South Pacific).  We used to call this ACTING. It used to be fun!  It MEANT portraying someone very different from yourself—so makeup was needed, costumes, a limp, a manner of speech or accent, gestures and more.  It used to be that way.  From childhood I was thrilled with black-American Juanita Hall’s delightful Bloody Mary (if you know the classic film you may know that Ms Hall was also on Broadway in the role) and she also was terrific (terrific!) in Flower Drum Song thus making a career out of playing Pacific Islanders and Asians—rinse and repeat that, black actress playing Pacific Islanders and Asians.  Another great talent Rita Moreno (Puerto Rican American) started out playing a Thai girl in The King and I (she was also perfect for the role and got to show off her dancing chops). Meanwhile a very white and adorable Sondra Lee was a wonderful Indian Princess Tiger Lilly (in the original Peter Pan on Broadway).

To me this is ALL what is wonderful about theater—the magic “IF” — if I was King, if I was a wise exotic island matriarch, if I were….er… Granny Clampett! (my alter ego, of course, as Daisy Moses) So you see, we should also not need permission or special dispensation to have, as need may arise whoever the heck we want in a role. We used to call it ACTING.  Makeup of all colors allowed (no we don't need blackface—though let’s not erase what was done previously some of which is cringe-worthy and some of which is NOT; let’s not cancel Joley or the endearing Central Casting Jewish “Indians” in Westerns clearly cast for their schnozzes…); most makeup within reason is a GOOD thing, not a hate crime…). Makeup, wigs, props and frankly casting should, ultimately, be up to the director and the creative team, not mandated by trending woke proclamations.

And the converse is true as well—casting conventionally if such humans are available and able to meet role demands, should naturally be an artistic option.  Any creative choices should be met without ignominy or a Moe finger poke in the eye.

Identity casting is BULLONEY (for bullies only). Let's ditch it whenever and wherever theater is recreated. Let's have fun again and just put on a show, OK?

And while I am attempting to tell it like it is, here’s a great example yet again—the terrific GERMAN MacHeath in Three Penny Opera portrayed by the memorable HISPANIC triple-threat performer Raoul Julia (see the MARVELOUS poster below).

I was honored to have seen that awesome Joe Papp production.  And moving to more contemporary times, unless someone is aiming for surreal camp (Charles Ludlam we miss you!!!!) , can we also please get past this sort of truly bizarre absurdity: a black Anne Boleyn. REALLY was this needed? 

I'm going to mention another thing about "Theatah Today" that sticks in mah craw….

PLOTS (or rather PLOTZ ! in that I'm a gonna…)

Am I wrong that many theatergoers—and thou shall not forget, the bread and butter audience is over 60 and arrives by bus… (with rare & Angry Itches aside..) do not necessarily want to see dystopian depressing shows about musicians' drug aditions or about trans womyns’ hysterectomies (as “men” now can get pregnant…) and or about Shakespeare done up as an S&M Pop Music Bump N’ Grind extravaganza (okay, maybe off off Broadway for that one)…  They want a real story (even if it’s just the ol’ boy meets girl boy loses girl boy gets girl garden variety type). I mean I'm really just jaw-droppingly mortified by and uninterested in the trashy torrid tales that masquerade as theater today—-including malevolent musicals with spinning Sufi wheelchairs or amputee baseball teams or other similarly and formerly other-worldly nightmarish plots that seem to be the NEW THING. If it isn't intersectional, it appears to be morbidly dire. Oh, and someone always has cancer. Not athletes foot, not ulcers (those are still funny): CANCER.

Of course I exaggerate here (only a little) but people often want to forget their troubles (and c’mon Get Happy) at the theater so Stage Door Canteen YES but please not the Stage IV Cancer Conga Line or the kidney transplant Kozatski (with a nod to the late great Mickey Katz) in Apartheid Space for they are not worth $400 a ticket for those paying retail (or even $28.50 for we stand-byers…though again, as an unjabbed miscreant I may never have a chance to see anything on the Great Dead Formerly White Way). But anyway…HOW in heck might the Early-Bird 4pm Dinner Special Crowd circa age seventy-four — given their own advanced station in life—feel about such dour matter? Methinks they undoubtedly prefer not to dwell on DEATH disease, and prosthetic-sporting disability at 2pm on Wednesdays. Which brings me to…

DIS-ABELIST THEATAH…

I mentioned the Sufi spinning wheelchairs above. ‘Tain’t a joke. Indeed if you wanted to catch a "reinvented" Bloody Gory O.K.L.A.H.O.M.A. (a mash-up with the ill-fated Carrie"?), one which also follows the latest trend of dooming and glooming our formerly chipper musicals, then you'd have done no better than seeing that Wild Bunch corpse-like revival. “Rogers and Rammstein”, was it? Said Whirling Wheelchair is part of the new “Handicapped Hustle” (meaning the racket AND the dance) because WHO NEEDS AGNES DEMILLE'S AMAZING CHOREO ANYWAY? Why do dancers need LEGS THAT WORK?  Or even legs at all? Wheels man, wheels is the new WAY. Perhaps peg legs will one day replace toe shoes? And gee golly, we all expect to see denizens of a 1906 rural farm in spinning ELECTRIC wheelchairs not yet invented, right?  (I got nothing against anyone disabled, believe me, but things have just gotten to the point of absurdity and I’m a gonna point it out)

So while we're on the topic of "inclusion" (like the flaws in a diamond?) --- I'll add that theater on and off Broadway, for all it’s sensitivity training and daily affirmations, seems ironically to look more LIKE a Central Casting Call by a team made up of Todd Browning and John Waters (minus ALL humor), featuring morbidly obese BIPOC deaf, dumb, blind and otherwise (wait for it…) crippled casting.  If I wanna see Tommy, I'll watch it at home.  (I happen to love Tommy btw). Not every show should be cast with the kind of people for whom Jerry Lewis once held telethons. I’m an empathetic person but we cannot possibly accomodate every disability and still have theater. Hospital theater maybe…but that’s another thing.

So yes, really this disabled thing is too much—if an actor cannot speak the Bard's beautiful lilting verse (the Bard is ALL ABOUT words) because he or she or they cannot speak at all, then what is the point of MUTE Shakespeare? How is justice done by having an actor grunt and gesticulate inarticulately while some hapless interpreter tries to shout out the actual lines from Stage Right?  It's TOO FUCKIN' MUCH folks. I saw this 4x before lockdowns. Talk about distracting! Please do not pee on me and tell me it's raining—do not tell me this is a beautiful and brave choice. It’s bullshit. It ruins the show. (NO this is NOT PC, it's just SANE)

By-the-by, the "reinventing" of  "the cripple" in theater is it's own thing. (Tiny Tim in an ace bandage anyone?) I often chuckle at the great Sondheim’s hoot-worthy comment about the PC “anti-abelist” Broadway revival of Porgy & Bess which pretty much DE-handicaps poor Porgy…

THE DELICIOUS SONDHEIM QUOTE: “Ms. Parks (or Ms. Paulus) has taken away Porgy's goat cart in favor of a cane. So now he can demand, 'Bring my cane!' Perhaps someone will bring him a straw hat too, so he can buck-and-wing his way to New York."

I spit out my coffee hard-laughing the first time I read that. He’s right of course.  Not only do they put disabled people in roles for which they cannot possibly do justice (due to their handicaps) but they now soft soap the actual cripple roles. You cannot make this (cockamamie shit) up!

NEXT IS SEX…

I saw Glenda Jackson's LEAR and wept. Not because it was good (well, SHE was amazing as expected—and zero problems with the Grand Dame gender switching with her playing an old King neither—THAT part she wrought beautifully and we must recall that boys played ALL the female roles in Merry Old England in Shaks'pur's day anyway).  No it wasn’t the Lady playing the Lord that bothered me—it was the SEX. (And you surely cannot remember ANY naughty bits in Lear “as she is read,” right?)

To see Lear's daughters fornicating on stage with skirts up, panties down (literally, not even in what we call nudie leotards there folks), and to witness all the grunts and sweaty skin flashing — a scene you might expect behind a slab of greasy glass in Times Square circa 1977 (I’ve already mourned the loss of Show World in a previous post here)—well I'm no prude but this was just GROSS and AWFUL and embarrassing for poor Miss Jackson. Sadly I've seen such antics before—when sex passes for creativity.  SO….WHY oh why must theater be confoundedly SEXIFRIED in the most undignified manner?  This is not your witty Mae West type of double-entendre risque innuendo. This is people appearing to be doin’ the nasty on stage. I hope Miss Jackson took a bath after the show—I needed one for sure. Ewwww…. Scavoos! (BTW we also witnessed the MET opera do an Agrippina equally as salacious—another bath needed!)

Oh and in the aforementioned Lear (Leer!) we also were treated to a deaf performer flapping distractedly like Junior Birdsman while others spoke his lines for him, and not trippingly on the tongue as you might imagine.  OY.  Plus, in that same horror of a show I'll also mention that we were serenaded by a John Cage-wannabee quartet (yup a quartet) on stage (they should have been thrown in the pit!) playing dissonant "musical themes" all during all the important scenes—uh huh, OVER THE LINES. Where or Where is John Simon?  He'd have had a LOT of fun reviewing this doozy… 

GUYS…what I described above is a regrettably example of today's theater (theater as last I and my daughters experienced it before the PanDybbuk—thereafter being banned due to not being jabbed nor boosted) and except for the amazing Miss Jackson, my friends, that show was a full out nightmare of awfulness.  Never thought I'd say that about LEAR fergawdsakes.   Sex, nudity, grunting in place of lines AND distracting on-stage experimental music.  What more could you NOT want? (OH there was also a lot of garbage and refuse—the idea was to show verisimilitude when "sacking" the fort…so the set was trashed…)

Perhaps a few randy hetero gents in the audience found the bouncing bare bums Lear-worthy (yuk yuk)—but not the rest of us.  (What the heck DID the old ladies from Jersey think?)  This was a BAR show not a BARD show—a floor show maybe…  And so, as one folly leads to the next, so we come to the NEW Mantra of Broadway, off and off off…

DIE theater DIE (which is not a campy new Charles Busch vehicle;  DIE is for Diversity Inclusion and Equity)

D.I.E. does also refer to DEATH…that of theater as we know it (see previous).

Since the George Floyd riots, even before the whole enchillada shut down, things have gotten only worse—causing cash-strapped theaters to vomit out troughs of apolgias and vows to radicalize all theater for the new motto (which, again, is Diversity,  Inclusion and Equity) aka DIE or ELSE in the New (Theater-World) Order.

People out there…good people—we cannot possibly accomodate everyone to the point of absurdity.  Theater was never about accomodating or serving or even uplifting. It used to be about telling STORIES. 

Is THEATER really to D.I.E. for?    Is that the new goal?

Shall we now choose crappy plays to suit an inclusive agenda? Or shall we make good plays crappy by warping them to fit said agenda?  Shall we edit plays to remove gender references too?—Anyone for Miller’s “Death of a Salesperson,” Shaw’s “Person and Superperson,” or Checkov’s “The Three Siblings that Currently Identify as Female”?

And thus…
SO LONG DEARIE…

As I said, this post is my way of giving my regards to "old Broadway" both literally (as we ditch the city) and figuratively, as what was once the sparkling Great White Way is now a tired, dull- gray, unimaginative, woke reboot-revival-2.0 nothingburger of it's former self. 

PS and to wit: I just learned of a book I need to read as seems like SOMEONE, Mark Steyn, agrees! 

Thus and so, here lies a fond farewell to what WAS, with hopes that a TRUE and SANE Broadway will rise again, full size again… SOMEWHERE…

And from there we cue the refrain…
BROADWAY IS DEAD, LONG LIVE BROADWAY.