Who Knew I Was Arriving Just In The Nick Of Time….

March 18, 2013

Come on along and listen to 

The lullaby of Broadway.

The hip hooray and bally hoo, 

The lullaby of Broadway.

The rumble of the subway train,

The rattle of the taxis.

The daffy-dills who entertain

At Angelo's and Maxie's….

Bernie Jacobs, Sam Cohn, Cy Feuer, David Merrick….

I’m sure readers of the blog will have figured out by now I’m a Broadway Romantic. 

As soon as I arrived in 1990, I took a space in Jim Freydberg’s office on Times Square.  Out my window, directly below me, I could see the lines at the TKTS booth, and I knew instantly I was finally where I’d always wanted to be. 

Walking around the district, seeing the audiences going into the theaters, being surrounded by the lights, gave me chills.

None of that was really unexpected. 

What I didn’t realize was that fate had brought me to Broadway just in time to see and work with the last of the old-timers, many of whom I came to think of as Broadway characters.  They had a bit of Damon Runyan in them, some of them, at least to me. 

I hope those who are left don’t find that insulting; I think it was wonderful.

If I’d waited until now to make the journey, I wouldn’t know what I’d missed, but I would have missed a lot.

Jimmy Nederlander, Eddie Colton, Barry Moss, Arthur Cantor….

Arthur produced for many decades, on and off Broadway.  When I had my first meeting with him, he kept breaking in on me.  Finally I said “You know, Arthur, I make a lot more sense if you let me finish my sentences.”.  He was stunned, but got over it, and I became a Cantor investor, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Now, this paean to the old Broadway and its inhabitants is in no way a diminishment of today’s inhabitants. Shows get written for the audiences of the day, but the shows on Broadway now are every bit as good or bad as they’ve always been, and so are the people who create and produce them.

But we newbies aren’t as colorful as our counterparts used to be.  A few of the “new group” make attempts to be Broadway characters, but, unlike Lady Gaga, the old-timers weren’t working at being characters: they simply were who they were.

Jerry Schoenfield, Joe Stein, Dick Ticktin, Marvin Krauss….

Marvin was a top general manager and sometime producer for as long as anyone could remember.  One day, after we’d had lunch, Marvin led the way to a succession of theaters where shows were being loaded in.  Marvin seemed to know everyone, traded gossip with the stagehands, acted like a show loading in was the most exciting thing in the world.

Which it was.  Marvin asked me if I didn’t always go around like that, which I didn’t.  I’d never know the stagehands so we could trade gossip.  But Marvin did, and I knew Marvin.

Alexander H. Cohen, Joe Papp, Eli Wallach, Vincent Sardi, Jr….

One night just before half hour, I was walking past Sardi’s.  Bernard Hughes, who was about to play the first preview of a show – I wish I could remember which – walked up and give Vincent Sardi, Jr, a big hug.  I heard them both say how glad they were Hughes was back on Broadway. 

Chills.

Bob Kamlot, Biff Liff, Al Hirschfeld, Ernest Martin….

Ernie Martin took me to lunch to give me advice on how to produce.  He was wearing a suit – a lot of them did – and strongly advised me never to go into rehearsal with a script that was more than 10% too long.  I mean, come on, this was the man who produced GUYS AND DOLLS, the first musical I ever saw!  (When Miss Adelaide and the Hot Box Girls sang “Take Back Your Mink”, I was one riveted 11-year-old boy.)

Cy Coleman, Arthur Miller, Robert Whitehead….

I co-produced Bob Whitehead’s penultimate show, BROKEN GLASS.  Bob was one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, but we ended up fighting a lot over the show, I think because both of us knew we had a loser. 

At one point, Bob shouted at me over the phone, “You should go into television!”, which must have been the worst insult he could think of.  I loved him for it, even in the midst of the fight.

But Bob was wrong: I was doing what I’d always wanted to do, and it had nothing to do with television. 

There I was, an ex-banker from L.A., a suit, and I knew I could never have been one of them, but just sharing Times Square was enough. 

Writing this has put me squarely back in touch with my passion for Broadway.  I find that passion sometimes gets shoved aside by the pressures of the moment, but it’s the very best part of what we do.

I’ll end with the story that is entirely André Bishop’s.  André isn’t one of the old-timers, but his story has always moved me for reasons you’ll immediately see. 

André was five, I think, when he went to his first show, a production of PETER PAN. 

You’ll recall that at the end of the show, Peter turns to the audience and says: “Clap if you believe in fairies!”.

André said he just sat there clapping his hands like mad.

Me, too.

Spectacular Tech, But Does It Enhance Or Detract From The Tale….

                                                                                                                         April 23, 2012 

The dinosaur's eloquent lesson is that if some bigness is good, an overabundance of bigness is not necessarily better….Eric Johnston

Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds….George Santayana

I saw GHOST in London last February, and didn’t like it much, except for the physical/technical part of the performance, which I found stunning.  New York was wonderfully portrayed in all its energy, the natives constantly moving, striving, which precisely fit the story line.

I saw only Act I of GHOST on Broadway, and liked it even less, I think because the amount of multimedia had been increased.  If my memory is betraying me and this isn’t the case, then seeing the show from the balcony, as we did in London, made stunning that which seemed chaotic when seen from the orchestra seats we had for the Broadway production.

Since we didn’t stay for Broadway’s Act II, I won’t review the show, but GHOST started me thinking about the growing use of multimedia on stage, usage that’s bound to keep increasing as the tech gets more effective and less expensive.

In the case of the Broadway GHOST, the tech – while wonderful in itself – was so pervasive it cut into the story.

Some years ago, I used projections in a production of PAINT YOUR WAGON I directed.  I’d guess around 30 projections in all.  Some worked, some didn’t, and the consensus seemed to be that it was a noble experiment that wasn’t entirely successful.

Then, out of curiosity, I revisited the original production of RAGTIME,  specifically to see and count the Wendall K. Harrington projections.

RAGTIME’s projections were an integral part of the story.  I thought Ms. Harrington’s work was the best example to that date of effective projection use, and I think that’s still the case, 14 years later. 

Those projections were greatly used to create scene locations and their atmosphere.  They stayed in place in the background as the actors played the scenes in front of them.

Which is to say, they didn’t intrude, they enhanced.

All this I’d known, but what amazed me was that Ms. Harrington had used a grand total of only seven projections in RAGTIME, far fewer than I would have guessed.  Each was a key element in the scene being played, none changed during its scene, and the spare usage increased their impact.

I think multimedia can add a lot to a show, if it’s done in the proper way, and in a suitable proportion. 

Or it can sink the ship, as I felt it did for GHOST on Broadway.

Back in the nascent days of theater’s use of multimedia, I remember a show that used video in a way that was definitely hurtful: Whenever a video clip came on, the stage lights would go to black so the audience could watch the video filling the back of the stage.  At the end of the clip, when the lights were again turned on, the actors seemed to have shrunk to the size of hamsters.

Then, a couple or three seasons ago, video was extensively used in THE HISTORY BOYS, but the technique was much refined.  Stage lights would be dimmed, rather than cut, and the clip was projected above, rather than behind, the actors.  When the video was over, the stage lights went up extra-bright, and the actors had the same scale (and importance) they’d had before.

Much of the story of THE HISTORY BOYS that couldn’t be acted out on the stage was wonderfully provided through the videos.

The understanding of how to use technology had greatly changed, and that change made all the difference in the world.

But in both these cases, the action onstage stopped for the videos, so the audience focus could be controlled.  In the case of GHOST – and earlier THE WOMAN IN WHITE – the projections went on while the actors moved around the stage, and that threw the focus badly out of whack in both shows.

The problem I had with THE WOMAN IN WHITE was the projections made me seasick. 

The problem I had with the multimedia used in GHOST was that it felt relentless. 

In the first act on Broadway, at least, much – it seemed like most – of the time the story was undermined by the avalanche of frenetic symbols of New York City – and specifically the stock market – while the actors downstage became after-thoughts, moving about ignored while the audience’s eyes were inevitably drawn to the moving images.

Because that’s where the audience’s eyes are bound to drawn.  By their nature, moving images are stronger than the actors can be, larger, more insistent.  If you fill the scene/act/show with multimedia, the audience’s identification with and caring for the actors can go out the window.

Which doesn’t bode well for a show based on a three-hanky chick-flick movie.  If the audience isn’t allowed enough still moments to identify with the characters and their feelings, the heart of the story can never truly affect the audience, and the payoff from a show like GHOST is forever lost.

What’s needed is an understanding – on the part of producers and creative team – that the multimedia needs to enrich the story, not vice versa.

In the current LEAP OF FAITH, a handheld video camera is employed to send certain moments to several video screens around the St. James, most of which are viewable by those who have less than ideal seats.  I get that, but why then give the camera operator such prominence to the entire audience?  Either he’s there for all of us, or he isn’t.

In contrast, the handheld camera in Théâtre de Complicité’s MNEMONIC was brilliantly used to enhance the story, sometimes in ways that were heartbreaking.

So let the punishment fit the crime, and the multimedia fit the show. 

Tech should be a tool, not the point....

But How Will It Play In The Other City…?

England and the United States are two countries separated by a common language….Temple Fielding

                                                                                 February 11, 2012

Put a London producer and a New York producer together over coffee at the Ivy Club or guacamole at Bar Centrale, and the conversation will eventually turn to the burning question of whether the current SRO show in one of those cities would do as well in the other.

Or, Creating A Theatrical Surf ‘n’ Turf….

  January 15, 2012

Advertise it honestly as “Diane Paulus’s Porgy and Bess.” And the hell with the real one….Stephen Sondheim in a letter to the New York Times

Let me linger on this scene for a moment, if I may, because it’s the only one that seems to realize fully the intentions of the creators and reinventors of this landmark opera….Theater critic Ben Brantley, New York Times

And why did this production team assume that a version of the opera closer to the dimensions of what its creators wrote would not captivate audiences who are new to it?....Music critic Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

The answer to Mr. Tommasini’s question is simple enough, at least if we’re talking about commercial productions: none has ever captivated enough new or old audiences to make the production financially successful. 

The stated purpose of the creative team and producers of THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS (hereafter simply PORGY AND BESS) was to end up with a new version that would be more user-friendly to Broadway audiences, and so turn a profit.

But when the going got tough, they evidently developed a bad case of the vapors and began back-peddling....

Which Works Better, Prospero On Stage or Prospera On Film….

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     November 1, 2011

I use cinematic things in a theatrical way on stage, and in film I use theatrical techniques in a cinematic way….Julie Taymor

When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality….Julie Taymor

I had a feeling about Shakespeare's soliloquies, that there should be a real exchange between the actor and the audience….Trevor Nunn

The film director, in many instances, has to swallow somebody else's decision about the final form of something. It's so hard as to be intolerable….Trevor Nunn

Prospera, Prospero, Helen Mirren, Ralph Fiennes, dueling magicians, but they don’t duel each other.  Ralph trod the boards, while Helen showed us much more of the island on film.

But which medium told the story better?

Both did.