For today's installment in the "Days of Yore" series, I'm excited that my friend Michael Kape has graciously agreed to share from his extensive experience onstage, behind the scenes, and as a Broadway critic, to recall ways Broadway has changed over the years. He also founded an amazing group (I may be slightly biased) called Broadway Remembered that he has allowed me to join him in adminning, along with three other fantastic admins.
So without further ado, here's Michael:
-----
How Have Things Changed on Broadway?
Nearly 70 Years of Watching
Michael Kape
It begins by settling into a cramped seat—taking your time
or rushing because you showed up after the show started. And not much has
changed—with the seats, that is—in over 100 years. But what about the shows
we’re seeing on the stage? Ah, there, at least, we’ve made some progress.
It is nearly impossible to encapsulate everything we’ve seen
change over the past several decades. My own time in the theatre extends back
only 70 years or so. I can only offer my observations and opinions (and I
definitely do have some opinions). So, let me begin by offering a bit of
heresy. The 1950s and 1960s were NOT really the so-called Golden Age. Those
were good years, of course. But things have changed and improved. It can even
be argued shows are better now than they’ve ever been, and they continue to
improve. Yes, this is coming from someone who is considered an old fuddy-duddy.
We’ll come back to this.
Oddly enough, this all came into focus by viewing a
35-year-old musical recently, one I had always thought was a pinnacle of great
direction and design (not great music and definitely not great lyrics). Yeah,
we all know the show—Phantom of the Opera.
After 35 years, it’s become old. What was once
innovative and thrilling now feels tired and stodgy. I’m not talking about the
performers (all great); I’m talking about the staging, the design, the overall
feel. What once was exciting seems old hat. Maybe if I hadn’t been exposed to
it multiple times when it debuted, I might still be thrilled by a slowly
falling chandelier (like really, that can’t be considered a crash, can it?).
Oh. Look. That. Chandelier. Is. Creeping. Down. To. The. Stage. In. Slow.
Motion. (Cue the quasi-rock music.)
Once upon a time, like 70 years ago, we had a Main Stem
bustling with excitement. A constant barrage of new plays and musicals, many of
which became classics. But let’s give this golden age some context. Amusement
options were fewer. Most of the country derived its entertainment from movies
or television—with theatre even then a distant third (though there were more
tours treading the boards from Savannah to Seattle). For every My Fair Lady,
Broadway offered up a panoply of overnight flops. On the other hand, any show
running at least 500 performances was considered a hit; now it hasn’t even
begun to repay its investors.
My first real
exposure to Broadway happened when I was only three. My late mother, ever the
Broadway Baby, bought me Rodgers and Hammerstein for Children, a boxed
set of 45s with music from Oklahoma to Pipe Dream (Flower Drum
Song and The Sound of Music were still to be written). It was an
easy way to introduce musical theatre to budding audiences. We could sing along
to Happy Talk or The Gentleman Is a Dope (such a naughty word for us tots!)
under the complete cooperation of theatre nerd parents (even my father got into
the act by giving me his copy of the printed version of Damon Runyon’s Guys
and Dolls—not the musical but the book upon which it’s based). So, I come
by my theatre fixation honestly; I was raised that way. My first time on stage
(but definitely not my last) was in the title role of The Gingerbread Boy
at age six. Every cast album played on the new stereo as soon as it was
released. I had the truncated version of Most Happy Fella memorized by
age seven. The collection in our home also included South Pacific, Kiss Me
Kate (on 45s), West Side Story (I was already a Sondheim fan), The
Music Man (which my late sister Anita and I did in 1965), and many
more. Of course, I devoured the liner notes for each recording (does anyone
else miss those brilliantly written liner notes?) And being a devilish
developing theatre nerd, I somehow “appropriated” my mother’s copy of The
Complete Words of Gilbert and Sullivan (and I still have it, too).
But I digress. (I’m often accused of talking in parentheses
to which I plead guilty.)
How have things changed on Broadway over seven decades?
Simple. There’s a lot less being done (with far fewer theatres) but what is
done is much better. This isn’t to say we didn’t have some great
works 70 years ago. We did. The Lerner and Loewe catalog. The Rodgers and
Hammerstein library (except for maybe Pipe Dream and Me and Juliet—what
were they thinking?). Candide (yes, I know it was a flop but has there
ever been a finer overture?).
Then the so-called Golden Age gave way to something better.
Concept. Shows like Cabaret. The whole Sondheim collection. Lloyd-Webber
and Rice (when they worked together; we won’t discuss Cats). The
mega-musicals. Better librettos. Much better design (have you ever looked at
how cheap those Golden Age musicals looked?) and lighting (the current Phantom
lighting looks so cheap and meh compared to what’s available now).
We expect (and get) more from Broadway now. Yet as the
saying goes, you can’t hum the scenery. Yes, the set, lighting, and sound have
all taken giant leaps in the past 70 years or so, but are the stories being
told any better? That all depends on how they’re being told. Case in point (for
me) is Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. I know, I know, the great
American tragedy. But it’s always felt like a product of its time. (Sorry,
that’s just how I felt about it.) Could we really identify with Willy Loman 70
years later? I know I couldn’t—until I saw the new production on Broadway
recently. The play had been reimagined, reconsidered, refocused. Now, at long
last, it felt relevant again. And that’s what great theatre is supposed to
do—challenge what we thought we knew and take us in an entirely different
direction. On the other hand, I know many theatre companies across the country
(and a few in New York City) work on slavishly recreating original productions.
We can see The King and I still faithfully reproduced in any number of
places (I’m not referring to the last production) as if it was a museum piece.
No thought. No imagination. Even the sets are from 1951!
After all this, I’m sure some of you are wondering what
could ever qualify me to write about nearly 70 years of going to Broadway? Not
a helluva lot, actually (gotta be honest here). But having been given this
platform to speak, I’m taking advantage of it. But in that time, I’ve been an
actor, director, designer, producer, stagehand, playwright, and (much to my
eternal shame) a critic (seven years on the Dark Side). And one other credit on
that list—one of the brave souls administering Broadway Remembered, an
aptly named group all things considered. We remember and we celebrate. And we
educate because there’s still a lot of people to learn. Consider the following
overheard very recently on 45th Street and Shubert Alley: “The Booth
Theatre—is that where Lincoln was shot?”
Yeah, we have a lot of educating left to do and plenty to
remember.
