Does a single Broadway season say something about the times we live in, or about the current state of culture? I’m not sure, but I do detect some trends in the season, make of them what you will:
The Irreverent was relished.
There were four musicals that opened on Broadway this past season inspired by true stories that were rendered on stage in deliberate bad taste — or, if you prefer, good camp. Two of the shows were based on historical events that were undeniably bizarre to begin with, both centering on a corpse: “Dead Outlaw,” about an incompetent bank robber who was killed in a shoot-out but took 66 years to be buried, and “Operation Mincemeat,” about a British military operation in World War II that dressed the body of a homeless man as a Naval officer, and planted him with false battle plans, in order to deceive the Nazis. The third, “Oh,Mary,” depicted Abraham Lincoln as a vicious closeted homosexual and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln as a homicidally bitter alcoholic and frustrated cabaret singer, and presented an alternative history of Lincoln’s assassination designed to make the audience laugh. All three are Tony-nominated hits; “Oh,Mary,” incredibly, was chosen as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (The fourth such musical, Tammy Faye, we will not discuss.)
The sincere was revered.
In what counts as a countertrend, another Tony-nominated musical based on a true story, “Floyd Collins,” about a man trapped in a cave, could not have been more earnest (“Swept Away,” with a less direct connection to a real-life tragedy, was equally so.) “Maybe Happy Ending,” which is getting a lot of award love (best musical from both New York Drama Critics Circle and Outer Critics Circle so far; nominated by both the Tonys and the Drama Desk Awards) is a sweet and sincere love story about two robots. in “Purpose,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins includes plenty of humor in his depiction of a family much like that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, but tells an ultimately serious story about the power of finding your purpose in life. The play with the highest attendance and highest grosses, George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” about TV journalist Edward R. Murrow’s take-down of the demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy, could not be more sincere.
It’s worth mentioning that even audiences of ‘Operation Mincemeat” have singled out the one song in the show that isn’t silly or slapstick: “Dear Bill,” a sweet ballad sung by Jak Malone about a love lost in war. (See, for example, the absolute avalanche of write-in votes for “Dear Bill” in my Broadway Showstopper poll.)
The stage burst with special effects
This was a season that seemed intent on proving that theater could put on just as spectacular effects as the movies – sometimes, the show is somewhat indistinguishable from a movie, such as the video-dominated “Sunset Blvd.” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” but just as often the creative team is making a point of doing it all in 3D – most spectacularly “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” and “Death Becomes Her.”
The nights were starry.
Screen stars and pop stars made their Broadway debuts — George Clooney, Kit Connor, Robert Downey Jr., Nicole Scherzinger, Sarah Snook – or returned in triumph — Kieran Culkin, Mia Farrow, Sadie Sink – or anyway returned – Jake Gyllenhaal, Nick Jonas, Juliana Margulies, Denzel Washington. And that’s just on Broadway. Off-Broadway too, producers were betting on short runs with star power.
The starry nights were astronomical
The producers’ bet often worked…for the producers. Every week it seemed another star-driven production was boasting of breaking a box office record – which, unlike such talk in Hollywood, didn’t necessarily mean that more people were attending the shows, just that theatergoers were paying astronomical prices.
