Older theatre fans: what's your opinion on new Broadway?- Page 2

[Jarethan]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 2:32pm

sng said: "I wanna comment on the cast recordings. I'm in my 20s and I find myselfmostly listening to shows pre 2000s. I'm not saying the quality of the works hasbeen decreased. It's just that nowadays modern shows use too much technology to make the songs so clean and perfect. When I listen to older cast recordings, they are raw, real, and loud just like in the theatre. For example, the Bette Midler's Dolly recording, they just completely sucked the soul out of the music."

You triggered one that I forgot.  Most shows used to have real overtures.  That happens rarely these days.  I can think of two that had overtures (there are probably more).  One was The Producers, and that was almost 20 years ago.  Whether you loved or hated The Producers score, that overture was in the great tradition of older musical overtures.  Brassy, tuneful, exciting.  The only other one I can recall is Tootsie; as I listened to the overture, I started asking myself why they had an overture, since the tunes sounded lousy (which proved to be the case).  The overture was the perfect intro to the show, got you excited if done well.  In the old days, there were shows without overtures -- hell, as I recall, Dolly, Fiddler and Cabaret did not have them (and I always felt it was a mistake for Dolly).  But try to forget the greatness of the overtures to the Rodgers and Hammerstein scores, Anything Goes (from the 30s!), Mame, Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, Man of La Mancha, Coco, Dear World, Hallelujah Baby, The Happy Time, Chicago, Nine (incredibly different), My Fair Lady, Gigi, and etc.  And we all remember the overture to the Bartlett Sher revival of South Pacific...I can still remember the goose bumps raising in my arms...an overture to a show with great music (show tunes), great orchestrations, a real orchestra, and brilliant staging.

The other thought you triggered -- and it was alluded to in other posts -- was that there used to be something that you recognized as a show tune.  You could just tell...the melody, the orchestration, the voices just announced that this was a classic show tune.  (FYI, when I think of the perfect show tune, I think of a lushly orchestrated and beautifully sung 'I Have Dreamed'.  

Nowadays, even in excellent shows, I just don't get that feeling.  Even with scores I would acknowledge as excellent, I just can't listen to most of them the way I did with so many past OCRs.  I would used DEH as an example; I think the score is excellent, but I rarely listen to it; on the other hand, I listen to Bandstand regularly, because I love the score, the orchestrations, and the Broadway voices of Corey Cott and Laura Osnes.  Similarly, I enjoyed watching Waitress (although the first act is a slog, occasionally), but I have not been able to get through the OCR even once without skipping multiple songs.

The recent scores that I love the most are Hamilton and The Great Comet.  I suspect that TGC would have run for 10 weeks in 1960, and that Hamilton at the very least would have been ahead of its time, which usually translates into a commercial failure.  So, I am thankful that they are recent shows.

[MollyJeanneMusic]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 3:11pm

An interesting thing I've noticed is that some of my least favorite shows have some of my favorite overtures.  I cannot get into The Addams Family (which is unfortunate, because it was my school musical this year), but it has an awesome overture.  I love when shows have an overture, and for fun, I'm actually working on a Dear Evan Hansen "overture" that's a medley of some of the songs from the show.  But I do kinda like the trend of just having the show speak for itself, not needing anything extra to draw people in.  It's one of the things that struck me about Hadestown, which I actually saw a year ago today - the cast came out before the lights even came down, and they instantly captivated the audience.  They didn't need an overture to get people excited - they just did it by walking onstage.  (Although, that might just be thanks to André de Shields.)

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 3:15pm

MollyJeanneMusic said: "An interesting thing I've noticed is that some of my least favorite shows have some of my favorite overtures. I cannot get into The Addams Family (which is unfortunate, because it wasmy school musical this year), but it has an awesome overture. I love when shows have an overture, and for fun, I'm actually working on a Dear Evan Hansen "overture" that's a medley of some of the songs from the show. But I do kinda like the trend of just having the show speak for itself, not needing anything extra to draw people in. It's one of the things that struck me about Hadestown, which I actually saw a year ago today - the cast came out before the lights even came down, and they instantly captivated the audience. They didn't need an overture to get people excited - they just did it by walking onstage. (Although, that might just be thanks to André de Shields.)"

Ghost is the best bad musical with a great overture.

[darquegk]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 3:23pm

You've hit on a few things I've thought about myself: the loss of the essential Jewishness of Broadway, and the rise of somewhat interchangeable voices due to conservatory training being standard. Those old shows up until the mid-seventies, either you or your teacher came up from Jewish vaudeville or the Borscht Belt. Things that "sound Broadway" are often things that sound almost subliminally Jewish-American. Other than people like R&H and Leonard Bernstein, who are self-consciously trying to create "high art" of some kind in many of their works, that sense of being "Jewish pop culture" is owned and baked into the sound of the music and the orchestrations, and even the way the dialogue and lyrics sit in the book. Of course, there is no Borscht Belt today, no nationally-renowned equivalent of Allan Sherman, so things are different. And actors aren't drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars as voraciously as they did sixty years ago, so the characteristic smoky, stout vocal sound that signified "middle age" in most Golden Age shows is next to extinct today. You couldn't revive a production of Company where the actors talk and sing like the originals, because voices, vocal techniques and vocal styling of that era are gone. People are more pitch-perfect today, sounding youthful and healthier much longer, but a certain idiosyncrasy and a certain ethnic sensibility is often gone. You could smell the New York bagels on those old recordings; today all you can smell is Pro Tools and disinfectant.

As an off-white, half-Hispanic, heterosexual liberal Catholic who happens to have a minority but notable Jewish ancestry on both sides, it strikes me that one writing traditionalist musical theatre has to admit and honor the gay Jewish roots of the genre if you're going to work creatively in it. The Beyond Yacht Rock podcast described the difference between yacht rock and singer-songwriter material of the same era as being "yacht rock may be by and for a predominantly white audience, but it is aware of and respectfully acknowledges the influence of black music in a way the singer-songwriter movement at the same time does not." So if you're trying to write something that feels authentically 1950-1968, you don't have to be gay or Jewish, but you have to be in touch with the parts of the culture that are, or were.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 4:39pm

I’m also an older theater goer. My first Broadway show was the original cast of PIPPIN in 1972. I was 7 years old. The one thing I miss is the production level. I think the last full-scale Broadway production to equal those of the old days was 2001’s THE PRODUCERS. I even remember not truly embracing the stylized minimal approach in Harold Prince’s EVITA when I saw it at 14 in 1979 though A CHIRUS LINE still blows me away with its black box staging.  

[MCW1227]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 8:17pm

I really liked Nice Work If You Can Get It a few years back because of many reasons, Gershwin, a fantastic orchestra, great cast and ensemble, comedy, costumes and dancing.  It had all the elements of an old fashioned Broadway musical.  Yes, even an overture.  It’s probably the last show I saw that reminded me of old Broadway.  Probably not the cup of tea of younger fans but I loved it.  

[Jarethan]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 8:59pm

Someone in a Tree2 said: "Jarethan's thoughtful response above echoes a lot of my answers. I saw my first Broadway show in 1967, but Jarethan has QUITE a few years' head start on me seeing the classics back into the late 50's.


Actually, I started going 'regularly' in 1964 (definition of regularly for the first several years was probably 5 - 6 times a season; that number exploded when I went to college.  

 

[George in DC]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 9:56pm

MCW1227 said: "I really likedNice Work If You Can Get It a few years back because of many reasons, Gershwin, a fantastic orchestra, greatcast and ensemble, comedy,costumes and dancing. It had all the elements of an old fashioned Broadway musical. Yes, even an overture. It’s probably the last show I saw that reminded me of old Broadway. Probably not the cup of tea of younger fans but I loved it."

 

What a shame it had a dead body as the leading man, who could not sing or act.

 

[MCW1227]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 10:52pm

 Don’t feel that way at all.  I feel the entire cast did a wonderful job.

[joevitus]

Posted: 6/8/20 at 11:03pm

One of the hard issues involved in this is the (apparently) scientific fact that one stops really taking in new music at a certain age. So it's tough for me to always complain about scores to shows, as I'm not sure if they are "tuneless" (and I'm NOT talking Sondheim here) or bad, or if my ear's just lazy at this point.

I will say I'm not big on most of the big shows. I can't stand Dear Evan Hanson, despite an interesting concept. On the other hand, I'm obsessed with Be More Chill, which I think we have to call a flop. So, so sick of the jukebox musicals and generic stagings of popular movies-with-songs-added. 

On the other hand, I've never really thought Broadway was "mine" or should reflect my interests. I just don't have much interest in Hadestown or Hamilton (have in fact heard very little of either show), and these are not just gigantic hits, but culturally important ones. I don't dismiss them or put them down--they just aren't really speaking to me. Same for shows like Kinky Boots or Next to Normal. Can't explain why. Again, maybe I'm just settled in my ways? I'm glad they have followings, I'm just not part of the following.

I wish Broadway were more geared toward (and affordable for) the people in the city. I say this even as one who lives halfway across the country. That's how it was in the days of the great masters, and I think being able to return to that would make a more vibrant theater scene, instead of the sort of mini-Vegas in some ways it's become (I do NOT mean that we'd get new Kerns or Rodgerses if this happened. We'd get more rock and rap, but I think the vein would be richer if the composers were writing for an audience they identify with). I think the situation I long for probably is more often the case for contemporary drama, and I'm mostly talking musicals here. 

Mostly, cheesy as it sounds, I just want the people who go to Broadway to get the shows they most want to see. For the shows today to speak to people today, and make them feel good, make them think about things, make them happy.