America is too commercial- Page 2

[Cupid Boy2]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 1:01am

And how is "artistic merit" then defined? At the end of the day, we all respond to art differently, and certain types of storytelling might be more compelling to us than to others. What resonates with you might not resonate with a tourist visiting the city, but that doesn't make his or her response any less valid. And if that tourist is only interested in a Disney show or one of the other long runners, I still think it's wonderful that he/she is plunking down the cash and spending the time to experience live theatre. We should be celebrating the fact that Broadway is still relevant enough of an entity for people to travel to New York from all over the world to catch one of its shows. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you don't like what Broadway has to offer, just don't go. There's plenty of alternatives.

Updated On: 10/2/16 at 01:01 AM

[trpguyy]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 1:13am

Artistic merit isn't defined, it's subjective. The only thing objective about commercial theater is revenue. In my opinion, there is quite a wide variety of things on Broadway and I think it's great. Someone else may think it's all too "commercial" and not artistic enough, and others may find it all too artsy for them. 

But I am glad that despite a number of short runs the last few seasons, business is booming. 

[dramamama611]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 6:57am

And if there isn't some degree of commerce, how will they create/produce art?

Updated On: 10/2/16 at 06:57 AM

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 10:41am

And, on the topic of Fun Home, two things should really be pointed out to the OP. First one, it won the Tony for best musical. And, number two, it recouped its losses, officially considering it a hit. 

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 1:32pm

KateSam said: "Why do people see Aladdin ?  and not something like Fun Home when it was running."

Do I have to see either of them? What is missing is the spectrum between commercial cynicism and non-profit pieties. 

Updated On: 10/2/16 at 01:32 PM

[SweetLips]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 6:04pm

sinister teashop--love your avator of Bobby Helpman who I had the pleasure of meeting many times later in his life and listening to him tell countless stories about his amazing colourful life and people he had met.

Long before I finally met him socially I was in the audience[probably I was 10] at a TV studio in Brisbane where they were taping some interview programme and Bobby was a guest-so I boldly asked for his autograph. I had no idea who he was but was with my sister so I wrote next to his autograph[which I still have]---'a famous ballet dancer' .One day I showed it to him-to his amusement, and won't say what he said in response.

So thanks for your avator and bringing up forgotten memories.

SL.................x

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 7:55pm

Oh my goodness, SweetLips, I envy you your meetings with Robert Helpmann or as the youngsters say, I'm jelly.

Updated On: 10/2/16 at 07:55 PM

[Jarethan]

Posted: 10/2/16 at 9:34pm

I saw both shows only once.  Hated Fun Home and enjoyed Aladdin very mildly, although I thought it was pretty mediocre.

Couple of points:

-- Friends are always asking me to recommend shows.  I will generally recommend Aladdin to folks who are taking kids (most of the kids have already seen The Lion King), although I will make it clear that it is pretty lame at times and that they won't love it ass much as the kids.  As long as their kids are likely to enjoy it, they don't care.

-- People loved the movie.  They are hoping to recapture that fun...and a lot of them succeed, based on the one audience 

-- I didn't dislike Fun Home.  I hated it.  I have a decent number of friends who also didn't like / hated it.  In my case, I thought it was depressing and I was underwhelmed by the Tony award winning direction.  Interestingly, I like most of the score, although I hate the song about Joan, and don't like Telephone Wire.  In my case, listening to the CD is much preferable to seeing the production.

I go to the theatre a lot and have pretty broad tastes.  If I don't like something, its no big deal.  Most people who ask me go 2 - 4 times a year.  They want a safe bet...a recommendation for something that I think they are likely to enjoy a lot.  I know them well enough and, based on the shows I have seen and the feedback on those I haven't seen, I make recommendations; and I am pretty typically right.  Based on my own view and those of at least half a dozen friends, I really don't think this is the type of show the occasional viewer is going to want to see.  If they want to be depressed, they might as well wait for the next revival of Streetcar or LDJIN.  That's a lot of people.

-- I am sure the people who produced Fun Home did not expect it to be a huge financial hit.  They produced it because they thought it had something important to say, etc., etc., and that some people would love it.  Just like investors in many Sondheim shows, they hoped to make back their investment, and they did.  Good for them, even if I hated it.  

-- I am very frustrated that more people didn't see The Visit or The Scottsboro Boys or the Baz Luhrmann La Boheme or the Christopher Plummer Cyrano, all of which I thought were great shows...and all of which lost money.  At least, Fun Home made its investment back.  

 

 

 

 

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 9:18am

I think it is fairly simple, show like "Fun Home" is not going to attract tourists for the most part. IMO it is similar to "Next To Normal" which was a great show but was about a serious subject. Like others have said, Broadway is a place where there can be commercial shows and thought provoking shows. 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 11:49am

Interesting that for some it all seems to be about high-brow, middle-brow, or low-brow.  Or about affinities for commercial or niche projects.

Good, bad and middling quality each cuts across all of the aforementioned categories.

[jpbran]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 2:37pm

You do realize that Wicked, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, etc. have been playing in London for YEARS -- all very "commercial" shows. 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 2:47pm

Why do people see Aladdin ?  and not something like Fun Home when it was running

You should probably ask DeRubaJ et al.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 9:54pm

To approach this from a slightly different angle, the score to Carousel is thought by many to be the best of Rodgers and Hammerstein and one of the very best scores to a musical ever written. Its initial run was 900+ performances. The preceding R&H hit Oklahoma, inferior to Carousel, ran 2200+, and the subsequent hit South Pacific ran 1900+.

The difference in performances is usually attributed to the dark story told by Carousel.The presence of the inspirational anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone" is not enough to have the audience leaving the theater feeling uplifted and they certainly aren't amused.

When adults have experienced heartbreak and tragedy within their own families, as in the very common case of a child having to accompany a parent down the dark road of Alzheimer's, they don't have a lot of spare empathy to spend on the fictitious victim of a play.

[trpguyy]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 10:00pm

^ Excellent point. Many people go to the theater as a temporary escape from tough reality, not to experience more of it. 

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 10:41pm

My mother saw NEXT TO NORMAL with me and my sister on a whim without researching it beforehand and despised it because she was at one point in her life in the same position as Natalie.

A show about a hard hitting or deep topic can be fascinating and moving for someone comfortably set back from the situation depicted but for someone who lived through it it can drudge up really bad memories.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 11:00pm

trpguyy said: "Artistic merit isn't defined, it's subjective. The only thing objective about commercial theater is revenue. In my opinion, there is quite a wide variety of things on Broadway and I think it's great. Someone else may think it's all too "commercial" and not artistic enough, and others may find it all too artsy for them. 

But I am glad that despite a number of short runs the last few seasons, business is booming. 

 

"

With all due respect, serious critics (I'm talking Aristotle, not Clive Barnes) have been defining artistic quality objectively for at least 2500 years. Doing so does require a formal list of criteria, because the standards may vary.

I don't see the evidence that "public tastes" have been shifting from the artistic to the merely commercial. Isn't HAMILTON the hottest ticket on Broadway? Say what you like, a musical about the first Secretary of the Treasury is hardly "cynically commercial". A couple of years ago, that perennial flop, FOLLIES, played Washington, New York and Los Angeles. It may have lost money and it still isn't a piece that appeals to a wide audience, but it attracts passionate support from those who love it.

ETA OKLAHOMA! is not inferior to CAROUSEL. That's absurd. We may have lost the sense of national solidarity that made OKLAHOMA! so powerful in 1943, but it is not an inferior work.

Updated On: 10/3/16 at 11:00 PM

[trpguyy]

Posted: 10/3/16 at 11:32pm

GavestonPS said: "trpguyy said: "Artistic merit isn't defined, it's subjective. The only thing objective about commercial theater is revenue. In my opinion, there is quite a wide variety of things on Broadway and I think it's great. Someone else may think it's all too "commercial" and not artistic enough, and others may find it all too artsy for them. 

But I am glad that despite a number of short runs the last few seasons, business is booming. 

 

"

With all due respect, serious critics (I'm talking Aristotle, not Clive Barnes) have been defining artistic quality objectively for at least 2500 years. Doing so does require a formal list of criteria, because the standards may vary."

Of course. But at the end of the day, artistic merit is still very subjective. Look no further than The Encounter. The opinions vary from rave reviews, "just an audiobook," and "utter bullsh*t."

You and I and most other people could agree on the artistic merit of a particular show, but some other folks (After Eight) may have a polar opposite opinion. And who's right? Everybody and nobody. Ultimately there is no right and wrong when it comes to these things, just common opinion and uncommon. But the money is what dictates "success."

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/4/16 at 7:15am

"Say what you like, a musical about the first Secretary of the Treasury is hardly "cynically commercial"."

Oh, please.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 10/4/16 at 11:28pm

 ETA OKLAHOMA! is not inferior to CAROUSEL. That's absurd. We may have lost the sense of national solidarity that made OKLAHOMA! so powerful in 1943, but it is not an inferior work.

I think that you would lose a bet on that. By no means saying that Oklahoma is not one of the great musicals, but it has nothing to match the emotional depth of the Bench Scene and "Soliloquy."

I have often wondered why sixteen years passed between the first landmark musical, Show Boat and the second, Oklahoma. Maybe it was just because the common factor, Oscar Hammerstein, was the only one willing and able to produce such a musical and it took that long for him to find another suitable book and another composer in the same class as Jerome Kern willing to do it.

But I think that maybe because they were breaking new ground for the second time (Yes, I know, a  non sequitur) that they didn't want to do anything too heavy. So Curly sang about the morning and his imaginary surrey and Curly and Laurie flirted with each other over "People Will Say We're In Love."

I'm not saying that Oklahoma isn't a great musical and a landmark musical and without its success we may never have had all the classics produced through the 50s. But is there any song in Oklahoma with the intensity of "Something Wonderful" or "I Have Dreamed"?

 

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/4/16 at 11:43pm

^^^Are you comparing OKLAHOMA! with CAROUSEL or THE KING AND I?

I'm not going to defend OKLAHOMA! by knocking CAROUSEL. I love the latter, too.

But I think you underestimate the power of the opening song (as simple and moving as anything in CAROUSEL) and the title number in a country in the midst of a world war.

"Lonely Room" is as psychologically complex as "Soliloquy". And the ballet in OKLAHOMA! actually advances the plot.

Just because OKLAHOMA! is more optimistic than CAROUSEL doesn't make it inferior or even less serious. In fact, a good case can be made that the former's theme of progress through democratic union is more serious and a lot less sentimental than "a slap that feels like a kiss".

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/4/16 at 11:46pm

After Eight said: ""Say what you like, a musical about the first Secretary of the Treasury is hardly "cynically commercial"."

Oh, please.

 

"

Do you have a point besides trolling?

I didn't think so.

 

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 10/5/16 at 4:55am

Yes, I have read about all the servicemen who flocked to see Oklahoma and how much it meant to them and showed them what they were fighting for. I guess I could agree that the score wasn't inferior, it was just different for a different time. Full of cheerful and upbeat songs, from Curly's famous solo opening of the show with "Beautiful Mornin'" through the inspired comedy of Ado Annie and her two fellers, and "The Farmer and the Cowman" and of course the title tune. 

My mother in the mid to late fifties played the R&H OBC albums constantly, along with "My Fair Lady" and a few others.  As a six or seven year old I completely absorbed them. My two favorites were "The Carousel Waltz" and "Oklahoma." When it was time for "Oklahoma" I would grab this tin indoor watering can and beat wildly on the bottom of it more or less in time to the music. I guess this is why I developed a life long love affair with these classics and why I was so thrilled to see South Pacific at Lincoln Center.

Peace.

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/5/16 at 6:43am

"I didn't think so."

 

Perhaps you should think harder then. Haven't you read any of the five zillion think-pieces --- the fancy word for guff --- that have been lavished on this show? As we have been told ad nauseam, this  show is not simply a musical about the first Secretary  of the Treasury. That's just the foundation  of a landmark work of immense breadth and scope illuminating the entire American experience, all in an inspired musical idiom. At least that's the line we've been fed non-stop. And as such, it was indeed commercial, as it was perfectly  designed to ensure that the powers-that-be would go wild for it, and then hype it to such a degree that the customers would flock to it in droves.

You have to go beyond  what appears on the surface and think about the subtext, the supertext, and what is most assuredly apt in this case, the stupor-text.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 10/5/16 at 10:49am

you'd have to be a moron to believe that any musical about a US Secretary of the Treasury could be conceived as a commercial venture. that's outrageous.

[trpguyy]

Posted: 10/5/16 at 11:46am

"venture: a business enterprise or speculation in which something is risked in the hope of profit; a commercial or other speculation"

 

Any show with its eyes on Broadway is a commercial venture. 

Updated On: 10/5/16 at 11:46 AM