Indecent Closing- Page 3

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 4:23pm

Broadway and the Tony Awards are where theatre artists get national (and beyond) attention and exposure, and many plays and musicals get produced because of the pedigree of having played Broadway and winning Tony Awards, so I don't see any fault in a playwright's goal of having one of their plays reaching Broadway. Broadway isn't just tourist fodder, and if it were, we wouldn't have a beautiful musical like Fun Home produced or winning awards. (Also, imagine the future life of that show thanks to the Tony Awards and Broadway. It likely wouldn't have even had a national tour.)

I think it's rather sad that a two-time Tony-winning play has to announce its closing right after winning at the Tony Awards, especially when its female director was shown winning on the telecast. I'm glad I already have tickets for June 24.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 4:29pm

Far be it from me to point out the errors in your argument, but it should be noted that there have been many Off Broadway works that have had significant extended life without ever having been on Broadway (including Vogel's How I Learned To Drive). A short list would include Little Shop of Horrors, March of the Falsettos, Three Tall Women, The Miss Firecracker Contest, A Coupla White Chicks Sittin Around Talking, Lone Star/Pvt Wars, etc., etc.,etc.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 4:36pm

...Your list contains several shows that did go on to Broadway in some form, but no matter, nobody ever said that there weren't ANY widely-produced shows that didn't play Broadway. That would be an absurd argument, and nobody here is trying to make it. I, and others, pointed out that Broadway runs and Tony wins greatly increase a show's visibility. And I pointed out that regional theaters are typically eager to produce recent Broadway successes. This is just true. 

Updated On: 6/14/17 at 04:36 PM

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 4:59pm

Scarywarhol said: "I don't think she's saying Brantley and Green are, like, mustache-twirlingly out to get women. But I also don't think it's unfair for her to say that they helped close the plays down, and I believe the implication is that there is a real lack of diversity in high-profile criticism. There is, and that is going to manifest in some way. And unless you believe that there is an objective measure of quality (that for some reason all these white guys seem to be the arbiters of), I can see why this would be upsetting. 

For the record, I do think Brantley has shown a streak of genuine casual misogyny in his reviews lately. "

You've hit the nail on the head, I think. In our culture overall, stories about women that are told by women are often dismissed in some way, whether or not they are objectively "good." It's also telling that Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel are two of the most well-known and lauded playwrights of the 20th century, yet it's taken them until this year to be produced on Broadway. Lucas Hnath, on the other hand, is very young and his play was fast-tracked to a Broadway opening without any out-of-town or off-Broadway productions at all. I don't know that I've ever seen that happen with something written by a young and relatively inexperienced female writer. The fact is that our experiences as people overall influence our perceptions of the artistic work we see, and white men (both gay and straight) are very accustomed to seeing themselves represented onstage. When that doesn't exist in a piece of work, it's pretty easy to brush it off as inconsequential, whether or not they're critics and supposedly "objective." All of this is something you know, or begin to understand, if you're a woman-identifying artist working your way through this world, and it's even more palpable for queer women and women of color. 

I found Brantley's review of Venus to be troubling, not because he didn't much like the production; that's his prerogative. What I found unsettling was the less-than-subtle racism and sexism that peeked through while writing a review of a play written by a black woman about real events which deliberately and unapologetically takes on these issues. This has been present in a lot of reviews he's written lately; he also lavished praise on the both sexist and racist Honeymoon in Vegas without once addressing its problematic elements, mostly because, it seems, he didn't notice or care. 

All of this is to say that I think Vogel is right to call them out, and should continue to do so. There need to be more diverse voices in theatre criticism, and barring that, the people in those positions should maybe examine their own privilege and reevaluate how they look at the work of people who represent and write about marginalized communities. 

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 5:07pm

I'd just like to take a second to point out that Broadway isn't exactly devoid of strong female characters (see: Anastasia, Chicago, Come from Away, A Doll's House, Part 2, Groundhog Day, Hamilton, Hello Dolly!, The Little Foxes, Miss Saigon, The Great Comet, Waitress, War Paint, Wicked, and more I'm probably forgetting...).

[DeepVSexyWitch2]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 5:13pm

"I'd just like to take a second to point out that Broadway isn't exactly devoid of strong female characters (see: Anastasia, Chicago, Come from Away, A Doll's House, Part 2, Groundhog Day, Hamilton, Hello Dolly!, The Little Foxes, Miss Saigon, The Great Comet, Waitress, War Paint, Wicked, and more I'm probably forgetting...)."

I don't really think this conversation is about strong female characters. Not to mention the majority those characters are written by white men or white women. The exception being Hamilton, which at it's most basic, is a story about white people presented by black people which is why it's easy for the public to swallow.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 10:54pm

As much as I adore Paula and her writing, I just didn't find this play to be all that interesting? It's not really a plot driven play, and it has moments of interest, it kind of went as I expected it to. I think the direction - which won - was the obvious standout. But I thought the actual play was a little "eh." It didn't have much dramatic heft to it. Didn't have any juice for the actors to bite into. Basically the complete opposite of Sweat. 

[BakerWilliams]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 11:52pm

Vogel's argument that the Times critics were out to get her and Nottage because of their gender would have a lot more credence if

A. Indecent and Sweat were universally beloved by all critics except those at the Times.

B. Green and Brantley had shown a longtime dislike of both authors' work

C. Green and Brantley have a continual dislike of female playwrights in favor of male playwrights.

None of these three criteria are true, and thus Vogel's argument is less logically sound and more an emotional response to how she currently feels.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 6/15/17 at 12:19am

Nothing against Idencent, since I haven't seen it because Whizzer said the Rush seats were abhorrent, but the only Vogel play I've read, "The Baltimore Waltz", got a positive review from the times and I thought it was just horrendous.

[@z5]

Posted: 6/15/17 at 1:41am

Sad something like this couldn't remain open so long, but crap like Michael Moore is able to bring a show to broadway...so disgraceful.

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 6/15/17 at 2:16am

^ for all you know it's going to run for 4 weeks and close early -.- seriously shut up.

As for Vogel's tweet, i thought it was super tacky, lets think maybe it wasnt the NYT that doomed your show but

1) It was in way too big of a theater (1084 seats vs 132 at the Vineyard)
2) The marketing was TERRIBLE
3) Look I love Richard Topel but there are no names in the show, not even theater names

this is bad producing all over and Vogel should recognize that is where the fault should lay 

[TexanAddams18]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 7:44pm

Yay! 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/theater/indecent-to-remain-open-on-broadway-despite-closing-notice.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Updated On: 6/22/17 at 07:44 PM

[BroadwayBeebe]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 7:46pm

This was some pretty great news today! I will be trying to see it one more time before August now!

[Laurapattifan]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 7:52pm

Thrilled I'll get to see this next week!

[ACL2006]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 7:58pm

that's some impressive news. Congrats to the show.

[ethan231h]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 8:08pm

YAY!!

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 8:34pm

Astonishing news, and I really hope they can make it that long. They can't expect it to continue grossing whatever it makes this week, which will be inflated by all the people who rushed to catch it. Maybe one of the investors kicked in a big sum to keep it running? In any event, I'm just overjoyed about this. I remember the Ragtime revival adding some performances when there was suddenly demand after the closing notice was posted, but has a commercial flop ever added over a MONTH of shows days before the announced closing? Wonderfully shocking! 

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 8:45pm

BOO literally just bought my tickets for another show today : (

Congrats to them but wish they told us sooner. Though I guess it's probably based on high sales as the run supposedly neared its end.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 9:21pm

possibly the best single piece of news of the season. 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 9:24pm

Can we get the title of this thread changed? Or just start a new one? This is really wild and great news.