Older shows vs. how they’re received today — Page 3

joevitus said: "Agree Hammerstein is unappreciated. My comments should not be taken as dismissing his influence or his importance, just pointing out a weakness in his dramaturgical skill. No one's perfect. Hammerstein is the central figure in the development of American musical theater from a lighthearted diversioninto a serious art form. He wasa skillful lyricist and librettist, and his sentiments are--to me--still moving and inspiring. But he stumbled sometimes inhis his work. No biggie."

And I agree with you about the treatment of the Judd character and that the exchange in Carousel about being hit hard and feeling no pain was probably a mistake. Going into the script sheds some light on the encounter between Billy and Louise. He finds his sad little girl desperately sobbing and he wants to comfort her with his gift of the star and give her some positive feelings about her father, but he only succeeds in frightening her and making things worse.

Following the stage instructions in the script "Impulsively, involuntarily, he slaps her hand." (page 175)

"Involuntarily." If hitting her was not voluntary than it is not his responsibility. That leaves the questions of who is responsible and why did the slap cause no pain? Well, we are in the middle of a supernatural scene. The Billy that struck Louise is a dead man. This is weak, but the audience knew that Billy didn't want to hurt her so we are told that the slap did not hurt her and Julie had seen Billy (also supernatural) and understood his good intentions and accepted the star so we can all go off walking on through the rain.

This statement would not be so troublesome if it were not at the absolute peak moment of the drama.

Deleted because I realized I had already responded to Kad's post.

Updated On: 10/15/19 at 08:07 PM

On the other hand - how will the book of the new MUSIC MAN revival be changed, if at all, to sound more realistic to current mores?

*Harold Hill was a con man and his sales pitch is embodied in his songs and dialog. But they pale in comparison with the hype we get for every product or service that is hawked these days.

*Marian's past is only hinted at. In these days, that would not be the subject of too much gossip anymore.

Personally, I would like to see the revival in the original mode that Meredith Willson and his bookwriter envisioned it to be, attuned to the period setting in which the musical takes place.

As it was said before, art is not created in a vacuum. Any art is a reflection of the society in which it was created, a reflection of both its flaws and strengths. To ask that revivals remain static flies in the face of what makes good art, because it’s mirroring back a time and place that is so far removed from current society that modern audiences can’t conn ct.



Also, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with cutting a part of a musical that no longer serves it purpose due to being horribly outdated and uncomfortable. Those kind of moments remove the average theatergoer from the action onstage,and make it difficult to appreciate the merits of a work. Finian’s Rainbow did just fine without the blackface element. The tricky part is changing things but still remaining true to the spirit and message of the piece. Those elements which seem out of place now were making a certain point in the context of their current society, sometimes to communicate the same idea we have to update our methods. If updates aren’t made, you risk the audience wildly misinterpreting. I’m certainly not into change for change’s sake, but any alterations should serve the piece.



Financial success and long theatrical run are not indicators of quality. We’ve all seen or participated in regrettable fads. Minstrel shows were a very popular form of entertainment for a good long while, but we don’t have them around anymore. Popularity does not equal quality, but it is a useful guide to gauge what a society is currently valuing.

AADA81 said: "Part of the problem here is that audience expectations have narrowed in a sort of PC-censoring. Carousel, My Fair Lady and The King and I take place centuries ago, give or take a hundred years. To complain that these characters portray perspectives or behaviors that we in 2019 find offensive is silly, because people DIDN'T think thisway back then. Like it or not, they just didn't. To superimpose21st-century sensibilities on characters living in a different era or century (or culture) is simply an attempt to mollify theaudience. I find it jarring when a female character from another century suddenly becomes a source of female empowerment or when a male character suddenly finds his inner-Alan Alda. Maybe from now on, instead of committing suicide, Romeo and Juliet should just get a time-share condo and tell the Montegues and Capulets to startfamily therapyASAP."

No one is arguing that the shows aren't a product of their time. However, revivals are a product of THEIR time, too. The world is not magically returned to 100 years ago because that's when the piece was written.

I think putting up productions of older works uncritically, hiding behind the defense of "oh well it's 100 years old, what can ya do?", and then getting bent out of shape when people question what you're putting in front of them is questionable.

Shakespeare is an odd example to bring up; the plays are 500 years old and routinely produced in every corner of the world in every conceivable way, from faithful Elizabethan recreations to modern-day translations to musicals and opera to pared-down prison tours to Stoppardian riffs. The preciousness of Shakespeare has been (largely) abandoned and people are free to explore those texts, to engage with them critically, and shape them for audiences centuries removed from their origin. Even the most problematic of his plays are regularly seen.

Any art is a reflection of the society in which it was created, a reflection of both its flaws and strengths. To ask that revivals remain static flies in the face of what makes good art, because it’s mirroring back a time and place that is so far removed from current society that modern audiences can’t connect.

This is why God and the lawyers invented intellectual property rights. Since Congress redid the copyright law in 1978, with some exceptions a book or a play or a film retains copyright protection until 70 years after the death of the author. So if his or her work is to be torn into shreds, at least the author won't be around to see it. Copyright protection for a newly minted play of about a century. The play must be licensed from the holder of the copyright, who can put conditions on the license contract.

To go on a bit with Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice (her best known noble was cited as second most popular book after Lord of the Rings in the UK. It was voted best novel ever written by Australians five years later in 2008). It has themes limited to the time. One could specify in his or her will that the person's estate go only to a male from that family. Also, running off to elope with a man of questionable character and no money resulted in the whole family being on the out socially. But I think that the long and lengthy popularity of Pride and Prejudice pretty much shows that historical setting is not a problem.

I suspect that other shows only get in trouble when they deal with issues that are still hot button right now.

Abuse of women or racial minority or sexual minority -- sexually, physically, financially or verbally.

Feel free to add others.

(Physical attack on whites by racial minorities is OK, as I found out on Human Kindness Day 1974 when I was punched, kicked and robbed of my grandfather's 18 kg retirement watch by a group of four or five young teens on the Mall in Washington solely because I was white. ("human kindness day."

So how do you decide whether an instance of one of the above?

I really don't feel qualified to make the determination and I would not want to be part of the decision making. I say case by case because this is something close to the best we can do when there are hardened positions on both sides. Negotiate.

In the infamous "spanking" episode of the late Kiss Me, Kate (and Ivy is going to be all over me for bringing this up again), I am in a pretty good place to judge since I saw the first preview, the last preview, and the handling of the scene at the end of the 2012 London revival which originally featured Marin Mazzie but ended with Rachel York. (The DVD of this is available on Amazon for $12.89).

At the first preview the scene was chaos. There was no attempt to make the spanking, although it was threatened, but the parties just kind of circled around each other seemingly not knowing how to end the scene. The curtain did not abruptly fall and the performers in front of the stage did not appear.

I loved Rachel York in the London show. Rachel landed a whole bunch of slaps and kicks, but finally Brent Barrett grabs her and gets in four or five spanks before the curtain falls abruptly and the poor performers did their jig as ordered in front of the curtain. Meeting backstage, Rachel got in a hard last slap that left Brent whining about his eye bleeding as Rachel walked proudly away.

So what they wound up with in Roundabout was pretty much adapting the London scene very closely, but when Will went to grab her to put her over his knee, Kelli ended up sailing over his leg and falling to the ground as the scene ended in chaos, the curtain fell, and the funny dancers did their bit in front of the curtain.

A beautiful compromise, I thought.

Kiss Me Kate at the Roundabout was, I think, the strongest way to currently present that piece. It’s a tricky one, but the buoyancy of the score and that cast were able to keep things moving.

Every one of these scenarios is a case by case, highly nuanced conversation, the kind of conversation most people want to avoid. This year, the high school I teach at is doing the Drowsy Chaperone. As one of the few Asian staff members, and the only minority woman with any involvement in the drama program, I was asked to weigh in on Message from a Nightengale. I am adamant that we are not doing it at the second act opener, these students are not able to perform it satirically as it should be and our school student audience will certainly only read it as a racist minstrel show. Incidentally, I saw it on Broadway and was fine with professional adult actors performing the scene because it’s a totally different scenario. Instead, the department and I brainstormed some ways to convey the same joke and idea to a different audience. It’s an uncomfortable discussion, but one that should be had.

j.garcia said: "Plenty of productions hide because providing a well executed, true-to-spirit update is extremely difficult. It requires nuance, a strong familiarity with the work, deep knowledge of current society, and creativity.If a production contains a scene so anachronistic to current societal norms or values, to the degree that it’s so jarring as to remove the audience from the piece, then the scene should be seriously reconsidered and revised.



Of course people know the difference between Then and Now, it’s condescending to imply that if people don’t like an outdated and possibly offensive reference that they lack the intelligence to separate the two. I would posit that if you are unable to change and grow as society does, and as art does, you might be the one with the issue."

Do people re-write Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Shaw when their plays are revived? Odd that no one would dare re-write Pygmalion, but they will change the end of My Fair Lady for a revival. Taming of the Shew isn't touched, but Kiss Me, Kate must be altered because it's "problematic." It isn't that people don't know the difference between then and now. It's more some musical theater audiences (mostly in New York, it seems) are apparently too close-minded and narcissistic to watch anything that doesn't recreate all previous works in the light of Right Now's do's and don'ts. It's absurd, and adults, even teens, should be able to place a work in perspective and enjoy a classic for what it is, not for what it (to them) lacks.

Updated On: 10/19/19 at 03:50 AM

The Shakespeare example is a poor one. In Shakespeare's time the character of, say, Shylock would have been looked at 100% as a villain. The audience would have laughed and cried with the Christians in the play, and Shylock being converted to Christianity would have seemed like a very merciful, humane punishment. There was no such concept of religious tolerance in Elizabethan England.

Today we can't watch Merchant of Venice and be horrified by the anti-Semitism of the "good people" and we also can't help but notice that Shakespeare himself humanized Shylock in such a way that the story has shades of gray that original audiences likely would not have seen. Modern stagers of Merchant of Venice make Shylock the central character, because he is the most compelling character of the play. But is that something the original audience would have thought?

We can't turn back time on all the pogroms, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, and look at Merchant of Venice as this happy play about good Christians outwitting the evil, greedy Jewish moneylender. No production of MoV today is going to have that POV.

Shakespeare onstage is almost always done with cuts that abridge the play and change it to fit the director's needs. An uncut Hamlet would be about 5 hours without intermissions.

But my point is no one is going to watch Merchant and think this is just a happy rom-com about the Christians outwitting the evil Jew. Too much has happened for us not to be horrified by the anti-Semitism of Antonio. Most audience members probably also find Bassanio to be a wastrel and a moocher, and Jessica stealing all her father's money to elope is very heartless. So directors have to take care and be mindful of how offensive the text is. I have seen Merchant done and Shylock always dominates the play in a way I doubt he would have in Elizabethan times.

I truly think there’s no “unworkable” show, with proper thought anything can be made to work. It’s just so difficult to get right, especially on pricklier shows. I’m really curious to see the new Millie because they’ve signaled that this production will address the uncomfortable racism that sits at the show’s core. I think the key is changing the power dynamic of the disenfranchised class or group. If the group who is being mocked is somehow in on the joke, the it becomes an audience laughing with and not at.

Kiss Me Kate came close to getting it right, but I think overanalyzed itself. Baldwin sold the hell out of the more aggressive Kate, but it felt off when she had to have her meeker moments in th second act. Carousel tried to “modernize” but fell into the classic pitfall of going halfway, thus pleasing no one and drawing more attention to its perceived flaws.

Peter Pan is a show that has never quit got it right, and I’m not sure how it can be because I lack the expertise in both the show and I’m not a Native American so I’m not sure how that can even be handled respectfully.



It takes a ton of effort, time, and money to attempt to revive and update a show and there’s no guarantee that you’ll even get it right, but I always appreciate producers who at least try. It’s much preferred to a revival that’s exactly the same at it was in 1940 and hides it’s laziness behind the, “it’s just how things were,” argument.

No one says Shakespeare is problematic. No one says Shakespeare needs to get with the times. People may choose to alter things for a production, but this isn't surrounded by press releases and commentary about how inappropriate Shakespeare is.