When Was the Last "Good" Season? — Page 2

"So After Eight I have to ask: Were you a habitue of Broadway 50 years ago?"

Yes.

"Two facts:"

Two misstatements.

"No one EVER likes the season at hand-"

Nonsense. Utterly absurd. Personally, I was in heaven in many seasons. Look at the yearbooks in the 50's-- critics spoke very highly of the seasons they had seen. Even here, people have been raving about recent seasons.

"And of course, time lends enchantment."

More nonsense. If I lived another 50 years, Mother/Hat or Once would seem every bit as horrible as they did when I saw them.

"Everyone loves "Do I Hear a Waltz?" NOW but it's only because they didn't
have to sit through it. "

More drivel. Not everyone loves it now, and plenty of people sat though it then and liked it, myself among them.

And what's your problem, anyway? Every season has its good and bad shows, even the greatest in history. The question was what do you think was the last good season? People gave different answers. I gave mine. I can't even begin to imagine why that bothers you so.

I'm with Eric in raving about the musical outpourings of the 70's as a DECADE, but finding one single wonderful June-to-June period proved much more challenging when I actually looked at the offerings of each season. Here are my tops-- (and my seasons may not conform to the Tony's rules):

'50-'51: GUYS & DOLLS, CALL ME MADAM, THE KING & I, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

'57-'58: WEST SIDE STORY, JAMAICA, THE MUSIC MAN

'59-'60: THE SOUND OF MUSIC, FIORELLO, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, BYE BYE BIRDIE, (& THE FANTASTICS off-B)

'61-'62: MILK & HONEY, HOW TO SUCCEED..., NO STRINGS, ...FORUM

'63-'64: 110 IN THE SHADE, HELLO DOLLY!, FUNNY GIRL, (ANYONE CAN WHISTLE)

'66-'67: THE APPLE TREE, CABARET, I DO! I DO!

'68-'69: ZORBA, PROMISES PROMISES, 1776

'75-'76: CHICAGO, A CHORUS LINE, PACIFIC OVERTURES

'83-'84: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, THE RINK, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

'89-'90: GRAND HOTEL, CITY OF ANGELS, ASPECTS OF LOVE (and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND off-B)

'97-'98: SIDE SHOW, THE LION KING, RAGTIME, CABARET revisal, (and HEDWIG off-B)

"Jack Gaver, the drama critic for UPI watched and observed every show of the 65-66 season and he pretty much hated everything."

I've never heard of Gaver, and doubt that a writer for the UPI deserves much respect for arts writing, but he didn't like:

A revival of The Glass Menagerie with Maureen Stapleton, Piper Laurie, George Grizzard and Pat Hingle?

Oliver!?

Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt Of The Sun, directed by John Dexter and starring Christopher Plummer and George Rose?

Man of La Mancha?

Ellis Rabb's revival of You Can't Take It With You starring Rosemary Harris?

Cactus Flower? (We may have forgotten, but it was a phenomenal hit, and it's a good comedy.)

Marat/Sade?

Sweet Charity?

Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come!?

If he didn't like any of those, then he can't like anything. Even I (who have a reputation for hating everything) just applauded 15 productions from the past few years.

Updated On: 12/19/12 at 09:35 AM

Actually, doesn't Goldman have a lot of praise for several shows that flopped? (Like Joe Egg and The Unknown Soldier and His Wife?)

I feel like he was more pessimistic about "hits" like Hair, and he's very good at pointing out what many others have said - that Hair was more interesting and had more integrity in its earlier incarnations than the glossed-up version that opened on Broadway and pandered to suburbanites.

I really don't see The Season as a complaint of no quality on Broadway; it's much more complex than that. I think he was saying that there was room and some desire for good work on Broadway, but tourists clamor for low-brow fare, and economics require pandering to the largest number of tourists possible, ruling out the possibility of productions of more interesting work.

Edit: Looking at that season, too, you see that although there were almost twice as many shows produced then as there are now, very few of them ran long enough to succeed. The hits that year (as Goldman noted) were Hair and Plaza Suite, with semi-respectable runs for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, There's a Girl in My Soup, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and The Price.

Updated On: 12/19/12 at 10:21 AM