a CHORUS LINE thought — Page 2

http://www.broadway.com/Gen/Buzz_Video.aspx?ci=528201

You had to revive a 12 year-old thread to ask that?

It’s interesting to look at this thread 12 years after the last revival as we’re about to see it again at City Center, though. I remember being so enormously excited about the revival that it was the first time I ever paid top price for a ticket, and I was so let down. Because it did end up feeling dated—not, I suspect, because it’s set in the 1970s but because the estates involved seem to only allow productions that are near exact replicas of the original from costumes to choreography. While those elements are and were genius, I do wonder if how little I put a new team has in a production keeps a bit of a stranglehold on how the show comes across currently, more than 40 years after it debuted. But at City Center, here we have Baayork Lee recreating the choreography....again. And I don’t mean to indicate in any way that Bennett’s choreography is less than stunning, but...I guess I just hope they manage to inject more life into the show than the disappointingly flat revival did.

I asked a similar "why" question in a recent thread about the City Center production, Sauja. Keep iconic aspects of the choreography (the opening, Music and the Mirror, One), but freshen up everything else around it. It has to remain a period piece, but maybe the book needs to be tweaked? Maybe it looks different? How does a 2018 production of a 1976 musical feel/sound/look in terms of the casting, direction, design, and music arrangements?

Michael Bennett would only be 75 if he were alive today; would he do a beat-for-beat restaging of the show, or would he look at it all from a new perspective? It all resonates differently today.


I would have loved to see Michael Friedman's "followup" piece that he was working on for the Public: "The original musical, about a group of auditioning dancers, was set in 1975; the sequel would have been set a decade later, as that same generation of dreamers was laid waste by AIDS."

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 11:02 PM

I think everyone needs to remember that technically, ACL is the first modern American docutheatre piece. It was the first commercial piece that used real people's stories, real people's words (often verbatim) from so many different dancers, in and out of the cast. I think it would be so unethical and so disrespectful to change it. Their stories live on to this very day through telling that story. Am I the only one that thinks that's actually so beautiful and amazing? I would go as far as to say if you as an audience member can't relate to something that takes place in not a modern setting, you are at least a little daft.

In terms of ACL specifically, there is so much in history that is still so relevant today. Sure- some things have changed in the industry. We are now more than ever focusing on diversity. But so many things haven't changed. The sexism, the body shame, the rejection, broken homes that performers come from-- it's all still there. Especially on Broadway, which as many of us who are in the industry know, is a cut-throat industry that demands inauthenticity from people in order to sell tickets.

But on the same token, I do believe there are some things when modernized do make for more interpretation. But I think the "why" is the most important question, not just doing it to do it. I believe there are certain shows that are really products of their time (Little Shop, JCS, Godspell, Hair to name a few) that just completely fall apart without being set in their original time periods. Especially with the technology that we have, it would just poke so many holes in the script. Its an annoying trend I keep seeing across various mediums in the entertainment industry--especially TV and film with their obsession of modern reboots. They are rarely, if ever, an improvement on the original and just fall flat. I am a huge advocate of keeping things set in the period they were written in. It's how they were meant to be performed.

Well, I'm re-reviving it because a comments site was discussing Broadway shows that have "dated" versus "timeless" ones and I mentioned "A Chorus Line" in passing as one of the former. So someone asked me why--specifically--I think it's dated, and I had to think about it and wanted other people's take, because i wasn't sure how to articulate it. The obvious stuff about costumes, dance and cultural references weren't enough because you can just update those things or present it as a period piece, "It's 1975, get over it." The latter option is best, I'd think, but I think it'd come off uncomfortably--maybe because the era isn't distant enough. A few years ago I saw a revival of "Private Lives", with its totally outdated dialogue and gender assumptions, etc, and it was easy to say, "It's the 30's, a different time, and it's hilarious." But--as at least one poster said--the "concerns" in A Chorus Line are current, but the way the characters think about them are so 70's.

The poster mentioned "body shaming", and duh, that's right. "Dance 10, Looks 3" was a showstopper when i saw it. Can you imagine a number composed now about a girl having plastic surgery so she can get jobs that would be presented without any larger reference to the "issue"? I can't, and it'd be a drag if it did that, but it would just feel odd that she could sing that as a racy comedy thing and nobody would bat an eye. And that goes for Paul's monologue and a bunch other stuff.

So I think it IS dated. That doesn't mean I wouldn't catch a revival if it was nearby, but I can't see responding as I did in the 70's.