Saturday, March 26, 2005

UNTIL WE REACH "BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME: THE DIANE WARREN MUSICAL," WE'RE SAFE: Ann Althouse takes on NYT theatre critic Ben Brantley's rant about the horrifying (to him) "American Idol"-ization of Broadway from her perspective as an "AI" fan. I come at it from a slightly different perspective--my viewing of "AI" in its history has totaled somewhere around 10 minutes, but I adore Broadway, both the classics and the more contemporary. A few things to note:

1. Ann rightly observes that there's a long history of "belty" numbers in musicals. However, what's kind of a new development is the Act I finales of shows being big belty solo numbers. Most musicals reserve those numbers for the so called "11 o'clock" number, near the end of the show, but not quite there. In contrast, the Act I Finale has traditionally been a number for the full ensemble--witness numbers like "One Day More" from Les Mis, "La Vie Boheme" from Rent, and "Along Came Bialy" from The Producers, none of which focus on a single performer.

2. Brantley's smackdown is largely limited to female performers, an odd choice since this season is an uncommonly weak one for women's roles on Broadway--the season's two big hits thus far--Spamalot and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are completely male driven. However, the showy self-importance that Brantley condemns isn't limited to women--Nathan Lane in The Producers, Michael Crawford in Phantom, and the various Valjeans in Les Mis have all commited much the same sin (or at least are forced to by the music). Heck, this season, we're subjected to an "Idol"-ized Act I finale of "I Am What I Am" in the mediocre revival of La Cage. Aside from a brief mention of Scoundrels, none of these people make the list.

3. In particular, Brantley singles out three scores for bashing. One, I haven't seen (Brooklyn), but the excerpts I've heard and reviews I've read suggest he's right on the money about it. However, the entire score is apparently written in that fashion, a far more understandable choice than having one "belter" song.

That's the problem Little Women has. In its effort to find something, anything, for its talented star, Sutton Foster, to do besides exclaim "Christopher Columbus!," they throw in an Act I finale ("Astonishing") that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the score and that degenerates into being nothing more than "look at me! I am the STAR of this show!" The lyrics have almost nothing to do with the show or the plot, and the music is wholly different from the rest of the score--a far more subdued endeavor. The song feels as though it was lifted from another, completely different, show.

The third song he singles out to bash is the Act One finale of Wicked, "Defying Gravity." First, it must be noted that in a lot of ways, "Defying Gravity" is a traditional Act I Finale. While the song is primarily sung by one of the show's two leading ladies, a substantial part of it is a duet, and it closes with punctuation from the entire ensemble. Second, unlike "Astonishing," "Defying Gravity" fits into the plot, both musically and character-wise. The lyrics relate to and advance the plot, and the music makes sense--the character singing the song has reached a breaking point in her life--a departure--and the music reinforces that--soaring into a belt at the end of the first Elphaba verse--as does the staging. Wicked does have songs that might rightly be proclaimed as nothing more than "Look At Me!" songs (most notably "Popular"), but this isn't one of them.

All that said, Brantley does have a point--overly showy singing and shows have, in some cases, overtaken actual theatrical merit. I don't know how else to explain the continuing success of "Mamma Mia!," while better, but equally commercial, shows like "The Full Monty" and "Ragtime" have closed, and more challenging shows like "A Class Act" and "Caroline, Or Change" fail to survive more than a few performances.

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