Should Race Be a Selling Point?

Norm Lewis made history as the first black Broadway Phantom when he joined the Broadway company of The Phantom of the Opera in May.  And while that is certainly noteworthy, I can't help but feel that maybe we are making *too* big of a deal about it.

Recently, some singer/talk show host I had never heard of was cast as the latest headliner in the terrible revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.  Her name is Keke Palmer, and she will be Broadway's first black Cinderella.  This news story bothered me greatly.

Now, let's be clear:  I am most certainly NOT upset that an African-American woman will be headlining a Broadway musical about a fairy tale princess.  As a person of color who once dreamed of being an actor, I am all too aware of the difficulties facing ethnic actors today.  While we are slowly seeing more diversity in entertainment, the sad fact remains that a lot of casting directors still won't consider an ethnic actor for a part that doesn't explicitly call for that ethnicity.  Furthermore, the parts that do require an actor of color often make skin tone the role's defining characteristic, as if that is the only thing which could possibly necessitate casting a non-white performer.  And since most subsequent productions have a tendency to mimic the casting of the original, if the original actor wasn't black (or Latino, or Asian-American, etc.), then actors of those ethnicities often aren't seriously considered for the role even if race has zero bearing on the story.  So any instance of a traditionally white role going to an ethnic performer is something I am all for.

No, what bothers me about Ms. Palmer's casting is that the producers and press made such a big deal about her being the "first black Cinderella" on Broadway.  Every story went out of the way to mention Palmer's ethnicity, which makes me believe this is something that was explicitly pointed out in the press release as a way of drumming up extra attention.  Because honestly, the 4th replacement in a revival of a musical with middling box office probably wouldn't even merit mention if not for this one tidbit.  I will choose to believe that the producers of Cinderella didn't cast Palmer solely because of her race, but they sure don't mind using her skin color to get some extra publicity and perhaps stroke their egos in a self-congratulatory, "look-how-progressive-we-are" way.

My problem with this is that it makes skin color the defining characteristic of this actress.  The selling point of Palmer's casting is not her talent or her previous accomplishments; it is her skin color, something she has absolutely no control over.  This is even more baffling considering Cinderella, which won an Actor's Equity award for the diversity of its ensemble, has several other ethnic actors in principal roles without feeling the need to point out their heritage.  No one mentioned that Ann Harada is the first Asian-American Stepsister.  You know why?  Because it is Harada's talent that is her most important asset, not her ancestry, which is only one component of the many qualities and characteristics that make her unique.

A similar thing happened recently when Norm Lewis took over the title role in The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway's longest running musical.  Every news outlet, even those that normally don't cover Broadway, was suddenly talking about Phantom again because Lewis is the first black actor to play the role on Broadway in the show's 26 year run.  And while that is certainly an achievement, and a cool bit of theatrical trivia, why did that have to be the defining piece of news about his casting?  Again, my problem with spinning the story this way is that it places the emphasis on Lewis' skin color, something he has zero control over, and not his talent, something he has honed and sharpened over nearly 3 decades of performing.

Defining anyone primarily by their skin color is reductive (and borderline insulting).  By calling extra attention to race, we continue to train future generations to notice it and use it as a way to define people.  Even if the focus on Palmer and Lewis's heritage is well-intentioned, as a mixed-race American it makes me vaguely uneasy.  It deemphasizes individuality, and encourages people to make assumptions based on someone's outer appearance.

To me, the ideal treatment of race is how the subject was handled in Rent.  That show featured an incredibly diverse cast without making their diversity the central focus.  All of the various characters in Rent are treated as people first, with subtle nods to their ethnic backgrounds that provided extra spice without becoming their defining quality.  Very little is explicitly mentioned about any characters' heritage, meaning the show could theoretically be cast with any combination of actors.  It is generally cast to mirror the ethnic breakdown of the original cast, which goes back to the lack of imagination on casting directors' part, but that is an issue for another blog.  The pertinent point here is that it was diverse without making race its defining characteristic, one of the many ways in which the show was so groundbreaking.

Or to use a currently running example, look at Disney's The Lion King.  It features a largely black cast, which makes sense given the African setting and director Julie Taymor's wholehearted embrace of tribal design aesthetics.  Yet the show doesn't once call attention to the character's blackness (probably because they're all actually lions, but that is beside the point).  As Taymor has said in various interviews, The Lion King is a show that is not about race and yet all about race.  As she astutely points out, to white audiences it is the same story they know and love from the movie, and the ethnicities of the actors are a non-issue.  But to black audiences, it is very much the story of a black king trying to win back his kingdom, and sends a powerful message that people of color can be noble kings and queens too.  The brilliance of the show is that it allows for this reading without doing anything to emphasize it, which makes it even more progressive than the shows that call attention to their inclusiveness.

There is no denying that Broadway could use more diversity.  The country continues to become more ethnically varied, but the principal characters in most Broadway shows remain steadfastly white.  I am all for actors like Palmer and Lewis breaking barriers, but I think when we call too much attention to it we only exacerbate the problem.  I hope directors continue to consider and cast actors of all ethnicities in all roles (provided the show isn't explicitly about race and racism), but cease to call attention to the fact that they are doing so.  Calling attention to it ultimately reinforces the notion that race is something to obsess over and define people by, and that kind of thinking helps no one.  Trying to get brownie points for your affirmative action casting decisions is just tacky, and devalues the talent of the people you do hire.

The Worst Shows of 2013

Every year, I like to do a snarkier, far less goodnatured companion to my Best Shows of the Year lists (which you can see here and here).  Because as much as I wish it wasn't so, some shows are just bad, and there's no excuse for that in a city with such a wealth of talented, knowledgeable theatre professionals.

So here, for your reading enjoyment, is my Worst Shows of 2013 list.  Just like my Best Shows list, for a production to be eligible it must have: 1) opened during the 2013 calendar year; and 2) been seen by yours truly.  The good news is that this year, I couldn't even come up with my standard list of 5, which means either the shows were generally better this year or I was better at avoiding the real stinkers.  The shows with the "honor" of making this list were not just bad, but so bad that I found them to be an insult to the art form and those of us who love it.  I know there's at least one choice that's going to cause some controversy, but I fully stand behind my naming these shows the four least enjoyable things I've seen this year.

4) The Glass Menagerie

Cherry Jones and Celia Keenan-Bolger; two superbly cast, horribly directed actresses in Broadway's latest Glass Menagerie.

I'm sure many will disagree with this choice, as the current Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie has ended up on many critics' Best Of lists, with several going so far as proclaiming it the best production of the play they've ever seen.  I don't know what production those critics saw, but the show I witnessed was a prime example of good material ruined by bad direction.  Menagerie may be a "memory play" with a certain dreamlike quality to it, but that doesn't give director John Tiffany permission to hopscotch from abstract concept to abstract concept mid-performance.  Celia Keenan-Bolger's first entrance from inside the couch is a striking visual, but it sets up a convention that is never again revisited and therefore seems extraneous in hindsight (no other characters makes an entrance or exit nearly as interesting).  The choreographed interstitials, seemingly left over from Tiffany's Tony-winning musical Once, are the definition of random, and provide no useful service to either character development or narrative structure.  The four actors are well cast, but then poorly directed to the point where none of the roles land the way they need to for the piece to truly sing.  While I appreciate Tiffany's choice to emphasize the play's comedy as a way to free it from the baggage of being a Great American Drama, he has defanged the play (and the character of Amanda in particular) to the point where the final scenes have none of the poignancy or resonance they were clearly meant to.  I know I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I truly don't understand what all the fuss is about, which is doubly disappointing as this was one of the fall shows I was most excited to see.

3) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

At least Scarlett Johansson and Benjamin Walker are easy on the eyes.

On paper, reviving Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Tony-winner Scarlett Johansson sounds like a surefire recipe for success (and you haters can shut your mouths, because she was outstanding in A View from the Bridge).  But the first of many poor decisions made by the producers was booking the cavernous Richard Rodgers Theatre, which is simply too big for the scale of this play.  The actors were practically swallowed by the gargantuan set and playing space, and compensated for it by screaming most of their lines in a desperate attempt to fill the space.  This need by the entire cast to push, perhaps at director Rob Ashford's encouragement, robbed the play of all subtly and variance in emotional intensity, resulting in a very long evening of deeply unhappy people yelling at each other.  And not in a good way, as in other Pulitzer Prize winners like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or August: Osage County.  Here's hoping the critical and commercial failure of this production doesn't scare the supremely talented Johansson away from Broadway forever.

2) Little Miss Sunshine

"I can't answer the question, 'Are we there yet?' No one knows what direction this show is headed in!"

The best word I can think of to describe the film version of Little Miss Sunshine is "quirky," which is one of the hardest traits to convey onstage.  But if anyone was capable of pulling it off, it should have been James Lapine and William Finn, whose collaboration on The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was the definition of "quirky" and a surprise critical and commercial success.  Unfortunately, lightning failed to strike twice, and the Off-Broadway premiere of Little Miss Sunshine was a borderline painful experience.  Lapine and Finn seemed unable to decide if they wanted to emphasize the comedy or the drama, and splitting the difference resulted in neither one being particularly successful.  Structurally the show was a nightmare, with most of Finn's songs serving little to no purpose and in several cases making character motivations and feelings more obscure rather than clearer.  The supremely talented cast - including Tony-nominees Stephanie J. Block, Rory O'Malley, and Will Swenson - all struggled mightily to overcome the frankly terrible material, and unfortunately none of them emerged entirely unscathed from the debacle.  Heavily rewritten after its original premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, perhaps it's time the creators declare this show unsalvageable and move on to other ventures.

1) Cinderella

You're right, Laura.  It's NOT fair that you two have to act in this debacle.

I really struggled with whether to crown Little Miss Sunshine or Cinderella the year's worst show, but ultimately the complete debacle occurring nightly at the Broadway Theatre is the more egregious waste of money and talent.  Although officially titled Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, this completely reworked version of the 1957 telemovie bears such little resemblance to that work it might as well be a new show.  For reasons I will never understand, Douglas Carter Beane was contracted to rewrite the show's book, despite his work on Lysistrata Jones and Sister Act proving that he wouldn't know proper story structure or quality character writing if it bit him in the ass.  Beane's postmodern sensibility is at complete odds with the earnestness of Rodgers and Hammerstein's score, and he burdens the show with a kindergarten-level lecture on the merits of democracy that is so simplistic it is actively insulting.

Forcing Laura Osnes to act in such drivel is almost criminal, especially considering how ideally suited she is for the Cinderella Rodgers and Hammerstein originally wrote.  Harriet Harris is saddled with the brunt a bad jokes and a character "arc" that makes even less sense than the translated menu at a Chinese take-out restaurant, and watching Ann Harada struggle to act out both sides of the Evil Stepsister dynamic (since Beane has decided to make the other stepsister more sympathetic) is just sad.  To borrow a phrase overused by pretty much every character in the show:  "Seriously?"  The Broadway Theatre has hosted some truly awful productions over the past few years, and unfortunately Cinderella is right up there with Promises, Promises in it's ability to insult and torture anyone unfortunate enough to wind up in the audience.


And there you have it; the worst shows of 2013.  I recommend avoiding these works at all costs, and spending your hard-earned cash on something that actually advances the theatre.  Hopefully this list will be even shorter next year.  Happy New Year!

2013 Tony Perdictions: Best Book and Score

It’s the middle of awards season here in NYC, and the name on everybody’s lips is “Tony.”  Last time I predicted who would win the coveted statuette in the Choreography and Direction categories; today, I pick who will and should win the awards for Best Book and Score.  At this point I should mention that I have still not seen Matilda, which is obviously one of the major competitors in these races, so there will be some speculation and possible bias going on here.  I reserve the right to change my predictions after seeing the show, and if I do, look for an updated entry at a later date.  But if I don’t start on these articles now I’ll never finish before June 9^th, so let’s get down to business!

Best Book of a Musical

The team behind Matilda must have spent weeks taking courses on how to best impress the American press, because the critics certainly *adored* it.

 

Nominees:  Joseph Robinette, A Christmas Story; Harvey Fierstein, Kinky Boots; Dennis Kelly, Matilda the Musical; Douglas Carter Beane, Cinderella

 

In case you’re new to this blog, I want to make it very clear that I despise Douglas Carter Beane’s libretto work, and think Cinderella is the most offensively awful writing he’s done to date.  Not only is his post-modern snark in complete opposition to the overwhelming earnestness of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s score, but Beane fails to make his additions funny or compelling in their own right. His attempt to develop characters beyond their fairytale archetypes falls flat, leading to personality inconsistencies and confused motivations that the talented cast struggles to make sense of.  And the less said about his entry-level lecture on the wonders of democratic rule the better.  A three time Tony nominee, Beane clearly has his fans among the Tony voters, but there are an equal number who thought this Cinderella was a train wreck of epic proportions, and I can’t imagine him winning this category.

Joseph Robinette’s adaptation of A Christmas Story was serviceable but nothing special, and the long-closed show will have major difficulty competing with its still running rivals.  Harvey Fierstein is one of the most consistently excellent librettists in the industry, and his work on Kinky Boots once again demonstrates his uncanny ability to couple witty one-liners with genuine heart and solid story structure, creating honest if exaggerated characters that propel the narrative forward at an effervescent pace.  I imagine that Dennis Kelly’s book for Matilda is equally solid, as the Brits have a knack for strong story structure thanks to their familiarity with the classics of dramatic literature.  I am cheering for Fierstein, but I think this is one category where Matilda has the edge.

 

Should Win:  Harvey Fierstein, Kinky Boots

Will Win:  Dennis Kelly, Matilda the Musical

 

Best Score

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.  And Lola wants a Tony for Kinky Boots

 

Nominees:  Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, A Christmas Story; Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green, Hands on a Hardbody; Cyndi Lauper, Kinky Boot; Tim Minchin, Matilda the Musical

 

Kudos to Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green for getting recognition for the underrated Hands on a Hardbody, but this is a case where the nomination is the win, as I can’t imagine a scenario where the pair beats their higher profile competition.  With twelve total nominations and lots of critical love, Tim Minchin is certainly a contender for his work on Matilda, although from a merit-based perspective I think this is one of the British import’s weaker categories.  The score is rarely the strongest element of any British musical, and I think a win for Minchin would likely be viewed as an upset.

I’m torn about who I want to win among the remaining two nominees.  I certainly liked Cyndi Lauper’s score for Kicky Boots, which managed to fuse her distinct pop sensibility with more traditional musical theatre idioms.  She is also the biggest name in this category, and the Tony voters have a habit of rewarding celebrities from other mediums who make credible Broadway debuts.  But in the grand scheme of things, Lauper is unlikely to write another musical anytime soon, if at all, whereas University of Michigan graduates Benj Pasek and Justin Paul would most likely dedicate their lives to writing excellent shows.  Not only is A Christmas Story the most inventive and exciting score of the season (at least in my opinion), but Pasek and Paul are the most promising songwriting team to emerge in years.  I wholeheartedly believe that they could become the next Kander and Ebb or Ahrens and Flaherty, and a Tony win would give them the clout to get future projects off the ground and into production.  Broadway needs to do more to nurture the next generation of musical theatre songwriters or eventually we’ll be left with nothing but revivals and jukebox musicals, and a win for the young duo would definitely be a step in the right direction.  The smart money is on Lauper, but I’m really hoping Pasek and Paul manage to pull an Avenue Q-level upset. 

 

Should Win:  Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, A Christmas Story

Will Win:  Cyndi Lauper, Kinky Boots

 

That’s all for now.  The supporting acting categories are up next, and don’t forget to check out the previous articles in my Tony Predictions series:

 

Best Choreography and Direction

2013 Tony Nomination React

A Fairytale Fractured Beyond All Repair

Review:  Cinderella

 

Hello, Young Lovers:  Santino Fontana and Laura Osnes enjoy a waltz is the Broadway revival of Cinderella

When the lights come up on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, we are treated to a silent tableau of the titular heroine gathering food in an idyllic, storybook forest.  A minute later, the Prince (here named Topher for reasons neither apparent nor consequential) and his footmen are slaying a tree giant, and the juxtaposition of those two images tells you everything you need to know about this rendition of the classic fairy tale.  Heavily rewritten in an attempt to be more hip, modern, and equally accessible to boys and girls, this new version of Cinderella completely eschews the old-fashioned charm that has allowed the property to endure for more than fifty years.

To be fair, the hour-long television musical Rodgers and Hammerstein originally wrote for a young Julie Andrews is too slight a story to be transferred directly to the stage, and padding it out with new plot points and a few of the duo’s trunk songs is not an inherently bad idea.  But surely the producers could have found someone better suited to the task than playwright Douglas Carter Beane, whose relentless snark is in complete opposition to the exceedingly earnest tone Rodgers and Hammerstein are known for.  Making matters worse is the fact that Beane is just god-awful at his job, as anyone who suffered through his odious work on Sister Act and Lysistrata Jones can attest. 

Possessing zero talent for characterization and a rudimentary at best understanding of proper story structure, Beane fills his musical librettos with an unending series of “punch lines” that sound like the improvisations of mildly amusing teenagers.  In Cinderella, this includes having characters exclaim “Seriously?” after being told to execute any unsavory task and commenting on how the placement of certain props makes “zero design sense.”  Beane and director Mark Brokaw have also saddled the show with a blatantly political subplot about bringing democracy to the Prince’s fairytale kingdom, a story thread so clumsily executed that it makes South Pacific’s simplistic observations about race seem like a graduate-level thesis in comparison.  By the time the people of the royal court decide to amuse themselves by trading insults in a game called Ridicule, you can’t help but laugh at how completely Beane has missed the mark, and hope that poor Rodgers and Hammerstein aren’t aware of what’s been done to their show.

It is physically painful to watch genuinely talented performers like Laura Osnes, Victoria Clark and Harriet Harris struggle to make such atrocious material work.  In many ways, Osnes is ideally cast as Cinderella – or Ella, as the show obnoxiously insists upon calling her – and when allowed to embrace the material’s traditionalist leanings she is a veritable delight.  Winsome without descending into blandness, Osnes and her lovely soprano are the perfect embodiment of the fairy tale princess, and watching her struggle to come up with an in-character reaction the sarcasm that permeates this show is almost depressing.  As she continues her ascent to leading lady status, one hopes that Osnes’ next show will finally combine the critical and commercial success this hard working actress so desperately deserves.

As her Prince Charming, Santino Fontana is exactly that, even if Beane’s writing forces him to play up the character’s buffoonish qualities.  Fontana seems appropriately lost as a young man struggling to find himself, and his infatuation with Cinderella is entirely believable.  Victoria Clark is positively enchanting as the Fairy Godmother, and her second act solo “There’s Music in You” is sung in the deeply felt, full-bodied manner befitting a majestic Rodgers and Hammerstein ballad.  (It should be noted that musical adaptor David Chase has flawlessly integrated the trunk songs and extended interludes with the existing score, creating one of the few instances where this production’s additions feeling like a natural extension of the source material.)

The villains of the piece are more problematic, due in no small part to Beane’s inability to decide whether they are meant to be truly menacing or mere comic relief.  As the wicked Stepmother, Tony-winner Harriet Harris spends two thirds of the evening spouting off one liners before being required to suddenly switch to genuine maliciousness and then again to heartfelt repentance, a horribly rushed progression no actress could make convincing.  In fact, given the wretchedness of her material Harris comes off remarkably well, with is more than can be said for Peter Bartlett as the devious royal advisor.  Ann Harada struggles mightily as the less attractive of the two stepsisters, but is let down by the decision to make her partner-in-crime Marla Mindelle noticeably less antagonistic than is usual.  Harada is essentially playing both sides of a comedic duo, and although she has some great moments the performance is ultimately ineffective.

Despite all the changes, there are times when this Cinderella actually begins to resemble the traditional version of the story, and when it does the show comes alive.  Cinderella’s onstage transformation and subsequent carriage ride to the ball is every bit as grand and enchanting as you could want, confirming the suspicion that we could have had a fantastic production if the creative team had merely trusted their source material.  Equally enthralling is the sweeping ballad “Ten Minutes Ago” and its accompanying waltz, which recreates old school Broadway spectacle in a most ravishing fashion.  Unfortunately, every time the show seems to get back on course Beane steers it in the complete opposite direction, to the point where he even changes the one thing literally everyone knows about Cinderella (let’s just say that her famed glass slipper makes a rather circuitous journey into the Prince’s possession).

From a production standpoint, this is definitely the Broadway version of Cinderella, with lavish sets and costumes that strike the proper balance between timelessness and modernity.  William Ivey Long’s costumes are gorgeous, and the multiple onstage transformations he creates are literally jaw-dropping.  Anna Louizos’s set design looks like a storybook illustration come to life, and is expertly highlighted by Kenneth Posner’s rich lighting design.  The twenty-person orchestra sounds just as sumptuous as the rest of the production looks, rounding out the technical excellence on all sides.

Ultimately, there is enough merit to this revamped Cinderella that it cannot be completely written off.  The production is visually striking and features some highly talented performers doing valiant work against insurmountable odds.  But unfortunately Douglas Carter Beane’s book is so inherently wrong, in both conception and execution, that the show cannot overcome it.  The production fails as both an old-fashioned musical romp and as an attempt at a clever reinvention of or commentary on the fairytale genre.  Rarely have I been so desperate for the characters in a musical to shut up and start singing, and if I never have to endure another one of Beane’s terrible librettos it will be too soon.  When this Cinderella vanishes at the stroke of midnight, perhaps we should simply let her leave.

Podcast Episode 7: Spring Preview Part 2

Jared, Brian, and Christopher continue their discussion of this spring's upcoming Broadway productions, this time focusing on the musicals slated to hit the Great White Way in the coming months. Although at first glance it looks like slim pickings, a closer examination reveals a lot to get excited about. Which new show is the panel most excited about? Can Pippin continue Diane Paulus' Best Revival winning streak? Does anybody even remember that they're doing Pump Boys and Dinnettes?!?