Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Oh, Yeah. Shrek Is Closing, Too

It suddenly occurred to me that Shrek is closing today and that I hadn't really made much mention of it, other than a Twitter post when the closure announcement first came. Kinda tells you something about the lasting impression that the show has made on my consciousness.

As I said I my review, I actually sort of enjoyed Shrek, particularly the talented cast of Broadway stalwarts, including Brian d'Arcy James, Christopher Sieber, Sutton Foster, and relative newcomer Daniel Breaker. The show was reasonably entertaining, although there were some rather poorly staged sequences when I saw the show early in previews.

The main problem for me was, and remains, the lackluster songs by Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire. Other than "I Know It's Today," there really isn't any song in the show that has stuck, for me at least. I think if the score had been more overtly tuneful and memorable, Shrek might have been a winner. The story is certainly very strong, the cast was exemplary, and most of the production elements were solidly in place. "Family" shows really live or die based on the appeal of the actual songs in the show, and Shrek just didn't have the "wow" factor in the score department. 

I'll be very interested to see if David Lindsay-Abaire continues to get offers to write musicals. Both Dreamworks and Disney have had mixed results in bringing on the pedigree playwrights to work on their would-be blockbusters. Experience seems to have shown that writing a mass-appeal musical (Shrek) is quite different from crafting a Pulitzer-Prize-winning drama (Rabbit Hole). Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife) had similar challenges with The Little Mermaid, although he did fare much better with Grey Gardens. And David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) has likewise met with both relative success (Aida) and a decided lack thereof (Tarzan). So, I don't think we're going to see these guys disappear entirely from musical creative rosters, but producers will likely think more carefully before they blithely assume that the skill sets for crafting effective plays and winning librettos are necessarily transferable.

Next up at the Broadway Theater was supposed to be the upcoming revival of Promise, Promises, directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford, with Sean Hayes as Chuck, Kristin Chenoweth as Fran, Brooks Ashmanskas as Dobitch, Katie Finneran as Marge MacDougall, and Tony Goldwyn as Sheldrake. But I've heard (totally unsubstantiated) rumors that the producers are looking for a different venue. Perhaps, now that more theaters are starting to open up -- including the Neil Simon, the St. James, the Marquis, and the Golden -- the producers are looking for something a bit more intimate than the barn that is the Broadway. Andrew Lloyd Webber is said to have his eye on the Neil Simon for Love Never Dies, and the Golden is probably way too small. But the St. James and the Marquis are certainly possibilities.

As for Shrek, Dreamworks has been very tight-lipped about the total cost for the production, but it's very likely to be well north of $20 million, perhaps even $25 million, given the weekly operating losses the show has reportedly been incurring. There's no way the show recouped on Broadway, but a national tour will embark this summer. Might Shrek eke out a profit in the provinces, much as Disney is (realistically?) hoping to do with The Little Mermaid and Mel Brooks is (laughably?) hoping to do with Young Frankenstein? If I find out, you, dear reader, will be the first to know.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Must Be Stopped

 
I've never been one to reflexively bash Andrew Lloyd Webber. Some of his shows I genuinely like, particularly Evita, while other shows I find flawed but enjoyable, for instance Sunset Boulevard. I usually even find something worth liking in each of his mega-hits. Cats has some great instrumental passages, especially "The Jellicle Ball." And the "Prima Donna" sequence in The Phantom of the Opera, though bloated, for some reason invariably makes me smile. 

So, I certainly don't consider myself a knee-jerk Lloyd Webber hater. But the more I hear about his current projects, the more I get the impression that ALW's late career is turning into an expanse of easy repetition.

First, there's the upcoming sequel to Phantom, with the rather uninspired title Love Never Dies. I'm not one to assume that any particular show will be an automatic disaster. It all depends on the execution. And just because no musical has ever had a successful sequel, doesn't mean that it could never happen. No, the reason I was disappointed with Love Never Dies is that ALW chose to pursue a Phantom sequel over a far more interesting project.

For years, Lloyd Webber was toying around with the idea of turning Mikhail Bulgakov's brilliantly surreal novel, The Master and Margarita, into a stage show. The book takes place in Moscow in the 1930s, and involves an earthly visitation by Satan, accompanied by a motley retinue of assistants, including an anthropomorphous cat named Behemoth. It's a richly bizarre and satisfying book, and would make a wonderful stage show, in the right imaginative hands. But ALW gave up on the project, saying the book was too dense. "I've decided it's un-doable," he told the press in 2007. "It's just too difficult for an audience to contemplate. It's a very complicated novel."

No, Andrew. It's not un-doable. It's just that you couldn't find a way to do it. There's a difference. And don't blame the audience for your professional failings.

To a certain extent, it's understandable that ALW would want to play it safe. He hasn't had a true hit in over 20 years. Most of his shows since Phantom have been disasters (Whistle Down the Wind, The Woman in White) or disappointments (Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard). He's certainly not hurting for money. The substantial and steady income from Phantom and Cats notwithstanding, he's produced a successful-but-attenuated series of British reality-TV shows to cast a variety of London revivals, including The Sound of Music, Oliver, and his own Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. More easy, lazy repetition.

But the thing that really put me over the edge was the recent announcement that ALW would be penning six new songs for a forthcoming London stage version of The Wizard of Oz, although the classic Harold Arlen/E.Y. "Yip" Harburg songs will reportedly remain. (Have you no shame, Sir. Andrew? At long last, have you no shame?) The show will be cast via reality show (natch) and will likely hit the stage sometime in the 2010-2011 season.

So ALW is taking a well-loved and proven property, supplementing the score with six songs that no matter how good they are will pale in comparison to the originals, and casting the show with the already beaten-to-death reality-casting format, efforts that are lazy, sacrilegious, and lazy, in that order. Let's just say that Love Never Dies had better be spectacular. And I'm not talking chandeliers here.