Somebody once asked me, "Dave, what would it take to get you to go to a Broadway musical?" My reply: "Rope, duct tape, and the trunk of a car."
Hi, my name is David, and I hate musical theatre.
Which is odd, but not uncommon, even among actors. I mean, I love theatre, naturally. And I love music — and not just the kind I used to make in the mid-'80s with my band, the Splitting Headaches, when I would stand in the spotlight amid thundering drums and dual Stratocasters and bask in the frenzied screaming of all four of our fans, but all types of music. For some reason, however, put music and theatre together, and the result is some sort of freakish hybrid that makes me want to gouge out my eyes and plunge daggers in my ears.
At first I thought the reason for my revulsion was that musicals are one of those things you have to be exposed to early. If you don't have Rodgers and Hammerstein imprinted on your brain before you hit puberty, you'll never understand its appeal. As someone who didn't grow up in New York and didn't see my first musical until I was well past puberty, I'd always envisioned Broadway as the theatrical equivalent of Las Vegas: shallow, glitzy spectacle for tourists, gay men, and the elderly. When I arrived here, however, I discovered I was wrong — that lesbians also enjoy a Broadway show. But other than that, I was pretty much on the money. (The shackles of political correctness require that I add: I'm kidding. Sort of.)
Musical theatre has been described as one of the few indigenous American art forms, along with jazz and morbid obesity (thanks, 30 Rock). But unlike the latter two, which have grown and evolved and been exported around the world, most musical theatre seems to exist in a time capsule that was buried somewhere in Times Square in the late 1940s. Of course, I may not be the best person to write about it, having been to a total of three musicals in my life. But since another indigenous American art form is critiquing things you know nothing about, why should I let a little thing like ignorance stop me? To be safe, however, let me enlist an accomplice.
A New York actor named Jen Ryan wrote a column for Back Stage last year in which she put her finger on the problem: "I have speculated for years that the insularity of Broadway will be its downfall. That the 'jukebox musical' is theatre's last-ditch attempt to make up for the fact that it has failed to adapt its sound to modern ears. That in 10 years the musical theatre will exist only as a novelty, a bygone sound for bygone tastes." She jokes that when casting directors ask to hear a rock song, they don't mean a real rock song. They mean Rent — in other words, musical theatre's "interpretation" of modern music. Like Pat Boone's "interpretation" of Little Richard in the '50s . Or my uncle Al's "interpretation" of the Beastie Boys at my brother's wedding.
Which explains the perennial lament about why Broadway can't attract a younger crowd — you know, people in their 50s and 60s, whose formative years were bookended by Elvis on Ed Sullivan and the Ramones at CBGB, who would be happier setting fire to the Broadhurst Theatre than sitting through Les Miz. So does this mean that simply updating Broadway's sound by half a century will result in a musical that doesn't have me praying for the sweet relief of a brain aneurysm?
That's what I thought. Until I saw the contestants on Grease: You're the One That I Want trying to sing rock songs. It was then I realized the problem with musical theatre is bigger than just the music. Because applying their polished musical-theatre chops to rock 'n' roll resulted not in an updated sound that would work on Broadway. It merely stripped away all the grit and soul and passion and honesty that made those songs so great in the first place and replaced it with a bright, phony musical-theatre sheen. Apparently, musical theatre is like a prehistoric beast capable of destroying whatever genre it touches (imagine a 200-foot Ethel Merman stomping on Tokyo).
Which reminds me of one of the worst insults I've ever heard hurled at an actor. The target was Broadway star Ann Reinking, who was performing some sort of razzle-dazzle production number on an awards show, and the comment was: "You can see every lesson she's ever had in her life." That's exactly how I feel when I watch musicals: While there may be real passion and humanity up there, it's buried beneath musical theatre's slick, soulless, impeccably groomed, perfectly articulated package.
Good acting is supposed to be invisible; as the saying goes, if they can see you acting, you're not doing it right. What they should see instead is real human beings — flawed, vulnerable, complicated — with genuine emotions behaving truthfully. In musical theatre, however, genuine feelings and truthful behavior too often seem subservient to cold, efficient technique layered with over-the-top, indicated emotions. Combine that with the old-fashioned, oh-so-precious melodies and the cutesy, self-consciously "clever" lyrics of traditional musicals, and the result doesn't draw me in the way good theatre should. It makes me want to attach weights to my ankles and dive into the Hudson.
The performers themselves are blameless in all this, of course; they're simply doing what the genre demands of them. And to be fair, part of the problem may be a side effect of Broadway's cavernous halls: Maybe theatre is an inherently intimate art that can't exist, except in a bastardized form, when your audience is sitting half a mile away and every movement, every emotion needs to be broad, loud, and obvious so theatregoers won't have to turn up the volume on their hearing aids.
Okay, I think I've insulted enough people for one column. As I said, when it comes to musicals, I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I look forward to your angry complaints.
Before I conclude, however, let me tell you about the one musical theatre experience I actually did enjoy. Last fall, for the first time in many years, I returned to my high school for an informal reunion of my old drama club and a performance by the current students of something called The Lady Pirates of Captain Bree, one of those silly, shticky musicals written specifically to avoid the outrage of conservative school boards. Needless to say, I was dreading it.
But I gotta tell you, I loved every second. Sure, the singing was sometimes wobbly and the dancing a little flat-footed. But there was more raw passion, infectious enthusiasm, and even truthful, nuanced acting on that stage than in most Broadway musicals, and I'd trade that for slick professionalism any day. So thank you, BHS Stagemasters. Keep up the good work and you may save the American musical yet.
David Fairhurst is an actor and freelance writer, a member of SAG and Equity, and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio. He can be reached at DFairhurst@backstage.com.