Fame or Famine

While I love the idea of the renaissance of theatre coming to TV and video games, of a refining of the senses of the masses. However, I’m even more thrilled to see, in this article in Salon, that theatre itself might be growing up.

A couple of new musicals – Spring Awakening and Grey Gardens – are making people sit up and take notice. There is talk that the era of the big-time old fashioned spectacle of musicals like "The Producers" and "Spamalot" is over – just in time, unfortunately, for the possible demise of "Young Frankenstein the Musical."

Personally, though, I happen to think that there was an interim piece they’re missing. It was Julie Taymor’s fault. She took her mature – no, not mature, but innovative – vision and put it first on the bloodiest of plays (Titus Andronicus) and later on the poppiest of of pop musicals (The Lion King) and both were tremendous hits.

I think that paved the way for pieces like Spring Awakening – not the subject matter, which is difficult enough, but simply for audiences to be willing to sit through something they don’t necessarily understand, simply with the chance they might actually understand it later…

"The story follows a group of boys and a parallel group of girls tormented by their libidos and ignorance. They are kept miserably in the dark by their teachers and parents until their lives careen horribly off the track. When it finally bowed at the Atlantic Theater Company Off-Broadway, critics were shocked how well the fin de siècle story of a sexually repressive society fit with Sheik’s punkish score. Sheik’s rock music and Sater’s poetical colloquial lyrics played like a concert by one of those garage bands fed by the muse of adolescent angst."

I’m looking forward to the soundtracks as they come out, and even more to the touring companies that I’m sure will follow. If any of you see either of them, I’d love to hear a review, as well.

Tags: broadway, julie taymor, lion king, spring awakening, grey gardens

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