There may be a depressing sight that Recent York theatergoers are all too used to seeing: the brick wall in the back of the stage.
Welcome to Broadway! Please benefit from the bare minimum!
Picturesque downsizing is all the trend in Midtown for plenty of reasons – soaring costs, cold concepts, quick returns. Consequently, two-story houses are transformed into university black boxes; showcase shows; colorless dramas.
So sad. Set design, an art that has all the time been essential to conjure up Broadway’s incomparable magic, is treated as a luxury need fairly than a basic need for an unforgettable evening.
The attention-catching decor has been removed, and annoyed viewers proceed to be charged top dollar as if it weren’t.
Take a have a look at what’s on the scene at once – more specifically, what’s not there.
We now have an unfurnished “Doll’s House” starring Oscar-winning Jessica Chastain (top ticket $299), which has only a number of chairs arranged on a revolving table that’s lit up like a hospital broom closet.
No Frills Parade Musical Revival (top ticket $297), which began as a City Center Encores concert, only has an elevated platform surrounded by lamps and more chairs.
The Return of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ Revue (top ticket $297) has a projection screen and a number of metal towers – suitable for jazz hands, but flimsy nonetheless.
“Into the Woods”, one other City Center concert that has since led to St. James Theater and went on tour, it had wood steps and straightforward birch trunks because the predominant event was a sizeable 15 piece orchestra and stars like Sara Bareilles and Patina Miller.
Meanwhile “and Julia” (top ticket $323), a jukebox musical comedy from London with songs by Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys, is shinier than the above, goes to multiple locations and has garish lighting, but still looks like a brick rehearsal room.
In all places you look, there’s nothing.
That doesn’t suggest all of those programs are bad. Some are sensational, some are not. But collectively, constant minimalism is a hindrance. I can not recall a Broadway season within the last 15 years that was so aesthetically non-existent.
At first, streamlining is a novel trick and also you rationalize it to your companion. “I actually could to listen to text this time! you say with a bit of an excessive amount of enthusiasm.
But here we are in the course of the season, and I can not help feeling I took a fallacious turn into the Ace Hardware parking zone, surrounded by unpainted plywood and various metals with no soul or foothold. view.
Will the upcoming “Bad Cinderella”, “Shucked” and “Recent York, Recent York” save us from the invasion of chairs and air? I hope. Broadway’s images are as essential as his songs and speeches.
Whether the effect is large (Santo Loquasto’s train in “Hello, Dolly!” or Kelli O’Hara sailing to Siam on Michael Yeargan’s ship in “The King and I”) or small (Daniel Ostling’s emotional puddle in “Metamorphoses” , “Sesame Street”-style neighborhood in “Avenue Q”), the scenery is the predominant reason why we are transported, moved, tickled and excited talking after the show ends.
While many of the Broadway plays and musicals that began to open after theaters reopened struggled to achieve a foothold on the box office within the wake of the pandemic, popular productions akin to “Wicked”, “The Lion King”, “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Moulin Rouge!” bloomed.
People attribute their continued success to being well-known brands, but additionally they provide a lavish theatrical experience. Viewers want sets!
And yet striking visuals have change into the domain of opera houses and Las Vegas, which charge prices comparable to Broadway. Other world cities are also ahead of us.
A robust projection of the play Lifetime of Pi, which has just arrived on Broadway from London, is a feast for the eyes (if not the mind), and the musical Back to the Future from the West End, while Star Tours at Disney World, this summer will park a cool flying DeLorean on the Winter Garden Theatre.
Last October in London, I also caught the Royal Shakespeare Company’s amazing “My Neighbor Totoro”, whose huge puppets and sprawling sets were more dazzling than any post-pandemic Recent York production so far.
Last month, production designer Eugene Lee died on the age of 83. Over the course of his long profession, the person designed the sets for Stephen Sondheim’s original Sweeney Todd in Gershwin (then Uris) in 1979 and Wicked in 2003, which the identical theater plays today.
While you close your eyes and picture Idina Menzel within the air clutching Elphaba’s broom, or Angela Lansbury within the pastry shop wielding Mrs. Lovett’s rolling pin, your vivid memories exist partly due to Lee’s genius.
A long time later, while you attempt to nostalgically imagine the shows you caught throughout the 2022-23 Broadway season, you will have a tough time – because there is not much to see.