trust fun

Jan. 26, 2012 at 2:42pm with 57 notes

Why Musical Theatre Isn’t Cool (And Doesn’t Need To Be)

[A response to Dave Malloy’s HuffPo piece, A Slushy in the Face: Musical Theater and the Uncool.]

A rebuttal: I don’t think musical theatre needs to be cool.

I’m what you’d probably describe as a theatre lifer. I was introduced to Annie and half the Rogers and Hammerstein canon around the age of six, and by nine I knew the West Side Story score by heart. By junior high I was swanning around the house to Mame and wondering if I was too young to play a believable Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney. (I was.) But I’m not as actively interested in new shows anymore, and that’s probably because of this trend toward making Broadway “hip” and “appealing to the kids” and all those other marketing terms.

I mean, on one hand, I get it. As recently as the 60s and 70s, showtunes could be (and were) actual crossover radio hits, and there are probably a bunch of composers who crave a return to that kind of system, where Broadway isn’t primarily considered dorky and home of old fogeys tap-dancing in sequin vests and straw hats. But… I like dorkily behatted tapping! I love sitting back and watching golden-voiced tenors romance broads and dames. I love Dick Latessa and Mary Testa and Nancy Opel and John Cullum and all these other great journeyman character actors who could only really exist in the theatre community. I don’t, however, really love going to a show purported to be “edgy” and “hip” and getting the weird, inauthentic “musical rock” referenced in the article. I mean, look. If I want to listen to bad soft rock, I’ll turn on your dad’s favorite radio station. Plus, the rock/pop musical trend has had dismaying consequences, in the form of the Substanceless Belt-Your-Face-Off Nouveau “Diva,” best exemplified by Idina Menzel and her lesser copycats (including Shoshana Bean, Eden Espinosa, Marla Mindelle, and the overemotive pox on mankind that is Lea Michele). Look, call me old-fashioned (and I’m sure that you will), but I don’t care how many riffs with which an actress can embellish a song, I just want her to have more charisma than a glass of milk. Pop/Rock Musicals tend to require Singers Who Act, but I’d rather sit through a performance from an Actor Who Sings.

And here’s the other thing. I have always loved musical theatre because, by and large, it’s an irony-free zone. I’m not opposed to a snarky or meta-musical — I love Avenue Q, [title of show], The Book of Mormon, and perhaps their greatest (if lesser-loved) precursor, Ruthless! — but in general, the shows I really respond to are ones that don’t give a fuck if you think they’re cool. They’re sincere. There’s little to no commentary on how silly this whole musical-number thing is. Musicals, to me, are an escape from the post-internet, post-Hipster Runoff, post-Community era in which everything has to be covered in ten coats of irony in order to be palatable.

Seeing so-called “cool” musicals kind of feels like being back at the middle school dance, standing by the bleachers in the gym and watching your social studies teacher try to tear it up to Usher’s “Yeah,” not understanding that there’s absolutely nothing cool about what he’s doing. I don’t want Duncan Sheik to write songs full of half-assed metaphors for masturbation or to see a terrible revival of Rent (a show which, while it may have once been cool and edgy, hasn’t been relevant since a good few years before it closed on Broadway the first time) or even to sit through a stage adaption of Once. Some of my favorite indie rock songwriters are ones whose discographies are full of complex narratives and recurring characters, but that doesn’t mean I want Craig Finn or John Darnielle to write rock operas. I don’t want to see John Gallagher Jr. and Kacie Sheik (Bland and Blander) play the Alpha Couple. Sometimes, you just want to go to the theatre to see Michael Cerveris or Donna Murphy act the shit out of a great show.

I know this probably makes me seem like some kind of theatrical Luddite, digging in my heels in opposition toward the growing Glee-ification of Broadway. I know there’ll always be a place for my She Loves Me and Bells Are Ringing and Kwamina revivals at City Center Encores. But can we all just agree that musicals don’t really have to be cool? It’s okay to like dorky things. It’s kind of awesome to be a balls-to-the-wall, Sondheim-worshiping, vintage-Playbill-collecting weirdo who knows the choreography to “Turkey Lurkey Time” and dreams of getting a fistbump from James Lapine. I’d rather see a season of smart, sincere, really dorky shows than have to sit through another lukewarm American Idiot.

But maybe that’s just me.