Interludes

VIEWPOINTS: Are the Oldies the Only Goodies (Case Studies in Revivals)?

• By drediman
• April 9, 2014
• No Comments

During the “golden age” of Broadway (1940s-1960s), a run of three to five years was considered extremely successful due to the economics of Broadway at the time. Anything beyond that approximate five year mark was viewed as being a freakish, albeit good, phenomenon.  However, with the coming of the British mega-musical, runs of at least 10 years have become not uncommon and, in fact, hoped for by money-hungry producers and investors. This is quite an accomplishment, given these shows’ elaborate stagings and the escalating costs of putting on shows on Broadway. Let’s take in the stats, at least for the musicals most identified with the “British invasion”: Lloyd Webber’s original production of “Cats” ran for 18 years (7,485 performances) on Broadway and 21 years (8,949 performances) in the West End. The original staging of Boublil and Schonberg’s “Les Miserables” ran for 16 years (6,680 performances) on Broadway (it’s second of TWO revivals is currently playing at the Imperial), and its original West End incarnation is still playing after almost 30 years. Even more successfully, the original productions of Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” are still playing both on Broadway after more than 25 years, as well as in the West End after 28 years, and show little signs of slowing down. These shows are unique in that they have obtained classic status within their original lifetimes.

The interesting thing about these seemingly never-ending runs is that one currently has the fascinating opportunity to appreciate the still-running original stagings as living documents of staging techniques of the time, almost like museum exhibits, vis-a-vis major next generation revivals of the very same material. The comparisons are worth fleshing out. In particular, I’ve had the privilege of seeing two musicals, “Les Miserables” and “The Phantom of the Opera”, both in their respective iconic original stagings and subsequent major revivals, in relatively quick succession. Many know that I have a soft spot in my heart for these two shows, as their original incarnations introduced me (and countless others of my generation) to that irresistible crossroad of art and commerce, the Broadway musical, by brashly grabbing me by the collar with their undeniable showmanship. It’s arguable that these shows saved Broadway from going down the path of extinction that many had predicted. Given that the much-lauded originals are still going strong, the main question is whether these revivals merit their existence, and whether they bring anything new to the table, like the stunningly fresh, even revelatory, revivals of “Carousel”, “Cabaret”, and “South Pacific” have done in recent decades (the aforementioned revivals have become iconic representations of the material in their own right). Or are these new productions merely a downsized “refresh” of the mammoth originals that, while necessary in order to make them more efficient to run and tour in these more difficult economic times, uninterestingly retain their original essence? Here are my thoughts.

“Les Miserables”

For the record, I have seen the original staging of “Les Miserables” eleven times: three times on Broadway, three times in London, and five times on tour. The last time I caught it was last summer in London (the only place you can catch the original staging today), at the almost too-small Queens Theatre, where it had transferred from the larger Palace Theatre ten years ago. Although the show now plays (quite effectively) like an intimate chamber piece in which the actors introspectively convey their thoughts and struggles, as opposed to the the barking epic previously at the Palace, London’s current “Les Miserables” has maintained all the key elements of the famous original staging, particularly the continuously-spinning turntable, the monumental morphing piles of junk, and the harsh yet moody lighting design. It all still works quite wonderfully. Taking their cue from their imaginative work on the majestic nine-hour Royal Shakespeare Company stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” in the early 1980s, original directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird ask the audience to use their imaginations through much of “Les Miserables”. You see, in it’s scenic elements, “Les Miserables” is a very bare-bones affair. Yes, set designer John Napier’s piles of wood and debris are quite large, but they represent various locales throughout the show: anywhere from the slums of Paris to the barricades of the student rebellion. Instead, the show heavily relies on the soulful cinematic effects created its tireless rotating stage, inspired crowd management, and evocative lighting (by David Hersey) to inventively sweep the audience through Victor Hugo’s 1000+ page novel. The directors and designers have memorably created a fluid visual vocabulary that evokes Boublil and Schonberg’s bombastic through-composed score (i.e., like opera, music is the primary mode of storytelling; there is extremely limited dialogue in the show), moving relentlessly along with the characters and yet allowing the music to breath to tell its story. The staging is a triumph of storytelling and remains unique to this day.

For the show’s 25th anniversary, co-directors Laurence Connor and James Powell, relatively unknown commodities in the theater world, were tapped to direct a new production of “Les Miserables” that would allegedly update the show to utilize 21st century stage techniques. I have seen this revival four times now: once in Chicago, twice in DC, and once on Broadway. Although they’ve tinkered with some of the lyrics, the Boublil and Schonberg score remains virtually intact, which I applaud. I was afraid they would abridge the show even further (over the years, the show’s creators have managed to shave more than 30 minutes from the show since it premiered on Broadway, primarily to minimize union running costs). From a directorial and design perspective, however, they’ve bravely rethought the show. Firstly, the show comes off as a young man’s show. The casts the directors have chosen for this production have tended to be, like themselves, young and eager to prove and establish themselves. This has resulted in some uneven casting, but overall, I bought into this approach as it injected a new youthful energy into a show that can be plodding at times (the show concerns a student insurrection, after all). Design-wise the two big decisions were to do away with the revolving stage and to make use of projected backdrops that were “inspired” by paintings by Victor Hugo. Two mistakes, in my book. Without the turntable, the company is subjected to meaningless running around the stage without that extra sense of history and Victor Hugo’s plot to sweep them along. As a result, the takeaway impression I get is that, in this new production, we are being treated to storyboards showing the “best of” “Les Miserables” accompanied by music from the show, instead of being truly immersed in the epic plot and pushed along (on the revolve) by the swirling music. As for the projected backdrops, I think they add very little and are uninspired in their execution and visual impact. The projections are, in fact, a bit distracting in their dimness and vagueness. The costumes remain relatively unaltered from Andreane Neofitou’s original designs. Luckily, all in all, the new production of “Les Miserables”, which can currently be seen on Broadway, is no pale imitation of the powerful original staging. Directors Connor and Powell have carefully re-thought how to approach to the material and, although it was initially designed to tour, looks great on the Imperial’s stage. However, alas, without that turntable, I felt that the episodic nature of the material is more fully exposed, which they’ve somewhat successfully hid by playing the show at a speed that I would have thought scandalous when I first saw the original oh so many years ago (it was my first Broadway show).

“The Phantom of the Opera”

Again for the record, I have seen the original staging of “Phantom” a total of fourteen times: ten times on Broadway, three times on tour, and once in Las Vegas (in a spectacularly souped-up but abridged version of the show). The last time I saw the original was last week on Broadway, where earlier this year it celebrated its 25th anniversary and continues to be the longest-running show in Broadway history. I also used the opportunity to bid farewell to one of the most effective Phantoms I’ve encountered over the years, the dynamic Hugh Panaro (whom I first saw as Raoul in a much earlier Broadway company). As for Hal Prince’s breathtaking original staging, it remains a marvel. And like “Les Miserables”, Prince’s work with the late great designer Maria Bjornson, the staging is an inspired visual equivalent of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lushly romantic score (also through-composed). Like the Phantom himself (as with the horror genre), Prince and Bjornson work under the premise that the less you see and leave things for your imagination to fill in, the more haunting and seductive the show is likely to become. Don’t worry, their works allows you to know exactly where you are in the story. Although the show uses darkness and shadows to superb effect (the lighting design is by Andrew Bridge), what you do see is spectacularly vivid and scaled: drop-dead gorgeous drapes that swoop in and out of the playing space, an imposing golden false proscenium, towering grates suggesting that the Phantom’s lair is a prison, candles that magically rise from the stage floor, the swooping grand staircase of the Paris opera house, the panoramic rooftop of the opera house, cramped dressing rooms, a monumental mausoleum where our heroine’s father is buried, descending passageways into the bowels of the opera house, a series of period-perfect “sets-within-the-set” backdrops for the operas, and so forth! What’s triumphant about “Phantom’s” stagecraft is not just the scale and variety of its locales, but how efficiently they transition with the score and allow for exciting and unexpected perspectives of the journeys the characters take. I would argue that, even more than “Les Miserables”, the success of “Phantom” is primarily reliant on its celebrated original staging.

Yesterday, I had the good luck to be able to catch the new touring production of “The Phantom of the Opera”, again directed by Laurence Connor (without James Powell), for the first time at the gorgeous Academy of Music in Philadelphia (really, the perfect venue for any production of “Phantom”). And again, Connor has chosen to cast this production on the young-side, resulting in a love triangle that is more evenly-matched. In the numerous iterations of the Hal Prince version I’ve seen, the Phantom always seemed to be somewhat of a father-figure to Christine. Not here: the lust between the two feels more palpable. As with the revisal of “Les Miserables”, very little has been tinkered with in relation to the music and text. In terms of this new production’s efficient yet thoughtful (re-)design, everything seems just a bit more literal and claustrophobic, for better and worse. As I mentioned previously, one of the chief pleasures of the original production is the balance it creates between its grand sense of scale and perspective and what it seductively leaves in the mysteries of the darkness for us to ponder. Here, although more is shown in the details of new well-crafted sets (much of it appears to be inspired by the look of the movie version), the scale of everything seems to have shrunk. For example, gone is the false proscenium that hugs the auditorium and plunges us into the Phantom’s dark, mysterious world. Instead, we have a bright, crisp proscenium within the actual proscenium that appears whenever the story takes us into the opera house. Luckily, Bjornson’s beautiful original costume designs have been mostly retained for the new production. Also, Hal Prince’s brilliantly inventive yet subtle shifts in perspectives, so interesting to behold in the original production, have either gone or have been simplified. In other words, the world which the Phantom haunts, which in the original production encompasses the auditorium in which we sit, has been relegated to the admittedly beautifully detailed world within the proscenium. The result is an environment that is much more controlled and ultimately less potent in its ability to capture the audience’s imagination.

In conclusion, while I respect the courageous “back to the drawing room” efforts of the creative teams of both of these revivals, the new productions hardly even begin to erase the theatrical brilliance that directors Trevor Nunn, John Caird, and Hal Prince brought to the original stagings of “Les Miserables” and “The Phantom of the Opera”. In a way, their directorial work is inextricable from the shows themselves. Catch them while they are still with us.