Sunday, February 21, 2010
Broadway Revivals Keep Modern Classics and Characters Alive
NYTimes.com: "TODD HAIMES, the Roundabout Theater Company’s artistic director, was in London in 2008 when a producer invited him to a revival of “La Cage aux Folles.” Having seen the 2004 Broadway revival, Mr. Haimes went only out of a sense of duty. “There was just no reason to see it again,” he recalls thinking. “But by the end of the show I was crying, and I said: ‘I understand why they’re redoing it. This deserves to be seen.’ ”"
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5 comments:
I think the debate of how long to wait before reviving a play is interesting. The argument that people will not be willing to pay to see a show they saw not long ago is very strong, but if there is an artistic improvement, word will spread, and it would draw people back to see the shows. Even though I'm aware that it is common, I'm surprised at how it is relatively a better investment to have a play with a big name movie star for a limited run. I suppose that it draws people to try to see it while they can, and thus selling more seats per performance. I think that the general public will unfortunately not care much between different productions of the same show, so I think it's best to wait until there would be a definite interest again.
One of the most interesting pieces of this article was talking about using revivals as star vehicles, even to the point of the stars approaching producers and saying "I want to play ____" and getting funding to put it on Broadway. This plan is usually financially lucrative, but does it bring anything artistically, as Sarah points out? As a slight tangent, there is an interesting trend with modern revivals using reality shows to cast the stars ("Grease: You're The One That I Want!" and "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" standing out). In ways, you are creating new stars and drumming up buzz for the show before it has even finished casting (by the nature of the TV program), but by that point, is the audience there to see the star or the show?
I can understand the reason for more revivals. Most all of the productions that are revived carried a great deal of success with them the first time. It seems silly from a risk management point to revive a flop. I can certainly see the appeal in having less potential to loose with something that has a solid history. This keeps you from having to create your audiences. They already know the piece. Unfortunately this leaves less room for new work on the larger stages. I don't see this changing anytime soon, as no one wants to gamble everything on something new.
To answer your question Sarah, I think you need to take the public/the time and place/the actors available all into consideration when considering a revival, (obviously) but the sort of "duh" question would be, why would you want to revive a play just after it closed? Didn't it close for a reason? For example, when the article mentions that Les Miserables closed and revived within a 3 year gap, that strikes me as a little strange. To answer Brian's question, I think reviving shows in order to place certain actors in them isn't such a bad idea...but obviously this depends greatly on the show and the actor. That can't be the only reason. For instance, wasn't How To Succeed revived on the whole because they thought Matthew Broderick would fit the lead? As a whole, you can't just put on a show because of one factor, you need all of them, or most of them to make sense.
I definitely think that it is important to keep reviving great pieces of theatre, though how much time should pass between productions is entirely up for debate. I think that reviving these older shows gives us the chance to reexamine how the show's themes are relevant to the world today and help us understand where the newest of today's shows come from and how they evolved from theatre in the past. Also, many of these older shows have sentimental value for audiences across the world, so at least from a business perspective it can be profitable to revive a show, depending on what the show is and its popularity.
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