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Friday, September 16, 2011
The longest running plays don't get revived.
theproducersperspective: We often talk about the longest runnings show in Broadway history . . . Phantom, Cats, Les Miz, Chicago . . . but rarely do we talk about the longest running plays. Why? Because you wouldn't recognize 'em if we did.
13 comments:
Brooke Marrero
said...
The writer of this article makes a good point when he says that the drama of a straight play needs to be relevant to the time period it is produced in. With that in mind, it makes sense that some of the longest-running plays from the 40's and 50's have not had an attempted revival. Perhaps those shows would simply not resonate with today's audiences. A revival of a musical seems more simple in this respect, because the music in the show may in fact be considered 'timeless' by audiences, something I feel is much easier to do in song form than in story form. While this all seems to make sense, I was surprised to find out how obscure some of the longest run plays seem to be now.
While I agree with Brooke (and Mr. Davenport) in saying that a play may have a higher need for relevance and resonance to be revived, I wonder why it is that we see musicals that aren't necessarily "relevant" or "timeless" being revived all the time. Is it the fact that they're musicals that just makes it more accessible? I would argue that Chicago isn't directly relevant to today, but it's still the longest running revival on Broadway to date. Perhaps the bar is lower for musicals just because they're musicals, which if you ask me, seems unfair.
Personally, I believe the very phenomenon the author discusses here is one of the reasons Shakespeare can still be so popular in 2011. Yes, I'm aware there's a growing culture of theatre peoples who believe Shakespeare is a theatrical crutch which many theatre-GOERS & subscribers recoil from; which IS true. But there is still something in a lot of Shakespeare's works that allows a connection with even a modern audience [I hate and refuse to use the word, "resonates"...].
But, as Davenport points out [albeit indirectly], even Shakespeare's not on the list of longest-running plays on Broadway.
I'd be interested to see a list of the most succesful Broadway plays ever vs a list of the most successfully revived plays ever. Then we could tell if a play's success is linked to the trends of the day or not. Who knows? Maybe the most successfully revived plays are timeless gems like Williams, Shaw or Shakespeare. Parenthetically, I'd also like to see a list of the most commonly produced and extended plays from regional theater. Does regional theater's programming indicate that plays are consequence of the time their produced? Or, what I believe, is that a play's revival does not exist on Broadway but rather accross American region stages. What's hot in New York might not be hot in New York next year, but what's hot in New York could still kill 10 years from now in Dallas, Philadelphia, or Seattle. And what's great in those cities might still be great in smaller cities and universities for some time to come.
I'm ashamed to say that the only one I've heard of is Barefoot in the Park. But that supports the author's point. I wonder if it would be possible to study WHY the revivals failed, (although it was 100% of the revivals, it was still only 2) adjust art and strategy from there, and try again, taking into account the differences between plays and musicals, and treating the play like a play.
While there may be the "longest running" plays are not really revived, there are plays that are done over and over again. How many times have any one of us worked on a production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream", or "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Yes, these shows are transformed a bit for each new production, but I believe that they are timeless. There are plays that are forever relevant, but I guess those aren't the shows that have a long running history either. I'm interested to see the box office sales of these longest running plays, and what their advertising campaigns are. Who goes to see these shows if many have never heard of them. Would it be more profitable to produce classics?
I think that the difference between plays and musicals is important here. Watching a straight drama play in many ways requires more concentration and more investment in the story and the characters. The audience has to be interested and invested for them to pay attention and appreciate what the playwright was trying to say. A musical is in a strange way more accessible, whether it was written last year or in 1960. Even is the audience doesn't relate with the subject matter of the play itself, there are song interludes that increase the entertainment value and also are still accessible. People still listen to songs from 1960; it's not such a foreign world. However, people no longer necessarily talk about the same issues and in the same way as someone did in 1950.
I completely agree with the author that a play needs to be relevant to the time it is produced. And, as Brooke mentioned a lot of the plays were from the 1940's and 50's and there is nothing in those plays that could relate it to audiences today. It makes me think about how the question "why this play now?" is asked so much here at cmu.
I found this article extremely interesting, and I think it makes a good point. Musicals tend to be more fluff and entertainment to amuse the audiences whereas dramatic plays tend to have much more meat to them. Dramatic plays can only be truly interpreted as the playwright meant them to be when they are produced in a time period where the messages within the play are relevant. This may be a big reason why dramatic plays aren't revived nearly as often as big-name musicals.
For some reason this made me think of comparing books and movies, where a play would be similar to a book and movies similar to musicals. I think it might be along the lines of what Cat mentioned where you have to more invested in a book or a play, it requires you to pay more attention, to think more to follow the story lines and get empathize with the characters. Whereas in movies and musicals you don't have to search as hard for the emotions that are there because you are presented with them through the music, even if it's subtle. There's an understood language in film where the background music, the lighting, and the camera angles inform the viewer of what they're intended to feel. The same goes for musicals where you can have background musci behind dialouge and when a highly emotional or significant moment in the story occurs, the cast usually breaks into song - it's like the character is taking a moment to let you into their point of view and sharing with you the turmoil of emotions within them. In a play, you have to extrapolate that emotion on your own. You're still viewing things from the outside and interpreting how that person if feeling based on what they say and do. With the exception of things that have been designated as classics, often times books and plays will fall out of common use or popularity because the context we're given to extrapolate from grows further and further from what we know today and can relate to, while the raw emotion shown in musicals and movies remains the same emotions we all still feel. An interesting experiment is to watch a scene from a movie or a tv show without the background music added in and maybe even from the angle not intended by the camera. Sometimes you can see this in behind the scenes features. Without the carefully selected angles, specific lighting, and the background music, a scene feel very different and harder to connect to, it can often just seem awkward, the voyouristic nature of the medium becomes a lot more apparent. In essence you're removing the emotional cues built in and changing it from a musical-like experience to a play-like experience.
I really do wish that more plays were being revived. The only plays that I really recognize on this list are "Barefoot in the Park" and "Abbie's Irish Rose". Maybe it's that themes and language in plays are often so specific to the time period that they're produced in, but I doubt that because play's are very universal. Maybe musicals are revived more because they're more popular, but plays are equally as interesting and powerful. Hopefully more plays will be revived, because we could certainly use them.
I never even thought about this until I read this article. It's true that a lot of plays never get revived. There are always a lot of plays on Broadway, but now that I think about it, once a play has closed, it doesn't open again. Dev brought up a good point that plays should be relevant to the time, but are none of these plays really relevant anymore? I understand that they're from the 50's, but that doesn't mean they can't apply now. But also, I don't think Phantom is really relevant to us today. I think people just see that because it's so well known.
It's completely understandable that it's difficult to revive a play. The generation gap is pretty hard to ignore, which makes the text harder for a modern-day audience to relate to. If someone were to revive a play, there would have to be some serious textual changes, which would cause the play to lose its integrity and therefore no longer be a revival, but rather a take on something that was written a long time ago. It's way easier to study plays like the ones on that list as more of artifacts that reflect that time period than potential show material for theatre today.
13 comments:
The writer of this article makes a good point when he says that the drama of a straight play needs to be relevant to the time period it is produced in. With that in mind, it makes sense that some of the longest-running plays from the 40's and 50's have not had an attempted revival. Perhaps those shows would simply not resonate with today's audiences. A revival of a musical seems more simple in this respect, because the music in the show may in fact be considered 'timeless' by audiences, something I feel is much easier to do in song form than in story form. While this all seems to make sense, I was surprised to find out how obscure some of the longest run plays seem to be now.
While I agree with Brooke (and Mr. Davenport) in saying that a play may have a higher need for relevance and resonance to be revived, I wonder why it is that we see musicals that aren't necessarily "relevant" or "timeless" being revived all the time. Is it the fact that they're musicals that just makes it more accessible? I would argue that Chicago isn't directly relevant to today, but it's still the longest running revival on Broadway to date. Perhaps the bar is lower for musicals just because they're musicals, which if you ask me, seems unfair.
Personally, I believe the very phenomenon the author discusses here is one of the reasons Shakespeare can still be so popular in 2011. Yes, I'm aware there's a growing culture of theatre peoples who believe Shakespeare is a theatrical crutch which many theatre-GOERS & subscribers recoil from; which IS true. But there is still something in a lot of Shakespeare's works that allows a connection with even a modern audience [I hate and refuse to use the word, "resonates"...].
But, as Davenport points out [albeit indirectly], even Shakespeare's not on the list of longest-running plays on Broadway.
I'd be interested to see a list of the most succesful Broadway plays ever vs a list of the most successfully revived plays ever. Then we could tell if a play's success is linked to the trends of the day or not. Who knows? Maybe the most successfully revived plays are timeless gems like Williams, Shaw or Shakespeare.
Parenthetically, I'd also like to see a list of the most commonly produced and extended plays from regional theater. Does regional theater's programming indicate that plays are consequence of the time their produced? Or, what I believe, is that a play's revival does not exist on Broadway but rather accross American region stages. What's hot in New York might not be hot in New York next year, but what's hot in New York could still kill 10 years from now in Dallas, Philadelphia, or Seattle. And what's great in those cities might still be great in smaller cities and universities for some time to come.
I'm ashamed to say that the only one I've heard of is Barefoot in the Park. But that supports the author's point.
I wonder if it would be possible to study WHY the revivals failed, (although it was 100% of the revivals, it was still only 2) adjust art and strategy from there, and try again, taking into account the differences between plays and musicals, and treating the play like a play.
While there may be the "longest running" plays are not really revived, there are plays that are done over and over again. How many times have any one of us worked on a production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream", or "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Yes, these shows are transformed a bit for each new production, but I believe that they are timeless. There are plays that are forever relevant, but I guess those aren't the shows that have a long running history either. I'm interested to see the box office sales of these longest running plays, and what their advertising campaigns are. Who goes to see these shows if many have never heard of them. Would it be more profitable to produce classics?
I think that the difference between plays and musicals is important here. Watching a straight drama play in many ways requires more concentration and more investment in the story and the characters. The audience has to be interested and invested for them to pay attention and appreciate what the playwright was trying to say. A musical is in a strange way more accessible, whether it was written last year or in 1960. Even is the audience doesn't relate with the subject matter of the play itself, there are song interludes that increase the entertainment value and also are still accessible. People still listen to songs from 1960; it's not such a foreign world. However, people no longer necessarily talk about the same issues and in the same way as someone did in 1950.
I completely agree with the author that a play needs to be relevant to the time it is produced. And, as Brooke mentioned a lot of the plays were from the 1940's and 50's and there is nothing in those plays that could relate it to audiences today. It makes me think about how the question "why this play now?" is asked so much here at cmu.
I found this article extremely interesting, and I think it makes a good point. Musicals tend to be more fluff and entertainment to amuse the audiences whereas dramatic plays tend to have much more meat to them. Dramatic plays can only be truly interpreted as the playwright meant them to be when they are produced in a time period where the messages within the play are relevant. This may be a big reason why dramatic plays aren't revived nearly as often as big-name musicals.
For some reason this made me think of comparing books and movies, where a play would be similar to a book and movies similar to musicals. I think it might be along the lines of what Cat mentioned where you have to more invested in a book or a play, it requires you to pay more attention, to think more to follow the story lines and get empathize with the characters.
Whereas in movies and musicals you don't have to search as hard for the emotions that are there because you are presented with them through the music, even if it's subtle.
There's an understood language in film where the background music, the lighting, and the camera angles inform the viewer of what they're intended to feel. The same goes for musicals where you can have background musci behind dialouge and when a highly emotional or significant moment in the story occurs, the cast usually breaks into song - it's like the character is taking a moment to let you into their point of view and sharing with you the turmoil of emotions within them. In a play, you have to extrapolate that emotion on your own. You're still viewing things from the outside and interpreting how that person if feeling based on what they say and do.
With the exception of things that have been designated as classics, often times books and plays will fall out of common use or popularity because the context we're given to extrapolate from grows further and further from what we know today and can relate to, while the raw emotion shown in musicals and movies remains the same emotions we all still feel.
An interesting experiment is to watch a scene from a movie or a tv show without the background music added in and maybe even from the angle not intended by the camera. Sometimes you can see this in behind the scenes features. Without the carefully selected angles, specific lighting, and the background music, a scene feel very different and harder to connect to, it can often just seem awkward, the voyouristic nature of the medium becomes a lot more apparent. In essence you're removing the emotional cues built in and changing it from a musical-like experience to a play-like experience.
I really do wish that more plays were being revived. The only plays that I really recognize on this list are "Barefoot in the Park" and "Abbie's Irish Rose". Maybe it's that themes and language in plays are often so specific to the time period that they're produced in, but I doubt that because play's are very universal. Maybe musicals are revived more because they're more popular, but plays are equally as interesting and powerful. Hopefully more plays will be revived, because we could certainly use them.
I never even thought about this until I read this article. It's true that a lot of plays never get revived. There are always a lot of plays on Broadway, but now that I think about it, once a play has closed, it doesn't open again. Dev brought up a good point that plays should be relevant to the time, but are none of these plays really relevant anymore? I understand that they're from the 50's, but that doesn't mean they can't apply now. But also, I don't think Phantom is really relevant to us today. I think people just see that because it's so well known.
It's completely understandable that it's difficult to revive a play. The generation gap is pretty hard to ignore, which makes the text harder for a modern-day audience to relate to. If someone were to revive a play, there would have to be some serious textual changes, which would cause the play to lose its integrity and therefore no longer be a revival, but rather a take on something that was written a long time ago. It's way easier to study plays like the ones on that list as more of artifacts that reflect that time period than potential show material for theatre today.
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