Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Closing of ‘Holler if Ya Hear Me’ Raises Questions
NYTimes.com: Sad to say, the only surprise about the closing of “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” the new musical featuring the songs of the rapper Tupac Shakur, was that it didn’t come earlier. When the show opened to downbeat reviews on June 19, many expected it would close within a week.
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Broadway is not too far off from welcoming a successful full-on rap show. Like the article points out, the flaws in “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” were not so much music but the plot. Tupac was a well-known influence in popular culture and his music continues to be listened to. However, in Broadway, where the storyline really drives the success of shows, this show lacked. While the purpose is to detail the life of Tupac, like other biographical shows, plot has to be added in order to peak audience interest. Similarly, but more successfully, Green Day’s “American Idiot” closed after a yearlong run a few years ago. While the quality of the music was never questioned, for some, the plotline lacked. This seems to make or break shows, especially recently. Without a level complexity and originality to characters, audiences can quickly lose interest. It is hard not to walk into a show and not have some familiarity to something else you have seen, however, if there is no surprise, if it all follows too closely to an overdone stereotype, then you see failure. Hopefully, future shows will see this error and learn from it, possibly even achieving great success.
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