NYTimes.com: Patrick Bateman has been haunting the theater director Rupert Goold lately. And it’s not just the ax, chain saw, and nail gun that Bateman uses on flashy A-listers — people not unlike Mr. Goold — in “American Psycho,” Bret Easton Ellis’s satire of Manhattan yuppies in the go-go 1980s.
3 comments:
I think this really highlights the conflict between art and money. I was very excited to see American Psycho when it was first announced, and was disappointed when the initial reviews fell flat. A great show can fail without a great leading man, and star power does not a jaw-dropping performance make. In order to move to some place as big as Broadway, there needs to be a combination of both.
This show seemed to have everything going for it. It had a recognizable director, a potential star for the show, a Tony Award winning director, and the name recognition of the movie to help it. But this show also brings up reoccurring issues with theatre in this era. When it comes down to it, this show is another musical adaptation of a movie, now a questionable thing to do for serious, critical theatre. It is interesting that the move from the West End is to Off-Broadway rather than Broadway. This could potentially be because the director was able to recognize that it may not catch on in America. There is a huge difference in the taste of theatre between the West End and Broadway.
I'm not too excited about "American Psycho" potentially coming to Broadway. This is just another movie turned musical. The original "American Psycho" is far from flashy or musical like and I can't really see how it would successfully be converted even if its style was closer to that of "Sweeny Todd" than "Hairspray." That being said, I'm ambivalent about the success this show has had so far. On one hand I am surprised that the show has not met the success that the director was looking for since his past has been so great and other aspects of the show seemed to have everything going for them. On the other hand it seems like the director should've seen roadblocks coming when he had to teach the lead actor how to sing.
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