Movical and Movie-star Mayhem on Manhattan's Broadway By Nicola Behrman Kevin Spacey and Nicole Kidman did it in London to huge applause. Madonna did it, too. P. Diddy did it to lukewarm reception, and Julia Roberts is about to do it in New York, in the spring. Some call it art, the ultimate fulfillment of an actor's dream. Others call it celebrity masturbation. Whatever the reason, there ain't no doubt about it: Putting movies stars on stage certainly brings in the punters. World-renowned New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, the man who can make or break a show with the mere sharpening of a pencil, puts it rather bluntly, "We're in the midst of the theater of celebrity. If you can get a star with a really high Q rating, preferably from TV or the movies - and especially if they are willing to take their clothes off - you are practically guaranteed a hit." Let's be honest, in today's over-stimulated, multi-tasking universe, are we really going to stop and take time out of our hectic schedules to go see an unknown show with Jon Doe headlining? At a hundred bucks a pop, certainly not until we've read rave reviews in the Times. Replace the unknown show with a film title we've heard of (advertisers will tell you name recognition is two-thirds of the battle) and shove a little lady, the likes of Paris Hilton, onto the marquis, and you'll have yourself a sold-out show quicker than you can say, "I don't even care if she can sing. If she falls on her arse, that's entertainment enough for me." Case in point, the New York Post review of Melanie Griffith's attempt to play Roxie in Chicago two summers ago. The Post told us that she can't sing, she can't act, she can't even dance a little, but, nonetheless, declared, "All is not lost, by any means. She has a definite allure - a star presence, if you will - that comes from charisma. The audiences come to see a bona-fide film star, and, having seen her, they cheer with a grateful ferocity." Clarke Peters, Broadway's current Billy Flynn, who has been consistently working in the West End and on Broadway since the 1970s, worries that celebrity casting is the ultimate dumbing down of theater. "The theater is a very specific beast," he says. "You have to start as an apprentice and learn your way up as you work. There's no other way. And it's hugely disappointing seeing talented dramatic actors, who have made great sacrifices to develop their craft properly, being displaced by celebrity actors. It insidiously undermines our sense of quality, our sense of what real talent is, and that's a huge worry." Lisa Marie Meller, a theater director in her own right with a positive New York Times review to prove it, heads up the theater division of Stellar Network, a transatlantic network of young film, TV and theater professionals. According to her, "Producers do the math. Clearly, celebrities are going to help get bums on seats. And that means a production has a greater chance of running the amount of time needed to garner really great reviews and a proper following. You have to acknowledge the intrinsic worth in that." Indeed, you'd have to have your head pretty far up your proverbial bottom not to. But, Meller goes on to say, that doesn't stop celebrity casting from being a pact with the devil. "If you really want to have a pure experience as an audience member, you simply can't have a pre-existing relationship with anyone involved in the production." Whether it's the actors on stage, the writer or director - hell, even the lighting designer, according to Meller - it stops you from being able to totally immerse yourself in the production and the emotional journey of the character. And that journey is what really good theater is all about. "If you seriously consider the relationship society has with pop culture today, you realize that watching your favorite celebrity appear on stage is like going to see your brother in the school play. You watch the play, but you just don't get immersed in the journey in the same way. Whether it's your brother or Julia Roberts, you never forget it." British theater producer Anna Waterhouse, who, at the tender age of 24, understood the value of bringing celebrity to the theater table and brought the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Matt Damon and Summer Phoenix to the West End in Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, thinks we have to be realistic about what we're working with. "For today's generation, the theater doesn't even feature in the tapestry of their entertainment choices. This is a huge issue for the future of theater. We have to think of inventive ways to get them in, otherwise a crucial, visceral and hugely important part of our cultural heritage will die." Get them in, she does. Casey Affleck, Julia Stiles, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Oscar-winner Anna Paquin are just some of the young and very Us Weekly-worthy talent she has brought to London stages over the past four years. Her most recent import? David Schwimmer. Waterhouse goes on to explain, "When you're expecting people to come out of their houses, pay for parking, battle the rains and the subway and not get much change from a 500 dollar bill to take your two kids to see one show when you could just be in bed in pajamas with the remote control, you better make sure they're getting their money's worth." And if anything's going to get us to turn off the box and take our noses out of this week's OK! Magazine, surely it's going to be the chance to see one of the celebs on stage, in the flesh, in front of our very eyes. But that doesn't mean producers can simply rely on playing the celebrity card, she cautions. "Sure, audiences clap when Schwimmer comes on stage, but after the first few minutes of excitement, he sure as hell better make the theater experience rewarding, otherwise you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Ultimately, Schwimmer was a hit because his on-stage comic timing was pure genius, not because he was the guy on TV who used to date the girl with the good haircut." Tina Fallon, founder of the 24 Hour Plays and subsequent Celebrity 24 Hour Plays that started in 2001 and have included a virtual Who's Who of Hollywood talent, agrees that if all celebrities were just being used for their names, the trend would have died out by now. "When you get on that stage, whoever you are, however famous you are in the outside world, it's naked, naked, naked. Either you're talented or you're not; there ain't no hiding behind the footlights." And, as the great stage actors pride themselves on knowing, when it comes to theater, there ain't no saving it in the edit. But whatever your thoughts on the celebrity stage migration, ultimately they're small fry in comparison to the other, more serious, Broadway exodus we're witnessing. Take a look at Broadway's current offerings and even the more analytically challenged among us can see that the Broadway successes of The Producers and Hairspray, titles previously left to dementia in studio catalogue dungeons, have spawned a new era for the movie-to-musical "movical." Indeed, an aerial shot of the old Route 66 right now would likely show hundreds of movie titles, young and old alike, brushing off the dust and toddling cross country toward the bright lights of Broadway. For, never one to be left outside of a sweet thing, Hollywood studios with slumping box offices and the increasing obsession to diversify, are strategically placing their fingers in as many Broadway pies as possible. And, unlike independent commercial producers, the studios can bring their bounty with them. Left, right and center, they're developing and licensing - some would say plundering - their own personal libraries to great theatrical effect. According to Variety, within the next five years, the Hollywood majors could account for half of Broadway's musical offerings. Legally Blonde, Moonstruck, The Pink Panther, Clueless, But I'm a Cheerleader, The Color Purple, Shrek, Bladerunner, High Fidelity - the list is endless. But it's unlikely that many will do the kind of business necessary to spur a national tour. Like most entertainment phenomena, this is certainly not a brand new concept. The "movical" dates to the 1950s, with the likes of the "almost forgotten" hit Carnival and a disastrous Gone with the Wind. But in today's branded society, where our philosophy has become "I have a brand, therefore I am," bringing films to stage is supported by a whole new dimension that may not have been so crucial back in the day. What new dimension? Why, the multi-million-dollar marketing campaign, of course. California Commercialities Hollywood movie titles come with built-in marketing budgets in the millions of dollars at which Broadway productions can't afford to sneeze. When DreamWorks spends $35.6 million to market the DVD release of Shrek 2 (yes, that's just the DVD release), that's a pretty nice springboard for the Broadway version set to hit the stage in 2007 with Sam Mendes at the helm. It should really come as no surprise that producers would choose to go with a product already burnt into our collective consciousness over an unknown, unbranded new concept. But what does the constant rehashing of already existing products say for the very fabric of our theater? What does it say for the potential to mount previously unbranded new works? By relying on familiar brands and remakes, do we close the door to new talent? Brantley thinks it's all rather bleak. "What we are witnessing right now on Broadway is the narcotization of the masses. Times are tough, and we're giving the people comfort food. You see a show that you already saw as a film, or you recognize a star from TV, and that's all very comforting. But when comfort food becomes the only thing on offer, which is invariably what happens, you end up with a very obese society that has voluntarily numbed itself out. I hate to say it, but it's culture on the edge of destruction." He goes on. "You just hope that it gets to a point where it's something out of the film Network, the 1976 satire about the television world, when everyone finally wakes up and just starts screaming." Sadly, unlikely to happen. But funny he should mention it, because apparently Marty Bell, the producer who shepherded the successful Broadway adaptation of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and the not-so-successful Sweet Smell of Success, wants to make a musical out of, you guessed it, Network, the 1976 satire about the television world. Oh, the irony. So will we find ourselves in an Arnold Schwarzenegger-futuristic, Total Recall-esque hellhole where the concept of witnessing the new written word on stage is not just relegated to the history books but is eradicated from our memories altogether? Will young hopefuls still sit in coffee shops writing their masterpieces when new writing is no longer even an accepted form of storytelling? According to Waterhouse, this is where the celebrity influx can actually swoop in, superhero style, and help save theater from the rehash and the revival. "Celebrities bring enough cachet to a production to be able to bring audiences to see new plays by new writers. We brought a brand new play, a vibrant and unconventional play by Neil LaBute, and gave it its world premier in a 900-seat house. And we brought in 80 percent capacity consistently. That's a hell of a lot of bums on seats; in today's theater terms, it's almost unheard of. And you know what it means? It means we can carry on, bringing new works and new writing talent back in the future." Now, granted, Neil LaBute may not be totally off the theatrical radar, but neither he nor Kenny Lonergan's work had graced London's big stages before Waterhouse and her producing partner brought them over. And it wouldn't be too fanciful to say that, without the likes of Damon and Schwimmer and their celebrity buddies, the West End most likely would not have taken the chance. Even Brantley, Nostradamus himself, seems to agree. "Julia Roberts? I'm delighted she's coming to Broadway. When Nicole Kidman did The Blue Room, it made the cover of Newsweek, which meant that a Broadway show became part of the national cultural dialogue. That doesn't happen very often. So even if JR is a wash-out (though she should be able to manage the role in Three Days with some grace, I would think, if she's even remotely comfortable on stage), I'm glad she's making the effort." So what's the answer? It's hardly a new debate, is it? Style over substance, spectacle for spectacle's sake; all the old bashings that Aristotle and his cronies would likely throw at much of our Hollywood-infused Broadway today. The underlying fact, and perhaps the one with which most people seem to agree, is, we have to make theater more affordable. Concluded Waterhouse, pointing out she is a commercial producer, "There isn't a single tax break for theater productions like there is for film, despite the fact that it's a huge draw and a big part of why people come to cities like London and New York. If that were to change, we could see a knock-on effect of lower ticket prices and perhaps we wouldn't have to fight quite so hard to persuade the audiences in, in the first place." You don't have to be a prophet to realize that tax breaks and government incentive schemes are probably not in Broadway's Tarot cards. So it seems, perhaps ironically, that it all comes down to the integrity of the producers. One would hope the likes of The Producers' money-hungry Max Bialystock remain firmly on our stages and our screens, while the real producers put the fate of the institution of theater ahead of the jingle jangle in their pockets. It's not the likeliest of prospects in an industry where film companies are backed by investment banks, but, hey, a gal can dream, can't she? It is Broadway, after all... Illustration by Eric Howell |
