The Meaning of Broadway

Or: How did Bronx Bombers and Machinal end up in the same place?

Part I

“And what are you studying in grad school?” The kind, well-intentioned family friend asks.

“I’m getting my MFA in playwriting.”

Cue this:

“I can’t wait to see your name IN LIGHTS,”  “When you’re FAMOUS, I’ll be able to say I KNEW YOU WHEN.” “You’re going to be such a STAR!”

 Now, I know these people are only trying to be nice, but I can’t prevent the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I hear these words. Which is, inevitably, every time I tell someone about my personal goals.  Whether out of forced politeness or a sincerely naïve conception of the world of theater, everyone wants to believe I'm going to be famous. I normally brush off these remarks with a casual reminder that playwrights aren't generally famous.  (How many playwrights can the average person name?  Three?)  But the conversation never stops there. 

“But you at least want to be on BROADWAY, right?”  At this point, I normally nod politely and move on.  Sure, I want to be on Broadway.  Right? 

This pattern culminated in a negative way one day last summer when I snapped at my poor, unsuspecting mother over Sunday brunch.  “No.  I don’t want to be on Broadway,” I hissed.  “I hate Broadway.  I hate it.  I hate it.”  She looked at me, rather crushed, and certainly shocked, and responded, in a small voice.  “All right.  I get it.  You hate Broadway.”

Now, to be clear, I don’t hate Broadway.  Who does?  But what caused me to have this adverse reaction to the quintessential symbol of success in the American theater? Meditating upon this question, it dawned on me that my frustration has to do specifically with that word: success.  And then it really hit me, why all those questions touch such an uncomfortable place: all of them imply that success in the theater means being famous.  Lights, stars, being known… yes even the word Broadway hints that the end goal of making art is admittance into the sparkly universe where confetti rains from the ceiling and everyone breaks into spontaneous jazz squares.  I want to be a star.  I think of Hairspray, and I shudder.  Actually I want to make art that will move people and affect the world.  Am I opposed to monetary success? Absolutely not.  I have no illusions about the romance of the starving artist.  But fame is shallow, puerile, goal, and it frightens me when people think I have it.  Whether conscious or not, the assumption hurts.

                                  

A simple look at some of the junk being produced on the Broadway stage right now demonstrates that fame is the name of the game.  Motown the Musical? First Date? Cinderella starring Carly Rae Jepson? (Seriously?) These are the things being given to the American people because it is believed that they do not wish or are not able to think at the theater.  Is this not insulting?  This is not what I want to do with my life.  And you can bet that’s why it hurts me when people ask if I want to be on Broadway.  Because I desperately and passionately do not want that.  But Broadway itself is not the culprit.  It’s all about intention.  What is the intention of a company producing a piece of theater? Is it there to make money or is it there to challenge us, to help us grow, and to shape us into a freer, more daring society.  Both exist.  Only one is art.  Two recent Broadway productions represent this dichotomy perfectly. 

Bronx Bombers, by Eric Simonson is, frankly, a shameless attempt to capitalize on the uncritical market of Yankees fans who will gladly sit for two hours admiring the authenticity of the uniforms.  (The only positive review I found of the show made a great deal of this.)  The story, from what I could understand, involved Yogi Berra trying to mend the relationship between Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin.  Apparently they didn’t get along too well.  Which is obviously of critical importance because… well I’m not sure.  I suppose if they don’t get along, the Yankees don’t win.  So Yogi Berra is really worked up about this.  (I could tell he was upset, because there was a lot of shouting.)  Fortunately, that night he has a dream in which Joe DiMaggio, Elston Howard, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Derek Jeter show up and give him advice.  I’m not sure what that advice was exactly.  Something about sticking together as a team.  Mostly they shared beloved Yankee anecdotes, which were beloved only if you already knew them.  Really, it was a parade in which people dressed up like Yankees and recited some famous quotes attributed to said Yankees. 

But the most appalling part of the whole experience was the standing ovation.  The entire audience except myself was on their feet.  This includes the woman who was fast asleep in the front row the entire time.  She woke up and gave a standing ovation.  (Was her dream really that good?)  It didn’t matter that the story was almost incomprehensible, that the acting was so bad I thought the characters were telling jokes when they were supposed to be upset, or that the set was downright bizarre.  (Is that supposed to be a chandelier?  I think it’s a chandelier with tiny baseballs hanging down.)  No one in the theater could distinguish between this play and the thing they did love.  This audience loved the Yankees, and they were applauding the Yankees.  You could have placed cardboard cutouts of them onstage for all the difference it would have made. 

A weird chandelier and cheesy fog grace the Bronx Bombers set. 

I guess what offends me most about this type of show is the way it takes advantage of the theater audience.  Give them something we know they’ll buy by re-packaging theater as something they are guaranteed to like, based on what they are already buying.  You like baseball?  Here are the Yankees onstage.  Motown your thing?  Let’s dress up like the Supremes and sing their songs to you.  Rock of Ages.  The Beatles.  Mama Mia.  You get the idea.  We know you, the audience, don't want to be challenged. You haven't been given good theater in so long, you won't know the difference anyway. You don’t want to leave the theater with anything to think about.  If you talk, let it be about how much you “liked” the play.  And tell your friends to go as well.  They’ll really enjoy it.

There was a time when people were so aware of theater’s capacity to change society that a simple play could inspire riots.  How did we end up with a theater of mutual back-patting?  What is gained by singing the praises of that which we already adore?

But just when I was starting to wonder if perhaps all was lost, I received the opportunity to see Roundabout Theatre’s magnificent revival of Sophie Treadwell’s expressionistic masterpiece Machinal.  Perhaps it was just because the last play I had seen was so incredibly disappointing, but it actually felt like an honor to be sitting in the theater during the final moments of the production.  When I set out to write this blog post, I intended to include my reaction to both plays, but even as I write this I'm realizing that I lack the space to do this production justice.  It deserves a post of its own, which is why I will write a full review of Machinal, tomorrow.  For now, suffice it to say that this play was devastating, shocking, and transformative when it was first produced in 1928, and it retains all of those qualities today.  It is only a shame that it has taken this long for it to be revived.

In conclusion, it is not Broadway itself that is the problem.  It is not money, or success, or even the unlikely prospect of fame that turns me off to the idea of Broadway.  It is, perhaps, us.  What are we asking for when we go to the theater?  Is it merely a means of escape from the struggles of our daily lives? Is it a way to congratulate ourselves and our heroes? Is it a way to forget?  If so, I want no part of it.  I’ll quit writing right now, because I’m not interested.  

But maybe it's a way to look inside of ourselves and discover what is hidden.  Maybe it is a way to wake ourselves up to what isn’t pretty, to what needs fixing, to what can still be done.  When Sophie Treadwell read about Ruth Snyder’s sensational murder conviction and asked herself if murder was the only way for a woman to escape an unhappy marriage, I bet that question terrified her.  And yet she thought the theater was the best place to pose that question. That's how you write a masterpiece.

If being a playwright means doing that, I’m in. 

(Maybe I do want to be famous, after all.)




Stay tuned for part II....