LESSON LEARNT FROM TONYS
Risk-taking, edgy shows collected awards while the Broadway leftovers went away empty-handed. There’s a reason for that. HAVING the opportunity to attend the Tonys at Radio City Music Hall this year, as an Australian theatregoer, told me more about the state of our theatre scene back home than sitting at QPAC ever did.
The show itself, hosted by the immensely likeable Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles, was a lot of fun and the duo at the helm were genuinely humorous without the usual award show cheese or cringe.
There were plenty of hearttugging speeches praising Broadway’s culture of diversity and acceptance, more than one F-bomb courtesy of Robert De Niro and not a dry eye in the house when the kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School made a surprise appearance to sing Seasons of Love from Rent.
And when I found myself on the red carpet prior the show (after – unintentionally – walking down the wrong flight of stairs) rubbing shoulders with the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tina Fey and a host of insanely talented actors including TV royalty Christine Baranski and “Hamilton” star Chris Jackson, I was totally in awe of how grounded these theatre people were.
Upon congratulating Mr Lloyd Webber, the man who defined a generation of musical theatre, on his Lifetime Achievement Award, which he would receive later in the evening, he appeared genuinely
grateful, and entirely humble.
The performances, by the casts of Mean Girls, Frozen and The Donna Summer Musical, to name a few, were easy to watch and entirely pleasant.
But it was at these moments I found myself feeling like I was back home, watching Elphaba declare she’s ‘Defying Gravity’ on stage in Melbourne or Aladdin and Jasmine fly through the air in Brisbane.
The bright, inoffensive, allages, million-dollar name-brand musicals we’re used to seeing on stage in Australia are shipped Down Under, shiny and pre-packaged, primarily because they’re works of theatre made for people who don’t often go to the theatre.
Anyone can enjoy Aladdin – the way I, and people around me at Radio City Music Hall liked Frozen and Mean Girls enough – but there’s a reason these shows go home emptyhanded on Tonys night.
There’s very little new, challenging or discomforting about them. Audiences already know how the story will end.
Musical theatre, like all forms of art, shouldn’t be safe and comforting 100 per cent of the time.
Of course, commercial theatre exists to turn a profit, but unlike other parts of the world, those working in the industry in Australia seem less inclined to take risks.
Taking a risk certainly paid off for The Band’s Visit (which has seen a huge upturn in ticket sales since its Tonys sweep), and also for Once On This Island, the lesser known production that beat out musical theatre classics Carousel and My Fair Lady for Best Revival.
Producers may argue that there isn’t an audience in Australia for smaller, more impactful works either imported from the US or UK, or produced locally.
But if the shows being put on our nation’s biggest stages continue to be mega-musicals with no real impact, the musical theatre industry might just find itself with little or no audience.
There are a host of Broadway musicals heading to our shores in the coming years.
I had the pleasure of seeing
Waitress while in New York (it’s heading to Sydney) and Come from Away in Canada (bound for Melbourne).
Waitress features a fantastic score by pop icon Sara Bareilles and the Broadway production benefits from a roster of big names in the title role of Jenna.
Come From Away, however, is a big Canadian bear hug of a musical, and seeing it in Canada alongside an audience of locals was half the experience.
It tells the story of a small town in Northeast Canada with a huge airport where 38 planes were forced to land on September 11, 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
It’s very clever, but it harks back to the issue facing our local industry: it isn’t an Australian story, not all of the jokes will land and it likely won’t have the impact on audiences it has had in the US and Canada.
There are also some juggernauts heading our way.
The list includes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was poorly reviewed on Broadway, closed after a number of months and was swiftly shipped to Australia for a run in 2019.
It really makes me wonder: doesn’t Australia deserve better than Broadway’s commercial pre-packaged leftovers?