WHO WILL GO HOME WITH TONY?
Many shows have reason to believe they’ll get the prize
Can Dorothy Michaels in a dress beat a Broadway trip to hell? Or will all those geeky Tony voters — you know, the ones who were never actually invited to their own high school proms — extract their sweet revenge at the Tony Awards on Sunday night?
On Broadway, you’ll find strong Tony-winning support for “Hadestown” (a gutsy, earthy musical based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth), “Tootsie” (which we all agree was far and away the funniest musical of the season) and “The Prom” (one of those shows for and by mostly gay theater kids, wherein mostly gay theater kids go ahead and save the world and more power to them ’cause it needs saving).
Each show has its core supporters. The arty and Brooklyn crowd likes “Hadestown” for its New Orleanslike vibe, its steampunk/“Westworld” aura of cool, its innovative Anias Mitchell score and the indisputable truth that nothing ever has existed quite like “Hadestown” before.
Plus, it has a song that asks, “Why Do We Build the Wall?” which means that it qualifies as a musical of anti-Trump resistance. And the Tonys, which you can see Sunday night on CBS, with James Corden as the returning and enthusiastic host, love a note of political gravitas.
On the other hand, “Hadestown” will be a tough sell on a marquee in Des Moines, Iowa. (“Want to go out and see that weird show about hell, hun?”). So the nationally savvy crew who care about broad appeal, always a powerful force in Tonyland, tend to prefer “Tootsie,” an old-school musical that’s just woke enough not to cause offense to the “Hadestown” crowd.
Brilliantly directed by Scott Ellis, “Tootsie” is packed with laughs, thanks to the book writer Robert Horn, a shoo-in for a best book Tony. It’s funnier if you loved (and remember) the movie, so its fans tend to skew older and they tend to be of the view that the noisy kids today with their Twitter and Facebook outrage shouldn’t be allowed to kill all of the innocent fun of Baby Boomer nostalgia. Those boomers don’t all have the guts to say that in public, but they’ll vote in private. And, at a minimum, they’ll send love in the direction of the lovably desirable lead performance by Santino Fontana.
And no one wants all these problematic old movies, with their high pre-awareness factor, to be thrown out as source material for future shows. Multiple “Tootsie” triumphs will be votes for traditional Broadway, moving just a little with the times and relying, as it should, on theater artists with decades of experience and expertise.
You can’t ever fully discount a Broadway love letter to Broadway like “The Prom,” though. Not when Broadway also is voting. This show — dreamy, aspirational, fantastical, emotional — pokes fun at Broadway people, but (as the religious folks like to say) it does so with love. This is a
show that believes in its own power. And that can be infectious.
Revivals? You can see the exact same rift, which is OK, since Broadway actually does not have a single audience, even if the Tonys, like all award shows these days, tries to pretend otherwise.
The director Daniel Fish certainly changed perceptions of “Oklahoma!” but at the expense of the show’s baked-in belief in hope, optimism and growth. The work was creative and compelling but inorganic and deconstructive, not so much probing authorial intent as burying it in the smokehouse. Contrast that with Scott Ellis’ revival of “Kiss Me, Kate,” which is close to as perfect a revival as you could do for this troubled moment if you were reviving “Kiss Me, Kate.” What a year for Ellis.
And not a bad one for Broadway plays.
“The Ferryman,” an Anglo-Irish epic had so many themes, characters and monologues, not to mention rabbits, geese, and gurgling babies, that it deserves a Tony for sheer force of nature. These are the glory days of binge TV and “Ferryman” is a timely magnum opus, rooted in political strife but fundamentally concerned with big-picture tragic items like the innate human affinity for violence and churn. Plus, Sam Mendes directs your eye with the kind of precision that most directors manage only on film.
There’s not a lot of competition, even if “Gary,” the weird and existential piece by the downtown maestro Taylor Mac, contained one of the best performances of the season from the sinfully un-nominated Nathan Lane. “Ink” was a blast and, in its flashy way, artfully accurate in its even-handed depiction of the mogul Rupert Murdoch. But in comparison, “Ferryman” was like a Sophoclean gorilla. And it’s hard to see a witty soupçon like “Hillary and Clinton” besting a barnyard with the door wide open for all to gape in shock and awe.
Will anyone vote for Jeff Daniels for “To Kill a Mockingbird” over Bryan Cranston, whose performance in “Network” was so dominant it turned into a problem for the show? Some, but likely not enough. Cranston was a force of nature and so, for that matter, was Elaine May in “The Waverly Gallery.” May, who hates self-promotion and has had to be coaxed into making her case over the last few weeks, gave a pitchperfect performance. Nary a line nor a beat was out of place. She was magnificent, and she is still here!