HEY, BIG $PENDER
It will take a lot of cash for ‘Angels’ & ‘Butterfly’ to have wings on Broadway
PROSPECTIVE backers for the upcoming revivals of “Angels in America” and “M. Butterfly” are getting sticker shock when they see the price tags.
These are big, bold and potentially thrilling productions, but cheap they’re not. “Angels,” a transfer from London’s National Theatre, is coming in at about $7.5 million; “Butterfly,” directed by Julie Taymor, at $4.5 million.
“There’s definitely a gulp factor when you hear the numbers,” says a longtime investor. “They’re both great plays, but can they make any money?”
Weighing on many minds is the fate of last season’s nonmusical plays. Despite strong reviews, “Sweat,” “Indecent” and “Significant Other” all closed at a loss. The sense is that unless a play comes with a major star, its appeal is limited.
Tourists make up nearly 70 percent of the Broadway audience — and they want musicals.
One of the few bright spots was last year’s “The Front Page,” starring
Nathan Lane. It made a profit of 15 percent.
That’s good news for “Angels,” Tony Kushner’s epic about AIDS and politics in the 1980s, in which Lane gives a scorching performance as Roy Cohn. Lane’s presence in anything lifts it above the fray.
But “Angels” comes in two parts, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika.” That’s eight hours of theater, a long haul for anyone but culture vultures, and they, sadly, seem to be in short supply.
Broadway’s original production of “Angels” barely recouped. Its producers have said that if they stopped at Part 1, they’d have turned a nice profit. But you can’t lop off the second half just to turn a buck. Broadway’s teeming with rich people who don’t mind losing money so long as they’re associated with a cultural event. “Angels” should have no trouble raising $7.5 million for its 18week run. But it will need to sell lots of premium tickets to recoup.
The main draw of “M. Butterfly” is Taymor, in her first Broadway outing since the “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” debacle. Sources who’ve seen her designs for the revival say they’re dramatic, and will feature authentic costumes from the Peking Opera. David Henry Hwang’s play is about a French diplomat who falls in love with an opera singer who isn’t what she seems. Clive Owen is playing the diplomat. He’s a fine actor, to be sure, but whether he’s a box-office draw remains to be seen.
The original “M. Butterfly” was a smash that recouped its $1.95 million cost. This revival will have to be an even bigger hit.
THE death of British director Peter Hall at 86 on Monday is a good excuse to plunge into his diaries — and what a juicy read they are. Published in 1983, “Peter Hall’s Diaries: The Story of a Dramatic Battle” chronicles his years as head of the National Theatre in the ’70s. His bitchery is delightful. Of the brainy director Jonathan
Miller, he writes: “He has a habit of directing plays as if he were advancing a theory for the New York Review of Books.”
He clashed repeatedly with another colleague, the director Michael Blakemore, who comes in for a drubbing.
Blakemore got his revenge years later with his book “Stage Blood,” which paints Hall as a power-mad manipulator who steals credit for success and shifts blame for failure.
Read both books back-to-back and enjoy the knife fight.