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Storm Warnings
Just when it seemed that traditional musicals were back, the decade ended
with critics and audiences giving mixed signals. On the plus side
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In a superb revival of Peter Pan (1979 - 550 perfs),
actress Sandy Duncan became the
longest-running Peter in
theatrical history.
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MGM veterans Mickey
Rooney and Ann Miller
scored a surprise smash with Sugar
Babies (1979 - 1,208), a mildly risqué revue of classic burlesque
material.
However, the most anticipated events of that season were three major
new projects by veteran writers. To the theatrical
community's general shock, each came and left with surprising speed
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Jerry Herman's
Grand Tour (1979 - 79 perfs) offered
Joel Grey as a Jew escaping Nazi persecution
in a warm-hearted adaptation of Jacobowsky and the Colonel. The underrated
score featured the gorgeous ballad "Marianne."
-
Burton Lane and
Alan Jay Lerner's
Carmelina (1979 - 28 perfs) starred
Georgia Brown
as an Italian mother who has convinced three
different American veterans that each was the father of her child.
Even those critics who dismissed the show admired the score,
particularly "It's Time for a Love Song" and the
ravishing trio "One More Walk Around the Garden."
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Richard Rodgers'
final musical was I Remember Mama (1979 - 148 perfs),
which offered film star Liv Ullman as a
Scandinavian immigrant using love and ingenuity to raise her family in the
early 1900s. Preview audiences cheered, but after the critics dismissed it
as corny and old-fashioned, ticket sales petered out. Rodgers died soon after Mama
closed.
Changing Climate
It's not so much that the public disapproved of these well-written shows.
Most Americans were not paying attention to the musical
theatre anymore, and consequently musicals
had become a sort of subculture. Rock and disco were the predominant pop sounds, and neither had
more than a token presence in Broadway scores. The potential sales for cast
albums had fallen so low that major labels stopped recording them.
To make matters worse, Broadway production
costs soared. In 1970, a new musical could be mounted for $250,000.
Six years later, Annie was produced for about $650,000.
By 1979, most Broadway musicals cost $1,000,000 or more to produce, and
operating expenses were so high that even a two year run could not guarantee a
profit. Some blamed the volatile economy, but Broadway was the only
place where inflation ran at a rate of 400 percent! In this unsettled environment, two
important musicals came to represent the forces that would compete for
the soul of musical theatre in the decade to come.
Sondheim vrs. Webber: The Future, Round One
The original souvenir program for Sondheim's
Sweeney Todd (1979). The show's logo was based on Victorian period
drawings.
While Stephen Sondheim's
Sweeney Todd (1979 -
557) used a conventional plot structure, its operatic score was the most
ambitious Sondheim had yet attempted. This tale of an unjustly persecuted man's
all-consuming quest for revenge explored emotional territory no musical had ever
touched before. Not since Shakespeare had a poet of the theatre taken such an
unflinching look into the darkest corners of the human soul. Tony-winning
performances by Angela Lansbury and
Len Cariou added to the impact, as did
a massive production helmed by
Hal Prince. Such lofty accomplishment came at
a price. When Sweeney's cast pointed at audience members and insisted that
they had a murderous hate like Sweeney's hiding inside them, it was bound to leave
many theatergoers uneasy. The show ran for more than a year but was unable to turn a
profit thanks in part to director Hal Prince's
brilliant yet expensive physical production.
A far different musical came from England with advance hoopla that
Gilbert and Sullivan might have envied. Following the pattern they
had initiated with Jesus Christ Superstar, composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber and librettist
Tim Rice launched their stage biography
of Argentina's Eva Peron as a recording. Working
with director Hal Prince, they
refined it on stage in London, sharpening the book's focus, toning down the rock
elements and adding a touch of disco to expand the score's commercial possibilities.
By the time it reached Broadway, Evita
(1979 - 1,567) was a slick and stylish smash hit, with breakthrough
performances by Patti Lupone as Evita
and Mandy Patinkin as Che.
A disco version of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" became a hit
single one of the last showtunes to reach the pop charts in any form.
Evita was a calculated triumph of stagecraft and
technology, undeniably entertaining but in some ways as vapid as any
of Ziegfeld's Follies. Webber and Rice depicted Eva as a whore with
flair and ruthless ambition, but gave no clue as to what made her complex character
tick. Meaningful or not, people liked it. Running three times longer than
Sweeney Todd, it made a massive profit from productions all over the world.
With this flashy victory of matter over mind, the British
Mega-musical was born.
Both Sweeney and Evita were expensive productions with
stunning stage direction by Hal Prince, winning Tonys for Best Musical
in adjoining seasons. The key difference: Sweeney Todd lost money but
made theatrical history, while Evita made money and left history to its
own devices. This was not lost on producers and investors risking millions on new
productions. It is easy to advocate artistic merit over financial concerns, but
answer this: If you were investing $100,000 or more of your own money, would you
prefer to lose it or make a profit? The inevitable answer to that question set the
uneasy course of the Broadway musical for the remainder of the 20th Century.
Next: Stage 1980s