New York Diary

They Say the Neon Lights are Bright...

...on Broadway.

I've had visitors here for much of the last week (yay for cousins and significant others!), and this has forced me to get out and go to a couple of Broadway shows. I'm living a cliche: never seeing New York until the family comes to visit, so to speak (or, perhaps in a better light, seeing the real New York as opposed to the staged one).

I'm not so into musicals, I'm the first to admit. They're good for a fun time, but often don't really make one think: more spectacle than substance, one might say. This pretty much sums up what I thought of Chicago, too. There were very catchy songs, singing, dancing, all the requisite musical things--but overall, I remained relatively unimpressed (which is not to say I didn't enjoy myself).

But the truth is, Chicago has a harsh and thought-provoking moral, of sorts: in America, the innocent but uninspiring are hanged; the guilty but interesting are let off the hook (with the help of expensive, manipulative lawyers and a good sense of creating a story for the press); and the boring, dependable, good-hearted, and hardworking are alternately ignored and manipulated by those who are in the spotlight. This is a moral to think about. Moreover, its presentation is interesting; we are first introduced to and most enamored of (or, at least, most invested in) Roxie and Velma, two murderers yearning to be in the public eye (one of whom has also been unfaithful to her very loyal but very boring mechanic of a husband). The play is a comedy and not a tragedy, in a Shakespearean sense, however, because both women get off and even end up sharing the spotlight in their own vaudeville show (fulfilling a kind of dream for each of them). It would indeed be shocking and displeasing were they to be convicted of the murders (which they both very much did commit), and worse were they to be hanged for their crime. They are the characters whom we the audience follow and with whom we sympathize (insofar as there is sympathy for anybody in the show). There is room here, then, for thought, both political and literary: we might fruitfully consider whether good story management really does make such an enormous difference in the way that justice is dished out in America (or elsewhere) today, and we might wonder about the narrative forces that turned the least sympathetic characters in real life into the most sympathetic characters on stage.

But Chicago does not really invite these considerations, I find. Perhaps it lives up just a bit too much to its own lyrics:

Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle Dazzle 'em
Give 'em an act with lots of flash in it...
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?

I'm having trouble reconciling my relative disdain for Chicago with my great appreciation for The Producers, however. After all, this latter, too, was a comedy, and full of spectacle. But The Producers had many genuinely funny moments in a way that Chicago never did; Chicago's pleasures were dependent upon spectacle and song and dance, rather than enhanced by them. What's more, The Producer's funny moments were of many types: the slapstick physical humor that has two men end up on top of each other in compromising positions; the amusing and exaggerated facial expressions that make us grin simply because they look silly; witty repartee; puns, both bad and good; a clever plot; even the slightly uncomfortable but very funny humor that comes from exploiting stereotypes (of relationships, of the elderly, of producers, of Swedes, of accountants, of women, of gays, and, yes, even of Hitler). Even the spectacle part was infused with humor: in the opening song-and-dance number, for example, the observant audience member would have noted that among the tuxedoed men and the be-gowned women could be found a pair of nuns, for no reason other than to highlight the unexpected.

Perhaps its greatest virtue, however, is that The Producers never takes itself too seriously. Maybe I'm wrong to criticize Chicago for not being particularly thought-provoking, then; maybe, in fact, the problem with musicals is that they often try to be serious love stories or (un)reasonably deep politically or philosophically important works--but really, how often do your very somber lovers burst out into a fully orchestrated, four-part-harmonized song-and-dance number? To be sure, some musicals try with moderate success to explain away this strangeness in order to maintain a kind of consistency (necessary for gravity); The Phantom of the Opera readily comes to mind as a show of this kind (as if setting the thing in an opera house really makes it less ridiculous that Andrew Lloyd Weber should pop into the mind of a lovestruck ballerina). So maybe Chicago, with its heavy-handed gesture towards a more serious criticism of American justice, simply gets bowled over by its own flashy song-and-dance, scantily-clad women, and unlikely lyrics.

The Producers, on the other hand, takes the ridiculousness and runs with it, with no pretensions to anything but good comedy. "As long as we're going to burst out into song anyway," the actors seem to be saying, "well, forget consistency and toss in a couple of nuns, a few tap-dancing old ladies (played by young men, I note), women in evening gowns and men in neon green visors." There is little attempt to try to justify the spectacle as an integral part of the plot; rather, the emphasis is making sure it is as spectacular as it can be (without, however, sacrificing all relationship to what is going on in the rest of the show).

There is a way that the musical numbers of The Producers reminded me of the best of Bollywood. It was ridiculous, to be sure, but laugh-aloud funny, and very well done. In deciding to embrace all the strangeness, absurdity, and sheer good fun of the musical medium, The Producers succeeded brilliantly where most other works simply flop (in my opinion, at least).

I guess that means I don't dislike musicals after all.

posted by Skay @ 5:41 PM