Everything Is Passable

Monday Night - ROLL at Off-Off Broadway's Manhattan Theater Source
Tuesday Night - SUICIDE/JOKE in the Fringe
Wednesday Night - WICKED on Broadway

Guess which one sucked the most?

I am reading a fascinating book right now:

Written thirty years after the fact by a PA on the original production of FOLLIES, it's a sad read because the Broadway depicted in its pages simply doesn't exist anymore. But even sadder because I'm not sure the creative collaboration described exists anymore either.

FOLLIES is Sondheim's show, obviously, but the final production of the show belongs as much to Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, Hal Hastings, and Jim Goldman as it does Sondheim. They are all equally responsible for the final creation. Why? Because they all trusted each other and they all took ownership of the show. No one was working to serve the other - they were all working to serve the show. The show! Egos - yes. But the show trumps all!

Every creative team is going to have its disagreements and its all-out fights - but when the show is the master rather than any one person - when the billing of the show and the credits aren't ahead of the creation of it - when no one's drawing lines in the sand, desperately protecting their territory (against what!?) - that's when greatness happens.

Of course, it also helps when the people involved are geniuses.

So where are all the geniuses these days? Well, I don't think there ever were a lot of geniuses to begin with, but world-shakers like Sondheim understood he needed collaborators, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks less of him because he didn't also write the books of his musicals or direct the original productions.

But Sondheim also had people behind him who believed in his talent and were willing to invest in it no matter the box office. Broadway theater and even Off-Broadway theater may just be too expensive to foster the growth of anything truly revolutionary these days. But more to the point, since shows are produced by corporations now instead of passionate individuals or groups of individuals - the product is necessarily a bland, corporate product rather than a piece riddled with passion and guts.

But no one's looking for genius anyway. Most of us would settle for brilliantly flawed. I just want a show where a character steps down stage and sings something half as smart and packed with honesty as:

The sun comes up
I think about you
The coffee cup
I think about you
I want you so
It's like I'm losing my mind

The morning ends
I think about you
I talk to friends
I think about you
And do they know?
It's like I'm losing my mind

All afternoon, doing every little chore
The thought of you stays bright
Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor
Not going left
Not going right

I dim the lights
And think about you
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you
You said you loved me
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I losing my mind?