Every few years, Broadway theater permeates the culture -- usually a with a big megahit or two. Most recently, obviously, was Hamilton in 2015/2016 (it had some good company that year with Waitress); twenty-odd years ago, at the turn of the century, it was The Producers and, a few years before that in the 1990s, it was The Lion King and Rent (which had a great companion in 1996 with Bring in Da' Noise, Bring in Da' Funk and the reboot of Chicago) which followed other megahits from the 1980s like Cats, Lez Miz, and Miss Saigon.
2011 was another of those years but it was unique in that it saw one of Broadway's biggest megahits and megaflops -- The Book of Mormon and Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark.
Of the two, Spiderman held all the promise of being the bigger hit -- after all, it was based on one of the most popular comic book franchises of all time, it had music by Bono and The Edge of U2, and it was directed by Juliette Taymor who had achieved greatness with The Lion King. Spiderman had BIG HIT written all over it, a pre-sold sure-fire success.
Eh, not so much.
The book and music had problems, lots of problems (Bono and The Edge were rarely available because they had to tour, etc.) and Taymor's budget grew so out of control that she was ultimately fired. The show went into previews, the word-of-mouth was awful, and eventually the show closed and was re-worked before officially premiering. Due to advance ticket sales the show actually ran for a while but eventually it closed with no Tony glory and millions of lost dollars and lawsuits (even inspiring a brilliant SNL skit). Today, people are remembering it for the disaster that it was -- and even Mr NYC chronicled its troubles at the time (yes, the blog has been around that long that it's remembering, as history, events it wrote about at the time).
Meanwhile The Book of Mormon, written by the South Park guys and Bobby Lopez of Avenue Q (this was pre-Frozen, etc.) was being quietly developed but, when it opened -- WHAM! It became a megahit instantly, the biggest one since The Producers and before Hamilton, and it continues its sucessful run to this day (COVID-19 interruption excepted). I saw and raved about it back in 2012 -- and could listen to its soundtrack forever. In fact, think I'll go do that right now ...
But here's to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark at ten -- it may have been a bad show and a big flop but it certainly wrote a colorful chapter in the history of the Great White Way.
In this multi-media era, there's nothing more old school as theater. These days, when it comes to entertainment, if you can't throw it up on YouTube or watch/listen to it on an IPod, it seems like no one cares. The idea of actually going to a theater and watching real live people performingon a stageseems almost ... quaint.
And yet, here in NYC in the second decades of the 21st century, theater is booming.
Theater in NYC has always been a big industry. After all, this is the town that invented the theatrical brands of "Broadway" and "Off Broadway" and "Off Off Broadway" shows. But right now this seems to be a particularly exciting time -- perhaps historic -- in the annals of NYC theater.
Where else but in NYC can you see not one but two Oscar winning actors play Shylock in The Merchant of Venice? Just as Al Pacino is finishing up his Broadway run in the iconic role, another version starring F. Murray Abraham. Amazing. And, in fact, if you like Shakespeare, there's going to be a play by The Bard on stage somewhere in NYC for the next several months. Even more amazing. Call this Shakespeare NYC.
And over in Brooklyn, at BAM, Geoffrey Rush just debuted in Diary of a Madman. And very shortly Derek Jacobi will be coming into town with King Lear.
And right now there's a very little seen Tennessee Williams play being staged, a Redgrave is on Broadway, the always brilliant Mandy Patinkin is back, and the amount of off Broadway and alternative theater is absolutely booming.
Plus a revival of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is headed to town -- and Mr NYC already has tickets!
And yes, the saga of Spider Man: Turn off the Dark rolls on. Now the geniuses behind this show are calling in someone to re-write the show completely. I hope this show stays open if only because it's such a welcome distraction from the real problems of the world.
Seriously, you should read the Theater section of the Times -- it's a show unto itself.
For those of you looking for good deals on tickets to this extravaganza of old media, you should go on TheaterMania to find deals. This a wonderful time in NYC theater and everyone should want to be a part of it.
The madness of the Holocaust -- the Nazi's mass extermination of millions of European Jews during the Second World War -- remains one of history's greatest crimes. Grappling with it has confounded humanity ever since. Numerous artists have tried to make sense of something that is fundamentally insane -- most famously by Steven Spielberg in the 1993 movie Schindler's List.
The brilliant playwright Tom Stoppard, himself a refugee of WWII, makes his own attempt in his new play Leopoldstadt which I recently saw on Broadway.
Whereas other Holocaust stories brood on the horror of the camps and the brutality of the Nazis, Stoppard does something different but, in some ways, even more devastating -- he tells the story of a Jewish Viennese family from 1899 to 1955 and how their safe, beautiful, sometime scandalous life is upended and destroyed by genocide. It's an intimate story of the fabric of family being torn apart, rendered asunder, only leaving lonely strands behind. In the play this is literally symbolized by the string game cat's cradle -- the strings are pulled apart but still connected, forever bound together.
The plot concerns the Merz family, a wealthy family of factory owners. At the turn-of-the-century, the family is happy and thriving, although not all is clockwork harmony. Some of the family members have converted to Christianity in order to blend into Viennese society while others have held steadfast to their Jewish faith and identity. Their existence in precarious -- in some ways they are respected citizens of the then-Austro-Hungarian empire, protected by and pledging fealty to the Emperor Franz Joseph, living freely and enjoying their hard-earned success. But as Jews (or former Jews), they are still held suspect by society, kept at arms lengths -- as shown when one of them is denied membership in an exclusive Viennese club. Clandestine love affairs and old family squabbles are upended by the First World War. By the 1920s some family members have been killed and maimed by the war, several relationships are strained, and the mighty diversified empire they belonged to, that gave them safe (if sometimes sneering) harbor, is now gone -- replaced by a weakened republic. Eventually, in 1938, the Nazis come, annexing Austria with the "Anschluss" and literally beating down their doors, hauling many of them off to the camps. A decade after WW2, in the mid-1950s, only three of them are left alive, living in different countries, forever haunted and distraught at the lost lives -- some of which they aren't even old enough to remember.
This is an intimate story of a massive crime, where we see the almost complete erasure of a family -- a tradition, a way of life, a whole world -- as the actors literally vacate the stage. We see it in the void, the absences of the people who are not there but should be. It hits home in a way that only great drama, great storytelling can do.
Haunting.
Leopoldstadt is the name of a largely Jewish neighborhood in Vienna but, in this play, it becomes something more -- the place in memory where family happiness and acceptance thrived before horror invaded it. As always, Stoppard's scenes and dialogues are superlative but unlike some of his past plays (like the Jumpers, The Invention of Love or Arcadia), it's less intensely intellectual and dense or more emotional and free flowing. Unlike most plays these days which have small casts, this one has a huge cast of 39, that fill the stage before, as indicated, they gradually vanish. Amongst the large cast, Josh Malina plays Hermann, the family patriarch, heading a great cast including Brandon Uranowitz as Ludwig, his brother-in-law and intellectual sparring partner, and Faye Castelow as Gretl, Hermann's unfaithful wife. All of the performances are excellent.
Even though a Stoppard play is a feast of smart dialogue, there's one moment in Leopoldstadt that is purely visual and deeply powerful -- before the time-jump to 1924, at the end of the 19th -century fin-de-siecle part, Hermann has returned home to a family seder. While he knows his wife has been unfaithful, while he himself has converted to Christianity, he joins the seder and recites the prayers. He realizes he cannot run away from his roots or his family, he cannot deny who he is. Then he and his wife embrace while the other family members come together and dance, spinning around in joy while wearing their elegant clothes, purely happy. Its shows us the accomplishments and happiness of this family that will soon be destroyed -- a reminder that we should always hold onto the people and things we love, and be forever vigilant to those dark forces that seek to destroy them.
In that Leopoldstadt is, sadly, more relevant than ever before.
Let's take a little trip. Let's travel from one end of Manhattan to the other.
Let's traverse this narrow thirteen-mile island that fascinates and captures the imaginations of peoples around the world.
And let's do it via the #1 subway line, noting the most signficant stops along the way, subway stations that are more than just various gateways into Manhttan -- they are portals into American culture, history, and power.
Now there's something important to remember: Manhattan technically extends beyond Manhattan Island. There is a small neighborhood just north of the island called Marble Hill that is legally part of the Borough of Manhattan. So as we look north from the bottom of Marble Hill, we can look north towards the Bronx.
Then we turn around and see the northern tip of Manhattan island as well as the bridge with the crosswalk and subway tracks that will take us into it.
Now we'll go upstairs to the Marble Hill 225th Street station and take a look at the subway route on the #1 that we'll be following (as well as map of the geographic route we'll be crossing).
Now the train has rattled into the station, we get on and sit down, and we're off!
After a few stops we hit 181th street street. This is where we'll find the George Washington Bridge. Dubbed "the world's busiest bridge," this northern-most expanse connects the city to the rest of America, with cars flowing in and out of NYC and the rest of the continent. It's also, apparently, a popular place for some lost souls to end their lives -- sometimes to dark, comic effect.
Few more stops and we hit 137th street and City College.
This public college in the heart of Harlem is one of the great institutions for American learning. For over a century, poor kids from all over NYC could go to City College and pursue the American dream. The students and graduates of City are extraordinary: ten Nobel Prize winners, mayors, Supreme Court justices, US Senators and Secretaries of State, Oscar-winners, Emmy-winners, Pulitzer Prize-winners, astronauts and founders of big companies, and so many more! Heck, even fictional people have gone to City College: Gordon Gekko from Wall Street and Don Draper from Mad Men most notably.
Also, it's where both of my parents worked for almost 40 years, met, fell in love, and produced Mr NYC.
One more stop and we're in Harlem, above ground, at 125th Street.
What else can I say about Harlem, the capital of the black American experience, where great black artists and pioneers lived and worked. Also, it's also one of the hearts of American culture with Apollo Theater and the Cotton Club.
One of the seven Ivy League Universities, this institution of higher learning pre-dates the United States itself, originally chartered in 1754 by King George II (hence the original name King's College). Besides being a great and famous university, Columbia has been a site for brilliance and controversy, where great minds have flowered and fought over decades.
Now we chug down past several stops on the Upper West Side to 66th street and Lincoln Center.
Home to ballet, opera, symphonies, musicals and plays, Lincoln Center is the multi-theater complex that, along with Broadway, defines NYC as the cultural capital of America. While encompassing only a few small blocks, its impact across America is massive -- including the many performances that are broadcast from there. I have personal recollections of performing at Lincoln Center and have blogged about it a lot -- including my own experience in partaking in a live broadcast.
One more stop and we're all 59th Street and Columbus Circle.
The site of the big memorial to Christopher Columbus, it is one of the crossroads of Manhattan, with different avenues intersecting and hugging the lower southwest portion of Central Park. It is also, to my knowledge, the only traffic circle in all over NYC. And these days it is now home to the massive Time Warner building that looms over it.
Two more stops and we're in the most square in all the world -- Times Square.
Dubbed the "Crossroads of the World" it is the very center of American culture, bedecked with electronic billboards, Broadway theaters, massive chain restaurants -- for many it is New York City, the heart of the heart of it all. And, obviously, it's where the world celebrates New Year's every year.
A quick one-stop and we're at Penn Station on 34th street -- or Pennsylvania Station as it's officlally known.
If the George Washington Bridge is the city's businest car-route into America, Penn is the easily the busiest railway route. Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Railroad all go through it, a central hub that connects the outer-edges of Long Island to the West Coast of the United States.
Penn Station also has a tortured history -- the once gorgeous station was torn down in the 1960s and replaced by a dingy undeground hovel. In the last twenty-years it has been dramatically rebuilt and re-imagined, a vast improvement of what it was but a sad reminder of what we could have had if we had only preserved the original. Hey, at least the new Penn Station now has a Dunkin' Donuts!
Now we go down several stops and hit Christopher Street -- Stonewall Station.
Christopher Street is actually a quiet, beautiful area of Greenwich Village but it is now of the iconic birth place of American gay rights movement. On June 28th, 1969, right after the death of gay icon Judy Garland, the Stonewall Inn was raided by cops -- and for the first time, gay people fought back. It took decades for gay rights to be enshrined into American culture and law but it has triumphed mightly. And it all started on this small block of Manhattan.
Our journey is almost over but we have one more stop until the end -- the World Trade Center.
Of course it used to be the World Trade Centers -- until September 11, 2001 when it became Ground Zero, then, after an extensive rebuilding, One World Trade Center.
The story of this patch of Lower Manhattan is one of great triumph and tragedy in American history, where George Washington celebrated his victory in the American Revolution and where American was also brutally attacked two centuries later. It's the symbol of American financial power and dominance. Its where Manhattan and NYC began and where it grew out from. It is the complicated heart and soul of the world's greatest nation and its greatest city.
And now we come of the end of our journey. We reach the South Ferry-Whitehall Station aka. the Battery, and we pop up out of our seat and go upstairs into the very southern edge of Manhattan.
We're right across the street from the entraces to the Governor's Island and Staten Island Ferrys, and we can see (and smell) the vastness of New York Harbor, the watery gateway to city and the force that unites the five boroughs.
And then we walk down a few blocks, turning to look uptown to see where we came from ...
... and then we look down to the southern tip of Manhattan with the rest of NYC and America beyond it.
I hope you've enjoyed this trip along the #1 subway line, seeing the amazing stops and spots of Americana along the way. You can do it yourself in just under and hour. And I hope, maybe, that you learned something!
Well, if today isn't a "hinge day" in NYC, I don't know what is! Today is the last day of radio station WPLJ before it becomes a "Christian music" station. At 7 PM, this legendary NYC rock station will be no more, a relic of another time and another city. Today is also the first day of OMNY ("One Metro New York"), the new transit card the MTA is rolling out to replace the MetroCard by 2023. It'll start being used today on the 4, 5, 6 lines in Brooklyn and Manhattan, as well as all public buses in Staten Island. (This is what's called a "soft launch".) Unlike the current "swipe" of the MetroCard, all you'll have to do with the OMNY is "tap" (or scan it) it on an electronic reader, it will be a completely contact-less way to get onto public transportation. Soon the MetroCard will join the token as a relic -- instead, we'll OMNY our way around town. So today, in a just a matter of hours, one part of the city's past is vanishing and another part of its future is arriving. Then there are a couple of issues that, if realized, will transform this city both socially and physically. There's Hart Island -- the 150-year old pauper's cemetary off the coast of the Bronx that is closed to the public. The city council is now introducing a bill that will turn it into a public park (the council speaker and mayor support it so it looks to be a done deal). Think of it -- not just another park or public space will be created but New Yorkers will have access to a whole new island, making this archipeligo of a town all the more ... archipeligo-ish. I once called Hart Island a "secret of NYC" but, if this bill passes and this island opens to the public, it will be a secret no more. And talking about taking something out of the dark into the light, one day soon New York might very well legalize prostitution -- otherwise known as "decrim." This is, as you might imagine, a divisive topic and many people have different ideas of what "decrim" should be. But the fact that this has a realistic chance of happening, that it's even being discussed, it transformative. Up until just a few years ago, the idea that something like this might happen seemed unimaginable -- like gay marriage or legal weed. Yet here were are. So while today might just seem like another day in NYC, it's not. History is happening all around us!
Look at the two videos below and tell me what you think. I don't know which is more amazing -- that President George W. Bush's daughter supports marriage equality or that there are people who actually like "Spiderman: Turn off the Dark."
I think what both videos show is that you should never pre-judge anything: just because Bush is a scary man and was an awful president doesn't mean his daughter is. And just because the "Spiderman" musical has gotten lots of lousy press doesn't necessarily mean it's actually a bad show.
It's both wonderful and depressing that Bush fille supports gay marriage: wonderful because it means that the sins of the father are being redeemed by the child (she's like a female Luke Skywalker); depressing because now I'll feel just a tad bit guilty at the fact that I despise her dad.
And as for "Spiderman" -- unlike everyone else in this world who wants it to fail, I want it to succeed. It will be good for Broadway, good for the city's economy, and be a badly needed piece of good news in today's wicked world.
Today was D-Day for "Spiderman: Turn off the Dark" director Julie Taymor. The Tony-winning star director has apparently left the show and it's not clear if she walked or was fired. Anyway, this saga of a musical will apparently continue to enthrall Broadway gossip mongers for months to come -- the show is allegedly going on hiatus for a couple of months (maybe even three) as the brains behind this debacle try to pull gold out of garbage. Well, best of luck, and best of luck Julie in whatever your future holds for you.
Another person having a lousy day is State Senator Carl Kruger, a powerful Brooklyn politician who just turned himself into the authorities for apparently being a bribe-taking, influence-peddling scumbag. This has been a long time coming and it couldn't have happened soon enogh. Kruger is a really bad guy who has basically used his office as a private business and he has helped kill more progressive and reform legislation than probably anyone else. This is great news -- hopefully he'll be replaeed by someone better. We shall see.
