The Lean Season

THE ATER

Jameson Baker

roadway produces good and bad seasons the way vintners produce good and bad wines. And as the pendulum of quality swings, people in the theater community watch with great curiosity, usually confident that no matter how far it's swung in either direction it will swing back. Suddenly, though, everyone with a stake in musical theater is terrified. Oh, there have been gloomy pronouncements in years past, but somehow this season feels different. There is the mind-numbing suspicion that the pendulum has lost its momentum—that the damned thing is stuck.

The Tony-awards show, broadcast live in early June, is Broadway's best publicity machine. In order for the machine to run, the Tony Award Nominating Committee must enter at least two nominations for Best Musical, and one must win. All three new musicals that have opened on Broadway so far this season (Harrigan 'n Hart, Quitters, and The Three Musketeers) have closed quickly, two of them on the first available weekend— and technically The Three Musketeers doesn't even qualify for Best Musical, as, strictly speaking, it was a revival, albeit significantly revised. As of this writing, only three more musicals are slated to open before the eligibility cutoff date of May 1. Given such embarrassingly slim pickings, the committee's task is a grim one.

The failure of this season's crop can perhaps be written off to the same mistakes that make plays flop in any season: misconception, lousy marketing, overproduction, mismatches of talent and material, and the unpredictability of the critics. But the reasons for the closings don't much matter right now. What does matter is why, with the end of the season fast approaching, there have been so few new musicals to take up the slack. Why is this particular season not just another bad one but genuinely frightening?

It comes down to money. Musicals, like everything else, are more expensive than ever, reaching $5 million per. As costs spiral, it takes longer to pay back investors. And since the sources of capital are drying up and narrowing down, raising money in the first place is becoming more and more difficult for all but a handful of producers. This has had a dramatic and sometimes crippling effect on creative thinking. Many worthy smaller musicals are languishing unproduced because of a belief that the top price for a Broadway ticket (now hovering around fifty dollars) has to be justified by flashy high-tech production values. Often, because of this philosophy, musicals suffer from stagings glitzier than their fragile dramatic skeletons can support.

For a while, one solution was found in a wondrous process called "workshopping." Most often using a minimum of props and scenery in a rented rehearsal hall, a workshop production allows a show's creators to test their theatrical venture, at first without an audience and eventually in front of invited friends and colleagues. As it is only a testing ground, costing mere thousands rather than millions, the workshop eliminates the kinds of pressures that arise from extended previews and out-of-town "tryouts." But these days the workshop process isn't working.

Actors' Equity, the stage actors' union, enforces a byzantine policy stipulating that an actor who creates a role in a workshop, showcase, or regional production must either be allowed to continue with the show's development or be bought out. The theory that an actor contributes significantly to the shape his role takes in the final production may be true, but there are several circumstances that Equity's rules don't take into account: an actor may prove to be miscast or irresponsible, or simply unsuited to his part as it changes in workshop. And what of an actor who for some reason becomes unavailable for future productions?

One of the policy's most damaging effects—the one that has the Dramatists Guild up in arms—is that producers are now often unwilling to move a produc-

tion unless the writer agrees to share the financial burden of unused actors. Considering that most dramatists are already sharing their "points" with directors and producers, many cannot afford to risk a workshop—and in cases where a play might be transferred from a regional theater to Broadway, fewer still are the producers willing to buy into a costly and complex royalty package.

The unfortunate result is that some producers have come to regard the workshop as an end in itself rather than as an incubator for works in progress. Most workshops these days are glorified backers' auditions—scaled-down stagings of a finished product.

Recently, a young writer was denied a workshop of a promising musical because the producer who owned the option felt it had "book problems."

"Wait a minute," said the writer. "The purpose of a workshop is to iron out book problems—that's why it's called a workshop."

"Not my workshops," said the intractable producer.

One also has to pause and consider Frank Rich, the drama critic of the New York Times. Unlike some of his predecessors, Rich cannot be accused of anything resembling ineptitude. He's terribly well read, a splendid historian, an even better writer, and the best thing overnight print criticism has seen in years. But many industry people feel that in the past year he has developed a cruel streak, tending to be either gleefully nasty or flippantly dismissive when he doesn't like a show. In addition—and this season especially—there is the feeling that he has greatly contributed to the closing or attendance problems of several fine productions, and to the bewildering success of some highly flawed evenings.

Last year, Rich was pretty much alone among the major daily critics in his lavish praise for Sunday in the Park with George. That it became a hit can be attributed largely to his "official" initial sanction plus numerous impassioned follow-up pieces. While there's usually nothing wrong with holding singular opinions or being in the minority, Rich's case is different. Even when he's idiosyncratic or contrary, his views, because they appear in the Times, carry a devastating weight, and this has prompted some producers to keep their wares on tour or in regional houses. Can Broadway survive this kind of financial and artistic paranoia?

In a healthy season, the Tony-awards show seduces viewers with highlights of Broadway's best musicals. But this year we can probably look forward to another theme show or a trumped-up tribute to an aging star. What about next year? And the year after? And the year after that?

Must the picture be so bleak—particularly at a time when fresh, young, and breathtakingly skilled new talent is finally here in force? Not necessarily. Not if steps are taken.

Taken, say, to keep ticket prices and production costs down.

Taken, say, to restore the workshops to their original function.

Taken, say, to adjust Equity's current policy.

Taken, say, to distribute Rich's power more evenly, by adding a second overnight Broadway critic at the Times.

Measures like these might give the pendulum a salutary push—and help start it swinging again.