The Oscar-nominated filmmaker Oren Jacoby’s new documentary On Broadway is a fascinating and well-balanced profile on NY’s Theater District which makes for such compelling viewing. His detailed research plots all the major ups and downs over the 50+ years and he very carefully steers clear of ever referring back to the good (or bad) old days.
Jacoby shot his film during the 2018- 2019 season noting at the beginning that of the 38 new shows that would open, probably about 75% will fail. Well financially anyway. Jacoby narrates his historical look back with a star-studded cast including Ian McKellan, Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, Alex Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, John Lithgow and Tommy Tune. He mixes it all in with the journey of a new play called The Nap as it prepares for its debut that season at the Manhatten Theatre Club.
He starts the doc back in 1968-1972 when 50% of the Broadways’ audience disappeared, and theaters were going ‘dark’. This time around the ‘savior’ was the arrival of Sondheim and his musical “Company” about a group of friends living in NY. It was a major break away from the movie-type musicals like Oklahoma and Kiss Me Kate that had been the staple diet up to then. Jacoby acknowledges that Sondheim, with director Hal Prince, would completely change the musical landscape from then on. Although Jacoby reminds us that as successful as Sondheim was his musicals rarely made any money.
Then in 1980 Peter Shaffers’ play, Amadeus was transferred from London’s National Theatre. It was a major smash hit and won the Tony for Best Play, but more importantly, it started off a rush of Broadway producers rushing to London to snap up more Brit plays and Brit stars.
It was the start of a British invasion of Broadway as up next Andrew Lloyd-Webber brought his massive production of Cats. All the critics were at best luke-warm about it, but for once that didn’t matter as audiences made it a mega-money earner with one of the biggest box-office advances in Broadway’s history.
There were ‘home-grown hits like Michael Bennet’s A Chorus Line that won 9 Tony Awards in 1976 which would run for 6,137 performances. However, this was also the start of the AIDS pandemic that would devastate the entire Broadway community, including the loss of Bennett himself.
Jacoby handles this part of his story with quiet dignity but just re-visiting this painful era reminds us of Broadway….. and ours …. great losses of such remarkable talent that we lost far too soon.
Throughout the film, you become very aware of the important role that organizations like Joe Paps’ Public Theater have played in helping the commercial theaters discover some of their best new work. An excellent example of this is George C. Wolfe taking on the task of directing Tony Kushner’s AIDS masterpiece Angels in America. The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s.
However, Wolfe pointed out that as well as succinctly capturing the pain of the pandemic, it also served to finally open up the whole question of gay culture in and outside of the theater.
The 1980s also saw the arrival on Broadway of the playwright August Wilson who has been referred to as the “theater’s poet of Black America” He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century.
And over these decades there was such a concerted effort to make Broadway a safer and more friendly place. It involved closing down all the sex establishments which most people seem ti support. It was until developers wanted to erase three old theatres to make way for the massive Marriott Hotel Skyscraper in Times Square, did the theater community fight back. But as we kept learning throughout the film stopping so-called progress was never an option.
It is still hard not to take a few sharp gasps at times. Like when people complained in 1982 at paying $100 for the two nights (8 1/2 hrs) of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Yet some tickets now can be priced at $500 – $800. It’s reflected in the fact that nowadays 3 tickets out of 4 are sold to tourists (as opposed to the ‘old days’ when it was just 1 out of 4).
Nevertheless, as the closing credits start to roll we learn that 2018/119 turns out to be the most successful in Broadway’s history. The Nap, the new play that Jacoby had been following opens on Broadway to great reviews. It will not be one of this year’s casualties which is particularly important as one of the stars is Alexandra Billings a trans actress playing a trans character.
Her very presence and the very success of musicals such as Hamilton, surely means that Broadway should no longer be called The Great White Way ….. even if the new lineup of Theater Owners on 42nd Street includes the ubiquitous Disney.
This is such a must see for anyone with the slightest interest in theater esp as Broadway begins to open up again after an 18 month Covid Lockdown
The Movie is currently in select US movie theaters and virtual cinemas check HERE
