| "A musical with no singing" | |
| Posted by: reed23 03:16 am EDT 03/29/21 | |
| In reply to: re: It was originally at the Newhouse - andPeggy 06:43 pm EDT 03/27/21 | |
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| At no time was CONTACT ever conceived to be a musical, or even a play during which songs would be occasionally sung (as THE SOUND OF MUSIC was originally conceived.) It was billed by its creators as "A Dance Play." The simultaneous SWING was billed "a Dance Revue," and I haven't noticed anyone complaining about the quality of its script. The pejoratives below in the thread, such as "Mime Dance Play" (Mime? who was a mime and what did they mime?) and even dumber, "Dance Recital with a big Boom box," are valid if one were completely unaware of the three stories told in the three acts, the characters created in the three dance suites, the embedded large theme uniting the three acts, and the emotional and literary takeaways of the three acts, individually and as a whole. I know some people who were indeed unaware of any of these items, and CONTACT was most definitely not the show for them. The Tony Awards faced a dilemma, since by far the best musical theatre piece to be honored was CONTACT, and it didn't fit into their "Best Musical" mold – even with the previous ever-expanding definitions of the word "musical," as with SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM back in 1977, which marked the beginning of a string of revues to be placed in the "Best Musical" category: AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', SOPHISTICATED LADIES, TANGO ARGENTINA, TINTYPES, PUMP BOYS & DINETTES, BLUES IN THE NIGHT, LEADER OF THE PACK, JEROME ROBBINS' BROADWAY, BLACK AND BLUE, A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING, BRING IN DA NOISE, BRING IN DA FUNK, SWINGING ON A STAR, and of course, the same year as CONTACT, SWING. Just for context, here is an excerpt from Ben Brantley's NY Times review: "Stroman, aided by the dramatist John Weidman and a dream ensemble of dancing actors and acting dancers, has created the unthinkable: a new musical throbbing with wit, sex appeal and a perfectionist's polish. Brimming with a sophistication that is untainted by the usual fin-de-siecle cynicism, Contact restores the pleasure principle to the American musical. It's the kinetic equivalent of Rodgers and Hart." CONTACT seems to have stuck uniquely in the craw of lofty Tony Award Best Musical purists; personally, I can think of a lot of "musicals" since that have met fewer of the term's theoretical prerequisites and were far less worthy of recognition of any kind. Anyhow, as apparently is news to some people, the issue was immediately rendered moot, specifically because of CONTACT's controversial case, because the Tony Awards immediately instituted a new category to encompass such works that don't fall neatly into previously known categories: "Best Special Theatrical Event." Winners in this new category included Bill Irwin's FOOL MOON, DAME EDNA, ELAINE STRITCH: AT LIBERTY, DEF POETRY JAM, and LIZA'S AT THE PALACE (2009.) The Tony Awards retired the category in 2009. |
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| Next: | re: "A musical with no singing" - Chazwaza 01:14 pm EDT 03/29/21 |
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