Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Posted by: ryhog 02:49 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - writerkev 01:55 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
|
|
|
| Well... I get the metaphor but to me a metaphor is representative of something and I feel like in this context it is in the nature of a projection I am hopeful does not come about. We shall see, obviously, but I hope that what we are doing is learning to live with covid (because we have no alternative) and that requiring vaccines and masks to be around people is a part of that. I am a pessimist about the financial prospects of the Broadway season in general, but an optimist that we can have live theatre if we are smart about it. I think the metaphor assumes the point to be proven so while it may be strong in one sense it is weak in another. IMHO, of course. | |
| reply to this message |
| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 04:36 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 04:19 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - ryhog 02:49 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
|
|
|
| (Edited to include a great summary of the day from the Washington Post from someone else who was there.) I agree with every word writerkev said. I was there at the concert and if this had been a Broadway show. I’d say the dramatic arc of the day went from anxious anticipation to anxious confusion to anxious chaos, with a few great numbers thrown in. (And that’s not even getting to our friends who were online outside for over 3 hours and never made it into the park to see any of the concert before it was canceled). We of course didn’t get to see any of the at-home coverage or ‘bonus features’, but while Anderson Cooper is drawing praise for vamping for 3 hours with the help of a few musicians and experienced guests, nothing I’m personally seeing in the coverage today is treating it as some legendary broadcast. As you know, I agree or disagree with you depending on the comment and depending on the day, and frankly sometimes within the same post (the most consistent area where we have differing opinions is the issue of streaming, which as you know I don’t believe is going anywhere, especially now – I thought the article in the Times on that was interesting this week, as clearly a lot of people have differing projections on that one. And of course we could both be right - streaming and filmed productions could remain at about the level and frequency they are now, without expanding or increasing in any significant way.) I guess if my post above overstated your hunch about the fall and came off as fatalistic, it’s because I have always considered myself an optimist… so now that I’m realizing my recalibrated thinking aligns myself more with your thinking, it’s probably bumming me out more than if I’d felt that way all along. I’m also scheduled to see Pass Over next month but I don’t know that I actually will get to: the performance I’m attending appears barely 25% sold, and there’s an article from Forbes a few days ago (linked surmising that the producers are already taking out priority loans to make it through its limited run till October 10th without closing early. Too much pressure is now being placed on that one title, which was obviously never going to be Springsteen on Broadway… but if the audiences aren’t turning out for that one, why should anyone think it will be any different for Thoughts of a Colored Man, Lackawanna Blues, Chicken and Biscuits, Clyde’s, Trouble in Mind, Skeleton Crew, Dana H, or Is This a Room? If a family of 5 can get tickets almost anytime they want for Wicked, The Lion King or Aladdin, why do we think it’ll be any different for Mrs Doubtfire, Flying Over Sunset, or Diana? If the first show of the Signature season was postponed days before rehearsals and less than 24 hours after it went onsale, why do we think it’ll be any different for their second, which is slated to go onsale this week? The shows opening in January or February may be better positioned - Company, MJ, The Music Man - bigger names, splashier titles, and after boosters will have been available to most Americans. And to what you said, clearly we WILL have live theater this fall - it’s too late to pull the plug on everything and cancel the fall season. But I don’t see how most of these shows aren’t tax write-offs (MAYBE Six survives and makes it for the long haul). That’s also assuming shows don’t have to cancel performances for positive tests/exposures/mild breakthrough outbreaks in the company, as happened this summer with Public Theater, Park Avenue Armory, and many shows in London. (I also loved Merry Wives, for the record.) But joyful? The producers behind yesterday’s concert have described themselves to the press as waking up this morning with “an empty feeling of sadness”. And that’s where I feel yesterday may have most been a metaphor for NYC theater this fall: moments and even evenings of joy at specific performances/productions for many audience members, but little for the people putting together these shows, and in the aftermath, a deflated sense of, “what was it all for, because other than the fact we announced it and committed to it, it wasn’t what we expected, didn’t accomplish what we hoped for, and certainly wasn’t worth it”. |
|
| Link | Henri rains out New York’s big Homecoming Concert, and washes away the post-pandemic optimism |
| reply to this message | |
| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Posted by: ryhog 06:38 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - ShowGoer 04:19 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
|
|
|
| You are correct (and I embrace the fact) that we have the ability to agree and disagree and in very close proximity. :-) I agree with some of the things you have said here. A few "observations" though. The crux of our differences on this topic arise from your hard tethering of the weather to covid. We are not going to agree on that: I don't believe in prospective metaphors and if there is one thing we should be able to agree on it is that we can't predict anything above covid (or the weather, but that's another matter). When I go to a Yankees game and there is a rain delay, I do not see it as an omen either. I think I wrote this earlier (I don't feel like checking and maybe I just thought it) but I view Pass Over as (in essence at least) a nonprofit show. [Forbes has a sad habit of allowing painfully naive things from people who don't know what they are talking about in relation to theatre and the point you source to them is no exception. No one (or at least no one who is not a complete fool) is looking to make money and a lot of people involved are not even looking to get paid. It will run as long as they want it to run. Priority loans? ok, whatevs.] I would say the same thing about many of the other shows you mention (in the first category) and to the extent that is not the case, those shows are foolish undertakings. Some of course are actually nonprofit shows. Finally (in line with what I said at the top) I think it is a stretch to suggest that the producers' "sadness" was about the pandemic. I am confident it was profound sadness because so much effort was extended for something wonderful and the weather interfered, something that is not novel. It was not the pandemic that interfered. I don't think the pandemic is going to interfere retroactively so to close the loop, but if it does (if this, improbably in my view, turns into a superspreader event), then I would use the word "harbinger" to describe what the weather foretold. PS I saw your other post and I also don't agree. I think we are trying to learn to live with the virus, not have a farewell party for it. I think folks are just starting to wrap their heads around that "living with it" concept, a hard lesson as to which, as I have said, we have no choice. And yes I see joy in that process, just as I got joy from listening to Nessun Dorma (and considering the likely amplification in the park, hearing it better. :-)) |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 07:42 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 07:41 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - ryhog 06:38 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
|
|
|
| I think we are trying to learn to live with the virus, not have a farewell party for it. Thank you, Ryhog - that's what I was going for in my post above. I got my 2nd shot on my birthday, back in May, and it did feel like an appropriate celebration. But it was a sense of freedom that the vaccine would allow me a chance to get back to a semblance of "normal" life again, not a sense that the virus was over. I think it's an important distinction. And I tend to think that sense of "normal" is going to have a lot of back and forth as the virus continues to affect us - just as it is now with the effects of the delta variant. I had dinner with friends last night and we all felt that sense of "pulling back" for caution's sake from how things had felt just a few months ago. But we were still able to have a great time. We'll all just have to keep adjusting, and as you said, learning to live with it. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
Time to render: 0.013260 seconds.