None of that bothers the true Tony Believers, of course. The ceremony, on June 3 this year, is our moment to root for our favorite actors, our pet shows, the best lighting director-every corner of that fabulous invalid of an industry. And it’s been a good year to be a theater fan. There have been enough new plays and musicals to fill all the Tony categories, which spares the American Theatre Wing the embarrassment of having to nominate “Seussical” for best musical. There’s a strong batch of plays, too, including “Proof,” the first Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play since “Angels in America” in 1993. For me, this may be the most exciting Tony Awards ever. For the first time, I actually know one of the nominees. Brad Oscar, who plays the hilarious Nazi playwright in “The Producers,” is up for best supporting actor in a musical. Even more important, Brad and I were in the same class-the same homeroom, even!-at Parkland Junior High School in Rockville, Md. We’re not close enough for me to ask him to hook me up with some tickets (though maybe now that I’ve mentioned his name here …). But it’s a blast rooting for someone from algebra class.
With all that said, it was with profound sadness that I must make the following prediction: this year’s Tony Awards will be a dud. The telecast itself will undoubtedly have its moments of hilarity, what with snarky and outspoken Nathan Lane as one the co-hosts. If we get lucky, maybe the folks from “Jane Eyre” will conduct a sit-in to protest how they’re being given 1 minute and 36 seconds of precious air-time to perform a number from their barely breathing show. But overall, we all know what’s going to happen at the Tonys. “The Producers” will win almost everything in sight. With a record 15 nominations, it’s already become the most talked-about theater event of the century, for what that’s worth. Tickets are sold out until February 2002. The show will certainly run longer than the duration of World War II itself. This will be great for the producers of “The Producers.” But for the producers of the Tonys, it will make for a big, long, boring evening. Even if Brad wins.
Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure that “The Producers” is so great for the theater, either. Don’t get me wrong: Mel Brooks’s musical is loads of fun. The actors, the choreography, the sets, even the singing Nazi pigeons-they’re all a riot. If you’re from the school that says you should leave a musical with your feet dancing and your head in the clouds, “The Producers” is the show for you. But let’s be honest. This is hardly a great show. Entertaining, raunchy, even witty at times, but great? The music is passable. The story, which Brooks has imported from his 1968 movie, is familiar. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are wonderful, but we’ve seen them play over-the-top (Lane) and adorably repressed (Broderick) many times before. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. But you can’t help wishing that a show poised to go down in history as one of the most successful of all time be ground-breaking in some way or other beyond returning Borscht Belt humor to the top of the entertainment food chain. As a work of art, “The Producers” is no “A Chorus Line.” It’s not even “Cats.”
What’s more, the success of “The Producers” is likely to cement the most unfortunate theater trend in years: turning a movie into a musical. Musicals have long relied on other sources for their inspiration: “Oklahoma!,” “My Fair Lady,” even “West Side Story” took their basic plots from printed stories. But those shows used their literary derivations merely as a starting point. The staged end-product had a life, a purpose, of its own. Musicals that come from movies rarely have anything on their minds other than capitalizing on the celluloid source’s proven track record. The worst ones, like “Saturday Night Fever” or “Footloose,” don’t even bother to add much new dialogue or music-they’re just live, expensive, nostalgia trips. But even the good ones seem somehow creatively lazy, like a cover song performed by a really good band. The one exception-Disney’s “The Lion King”-proves the point. As wonderful as the movie version is, it in no way resembles the miraculous staged version that came from it. They exist in two different worlds, with two different visions-neither lives in the shadow of the other. No other screen-to-stage transfer has even come close.
Including “The Producers.” And the list will probably go on. Tom Hanks is talking about making a musical of “That Thing You Do.” Someone is already working on Elvis’s “Jailhouse Rock.” And how about “Moonstruck” the musical, “Pink Panther” the musical, “Sweet Smell of Success” the musical, even “Peggy Sue Got Married” the musical-they’re all in various stages of production. Do we really need them? Will they be better-or, except for the songs-much different from the movies? Let’s hope so. Because if this keeps up, Broadway will soon become New York’s version of Disneyland, a place where pretty and fun but utterly harmless knockoffs masquerade as the real thing.
